Day 3. Early morning
District eleven's Aerin Sevani's POV
It shouldn't have been like this, it couldn't be like this, it just...couldn't. But here I was, watching the horrific scene unfold in front of my eyes. I was near the end of a field, a large harvest field filled with acres and acres of vegetables ready to be picked from the ground, if they were for the compost. The vegetables were rotten, split open, the guts of squash, tomatoes, and others were laying on the baking hot ground while the flies and ants swarmed over them to try and get the meal they wanted. The flies and ants covered them so finely that it was a field of moving black insects, as the field was almost nothing but rotten vegetables left outside for too long without the care they needed. Why didn't someone pick them up? It was good food. Or at least, it was good food, it sure didn't look and smell like it anymore. One or two rotten vegetables, I could see if they missed that, but an entire field? I could not believe that someone had just abandoned this field for the ants and flies to prey on. I just couldn't see it. What had happened?
As I looked closer to see what was up, I noticed that there were some familiar features to this field. Believe it or not, not all fields are the same, there are little differences that normal people might not notice, like some of the very rare Capital inspectors, but I've been working on harvest fields all my life and could notice those differences. This field was rough around the edges and had a slight elevation on the ends of the field. Nothing to majorly noticeable, but different neither the less.
Then it struck me, this was the field near my home. Panic shot though me like a bullet when I realized that my house was right behind me. I turned around to see a row of shanty houses crudely made from the materials that had been rustled up to build them. Mud, clay, wood, stone, brick and maybe some tin if you were lucky. Other materials might be used, but those were the common home building materials in the district, but the houses were mostly made from the first two items. Each house looked relatively the same with little to no changes between neighbors. This was my part of town, where the lowest of the low live, not that the great majority of the district looked much different. Only the higher ups lived more comfortably with properly built homes.
Feeling the need to find out what happened, I looked around to see if anyone was outside to tell me what was going on. Did we have a bad crop season? Did we have a boom of bugs get born? What was it?
I scanned the area for people, but there was nobody here, which was extremely odd, because normally there were thousands, tens of thousands of people ranging from children to the elderly outside working in these fields. But there was nobody here now, all there was was the sound of the wind blowing against me while flies buzzed around looking for a free spot to get their meal at. It was scary.
That's when I saw that all the fields were like that, all swarmed with small, black creatures that ate everything in sight. It absolutely terrified me to see these fields like this, rotten with time and swarmed with ants and flies, with no people as well. I felt my body tense up as I looked around the rest of the district to see black crows feasting off the rotten fruit that fell on the ground, fell on the tops of homes, the ones that were still trapped in trees, they ate everything with greed, and they had gotten bigger as well. If I remembered correctly, we learned at school that the average adult crow weights around sixteen ounces, they seemed to have gained about three ounces by feasting on the dead fruit. They had gotten ginormous.
This really worried me, there were also thousands of kids and thin adults picking the fruit from stray trees and the orchards during the day, and it wasn't yet sundown. Yet, where were they? District Eleven wasn't a ghost town, far from it, but right now, that's what it was, a ghost town. It seemed that everyone and everything except the ants, flies, and crows had ceased to exist. Even the mocking jays were had abandoned the district. It's not like they all died.
My family! My mom and dad! My brothers and sisters! What happened to them!? Where were they? What had happened to them? I had to find them! I felt a lump in my throat thinking about their well being in the district's current state.
I tore my eyes away from the trees full of dead fruit and faced the line of shanty houses and ran towards the house that was most familiar, mine. If they weren't there, I'd look all over the district for them.
It wasn't a far run, but every step seemed to take a lifetime to achieve. By the time I reached my front door I felt as if a million years had passed. I reached the ratty door that was basically made of a mixture of wood and clay and opened it as quickly as I could, hoping to see someone, anyone in there.
When I opened the door, I saw what I wanted to see. Inside was my entire family, and I felt myself get filled with relief. They were safe, they were alive. Thank god! Thank god!
I started to run up to them ready to have them back close to me, but then I heard the deadly sound of a gun chambering a bullet, a sound that I had heard many times in my life.
"Not. Another. Fucking. Step." A deep, mean voice commanded me with a deadly, intimidating growl. I stopped before he even said his first word, the sound of the gun was what made me stop in my tracks.
I knew that there were only two types of people in this district that carried guns. Peacekeepers and Capital visitors. Nobody else was even close to allowed to hold a gun, not even the mayor, which was kind of odd because he was the mayor. And while our farming tools were also weapons, they were nowhere as powerful as a speeding bullet fired from a high powered gun.
I was happy at first, my family was still alive, and peacekeepers were here during this crises, but fear returned to my body as I saw the seven peacekeepers inside my house point the barrels of their guns at my family's heads. The fear in my family's eyes was unmistakable, their heads looking down on the floor fearing for their lives while on their hands and knees. I saw my two youngest siblings, including six year old Cassie, shivering from fear it was so great.
No! No it couldn't be!
"Goodbye Aerin." The oldest, most battle hardened, scar faced peacekeeper said to me with a sadistic smile before the sound of thunder erupted in the house.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I shouted hearing the thundering sound of the bullet puncturing through my family's heads, only to find myself in an enclosed space of fabric. No! I was trapped! The peacekeepers had stuffed me into a bag and were taking me to the town square! I had to help my family! I couldn't leave them!
I began to throw wild punches and kicks towards anyone outside of this fabric, that was surprisingly soft, and hoped that it would make the peacekeepers drop the bag so I could at least die with my family near me.
But I was hitting nothing but air, I couldn't hit them.
"Aerin!" I heard a female's voice shout. Who was that!? Probably a peacekeeper going to tell me to shut up before hitting me with their baton. I braced myself for impact before I heard something above me unzip, and that's when I got a plan, I was going to get around that peacekeeper and get to my family. I clenched my right hand into a fist and felt both scared and prepared at the same time. I was scared that I was going to die, but I was prepared to face whatever was out there.
The top of the bag was unzipped before a young female poked her head into the direction of my fist. My fist smashed into her nose before I heard her fall to the ground with a hard thud. I took the chance to get out before the remaining peacekeepers closed the bag and kept me in there. I grabbed the edges of the bag and leaped out of the bag, only be see a jungle around me.
"What the-" I whispered to myself in surprise before trying to recount what happened between the sound of a gunshot going off in my house, to coming into a jungle. I looked around the area confused of the situation, but then I looked down towards the moaning peacekeeper, to see that it wasn't a peacekeeper, it was Angel, Angel lying on the ground moaning while cupping a bloody nose. It shocked me to see her here, of all places. What was she doing here? Was this a trick by the peacekeepers?
That's when I remembered, The Hunger Games. I had been reaped, she had been reaped. The chariot. The interviews. Oh god, I was so stupid, stupid and mean. I had hit her, and she hadn't done anything to me, had she? No, she couldn't have, she wouldn't. I looked at the girl that was my ally in the Games and instantly felt sorry as well as stupid and mean. I also felt like a bully.
I ran up to her before I kneeling down beside her and apologizing to her "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, it's just that, I thought my family was getting executed and-"
"It's alright." I heard her say weakly. I looked up to see her lay her head down before breathing out a heavy breath before closing her eyes.
Oh shit! I think that punch might have made some of the bones in her nose go into her head! Wait, was I strong enough to do that? I hoped not. I didn't want to kill her. I didn't want to kill my district partner and ally.
"Hey!" I shouted to her before grabbing her shoulders and shaking her around "don't die on me!" Why me? Why had I done this to her? Suddenly her eyes shot open and she glared at me with anger on her face
"Jeez!" She shouted obviously annoyed at me "I'm not dying. I'm just, relived that you've calmed down from, whatever you were having." A nightmare, but she didn't need to know that. She worried about me when I was still half asleep, there was no need to worry her more. After all, it wasn't real, it was a dream. Thank god for that. "Who knew that a cannon firing would make you so violent?" Angel asked to what seemed like nobody in particular, but there was something in that sentence the bugged me, there was something off about this situation. Something was missing, but what?
"A cannon firing?" I asked hopping to get an answer, or least a hint, to my mental question "who's cannon?"
"I don't know," Angel answered rather calmly "but it'll be one less tribute for us to face later." There it was again. I felt something prick into my brain because that question. Something was missing, but what? Allies. Angel and I. Cannon. Us. Us. US! It hit me like a like rock, there was somebody missing.
Sami!" I shouted as I shot up to my feet remembering our other ally. I had completely, utterly, disrespectfully, and horribly, forgot about her until now. I was so stupid! How could I forget about her!? And why hadn't she woken me up for my night shift!? No! No! It couldn't be. The bullet...I mean, the cannon that woke me up, it couldn't have been Sami's. Could it? I looked down at Angel who was looking up at me in surprise "did any other cannons fire earlier today?"
"No," Angel told me "why?" Ah no. No. No. No! It couldn't be Sami's cannon. If it was, how could we have not heard her fighting? Was she attacked last night? I don't think so, then her cannon wouldn't have fired now in the morning. Unless she fell asleep and someone dragged her off someplace and killed her just now.
"Have you seen Sami anywhere?" I asked Angel hoping that she saw Sami somewhere and she was just taking a rest or something, but the look in Angel's eyes seemed to tell me different.
"No," she said looking confused "I haven't seen her." It was when she finished her sentence that she realized the situation. I didn't see her full reaction, but her eyes had gone wide when I turned away from her and started to look around the camp looking for our District Seven ally.
It couldn't have been her that was killed, I mean, who waits till night to hunt tributes? Ok, stupid question, lots of tributes, but still, we should have heard something. We were supposed to protect each other, but I had obviously failed at that. No, don't look at it that way Aerin, she could still be alive. Yeah, she's alive, she'd just, out looking for food. Yeah, that's it. She's looking for food.
The more I searched the more concerned I became of Sami's well being, she wasn't in plain sight of the camp. Questions flooded my mind like an overflowing well. Why hadn't she woken me up last night? Where was she now? Was she dead? What was she thinking? Why did she think of staying up all night? Wait, maybe she was killed last night. Ah...I don't know. All I know right now was that I had to find her.
She wasn't in the main part of the camp, so I'd need to search the outer area, she couldn't have gone far, she knew it was dangerous out there with the other tributes, the careers, and the mutts. Maybe there was a big source of food near here.
"Angel!" I shouted wanting Angel to know my plan.
"Yeah?" She shouted back not too far away. I turned towards her and said
"Let's split up and look for Sami, she couldn't have gone too far, she has to be around here somewhere. Don't go too far, stay within range of the camp. Don't wonder in the jungle." I didn't want her to go too far in the jungle just in case something happened to her. "You look in this area," I told her waving my hand in a semi-circle around the camp "I'll look behind the giant tree." I didn't waste any time after that, I ran to the edge of the tree and started to go around it, I just hoped that Angel listened to my instructions and didn't wonder too far into the jungle looking for Sami. If Sami wasn't in the immediate area, then we'll search for her in the jungle together. The best of the worst hopefully was that she comes back when we're gone and she stays in the camp until we get back. The best of the best was that we found her now. The worst of the worst, I didn't even want to think about that.
I walked though the tree roots and the underbrush that slowed my travel to the other side of the tree. I wanted to get there as fast as possible, every second added danger to her life.
I got to the other side of the tree and didn't see anything. Just bunch of jungle stuff. I climbed over some more roots to see a relatively clear area ahead of me, and in the relatively clear area, I saw something. I looked at it and saw that it was a dark red coloured thing the size of a person. It had some black ants crawling on it's body, or shell, or whatever it was. What was it? It looked familiar, it was kind of like something back home, but what?
Curiously, I walked to up it to see what it was. As I got closer to it the smell coming from it got stronger, it smelled bad, like something rotten. I got up close to it, crouched down, and immediately regretted it. I saw that the dark red colour was dried blood, and there were cut marks all over the bloody flesh of a person which some of the ants went into. There were home made arrows skewered though the wrists and legs keeping the body in a captured position. Oh no. I touched the body, which was still kind of warm, and rolled it so that it's back was to the ground. I needed to know if this was Sami or not, I didn't want it to be her, but the figure of the body seemed so much like her. The back touch the ground before I looked at the front of the body. I looked at the face and in horror, saw that the eyes and mouth had been burned badly. In fact, there were no eyes and mouth on the body, only ugly burns where those eyes and that mouth were supposed to be.
I inspected some more, and even though she was unrecognizable with the hundreds, perhaps thousands of cuts on her body, burned eyes, burned mouth, dirty and blood caked hair with black ants crawling on her, I knew that this was Sami, there was no doubt in my mind that this was her.
I felt pain in my chest looking at her present state, she looked like she had been tortured with so many cuts to her body. It reminded me of home, and in a bad way.
The scar above my left eye began to ache as I thought of the hundreds of cuts that Sami had to endure. Being tortured by those cuts, then dying alone out in the open. She was so close to us to. If we had just looked around the tree from our camp, we would have found her. I was angry at myself for not protecting her like I should have, she was so close to us, so close to the camp, and we didn't do anything. Just like back in the district when I got this damned scar.
There were, I realized, a lot of connections between Sami and that guy that accidentally cut me with his scythe during harvest season a few years ago.
Oater was his name, he was twenty six if I remember correctly, and like a majority of District Eleven males and females that worked on the fields, he was strong from working that kind of work everyday for the majority of his life. Him and I got along nicely, just like everyone else around our work area.
How he gave me the scar was a simple mistake, there were a batch of corn that was thicker then normal, so of course he had to swing harder to slice through the grain, but I foolishly ran in front of the scythe's path and got cut. The pain was sudden and intense. Now knowing how hard and fast he had swung the blade, I'm really lucky to only had a scar. I could still remember the pain that was brought upon me when his scythe sliced though my skin, but it was nothing like what he was going to get.
The intense pain only lasted about thirty seconds, or so I was told, but the rest of the time until it healed was a massive pain. It was when the intense pain wore off that I saw four peacekeepers in their dusty white uniforms drag Oater away from the corn field. Even through my pain, I knew what they were going to do, they were going to whip him. Whipping isn't uncommon in the district, hell, executions weren't uncommon either, I had seen both of them growing up, and more. At first it scared and saddened me to see those people get punished for whatever they had done, but it was the way of life in District Eleven, you break the rules you get punished, I can understand that. But what I didn't understand was, why did some of the peacekeepers have to be so torturous sometimes? But again, that was a way of life here, and I didn't think too hard about it, after all, until Sami told us a little about her home district, I thought that all the districts had the same, sadistic peacekeepers that thrived on the pain of the common people.
Through out the years, seeing people getting whipped and executed and tortured got easier, but it was never easy to watch. You were used to it, but you didn't like it. Fear ran deep in the district by there cruel punishments, and I couldn't blame them, I was deathly scared of the peacekeepers and their whips and guns and dark imaginations.
They dragged Oater fifty feet before they forced him to his knees with a cruel kick before tying him up to a scarecrow in the middle of the field, one of many in the field. Oater's back was facing the head peacekeeper's front as he uncoiled his whip with a deadly, scary, intimidating crack that rang trough the field and chilled me to the bone, even though it was the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the summer.
That's when the second in commanded peacekeeper ripped the back of Oater's shirt, to present a clear target for his superior.
I looked around to see the other farmers reactions. Some were looking away, working like nothing was happening. I couldn't blame them, the peacekeepers might have punished them for not working. Others were watching the punishment happening with grim faces. They didn't like it as much as I did, but there was nothing they could do about it, you try to be a hero and you get punished.
Blood bleed into my left eye as I watched the head peacekeeper raise his whip and swiftly bring it down with a sharp crack. The sound rang though the field as the whip cut across human flesh and a sharp scream of pain escaped Oater's mouth. I shot up without meaning to, and if two field workers hadn't have grabbed me, I might have been died then and there.
It was painful for me to watch Oater get whipped like that, the minimal punishment was seventy whips to the back, and each lash that cut him was at least ten times as long and at least three times as wide as the single cut I received, and he was going to get at least seventy of them. Blood splashed around on the ground and nearby vegetables with each whip lash as Oater's cries of pain became more and more painful and weak.
By the time thirty lashes came, his back was already looking like a piece of badly butchered, bloody meat, and he began to pass out, I could see it in his slouching body.
Passing out from pain would be a blessing, but here in District Eleven, you don't get even that. The peacekeepers saw that he was passing out, so one of them grabbed a needle filled with clear liquid from one of their inside breast pockets, removed the plastic covering the needle, jabbed it into Oater's neck, and injected him with whatever was inside of it. I didn't know what it was, but I knew what it did, it kept people from passing out.
Oater's body began to wake up before the peacekeepers resumed their torture. His screams of pain were fresh with new energy, it was like he was never going to pass out. I wanted to go up to the peacekeepers and tell them that it was my fault, that I ran into the scythe's path, but the two workers holding me didn't allow me to move, they also didn't allow me to speak up.
His punishment continued, sixty lashes, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred. One hundred lashes before they considered it good. By then, Oater's back was almost nonexistent, I could see the whites of bones, and I think I might have seen about five inches of his spine through the ripped flesh, muscle, and blood.
As soon as the two farmers who were keeping me in check released me, I ran over to Oater to get him to the doctor, but the peacekeepers stopped me, they blocked my path to him, and the sadistic look in their eyes told that they weren't done with him yet. That scared me, it worried me. Oater wasn't a friend, but we were close co-workers, just like all my other co-workers, we took care of each other.
The head peacekeeper, a tall, densely muscled, battle hardened, scar faced, sadistic man who ran the peacekeepers, blocked my path while still holding onto his bloody whip before declaring
"Nobody touch the guilty man! His punishment is still ongoing!"
What!? Hadn't he gone through enough!? Apparently not to them. "The defendant has harmed a fellow worker during harvest season, and there for has delayed production! There for, he must be taught the meaning of delay!" And with that, the head peacekeeper shoved me back with one hand so hard that I fell on my back. The three other peacekeepers including the second in command howled with laughter at the sight of me being pushed to the ground. As humiliating as it was, I didn't say or do anything, I knew better then to do that.
I was then told to get back to work, we all were, except Oater, who stayed attached to the scarecrow as the rest of us worked. The peacekeepers guarded Oater, keeping the rest of us away from him. Ants and flies started to fly onto his exposed back before attacking it in swarms, and if that wasn't enough, the crows eventually picked up that there was an easy meal laying around and began to pick off bits of bloody flesh from his back to feed themselves. I wanted to do something to help Oater, but with two peacekeepers around him with guns, I couldn't do anything, and pained me to continue working like he wasn't there. My brown clothed headband helped to keep the blood out of my eye until I could get it fixed, but it could only absorb so much blood before it ran its red liquid down into my eye, but my pain was nothing compared to Oater's.
Every couple of hours, one of the peacekeepers would take out a syringe and jab the needle into Oater's neck to make him stay awake. The crows and a majority of the flies would fly away from his back for a brief moment, but they'd return when the peacekeeper was done his business. It was painful to just see Oater like that. To see what he was going though. I wished I could do something about it, but I couldn't do anything to help him.
It was well past sunset, when our work day was over, that we were finally allowed to free Oater and bring him to the district doctor. Several workers including myself rushed him there, his back was dripping with blood and ants and flies. His back was almost completely gone thanks to the crows, and even the wind seemed to give him excruciating pain. I couldn't even imagine what his pain was like, and I couldn't imagine it now while looking at Sami's slain body.
By the time Oater got to the doctor he was dead. When we had the chance to help him it was too late, and it was the same here, with Sami. I couldn't protect Oater back in District eleven, but I could have protected Sami from whoever or whatever did this to her and failed.
The only good thing about the situation that I could think of was that when Sami's cannon had fired off it's shot, her pain had ended, she no longer had to suffer and play this game. She was free, just like how Oater got freed from District Eleven.
Oater's body got buried, but Sami couldn't be buried, not in the arena. Judging from the previous Hunger Games footage's, the dead bodies have to be a certain distance from other tributes before a Capital hovercraft picks them up. That's why Sami's body was still here, she was too close to us, and yet, she was so far from us. From the way the arrows pierced her limbs, she couldn't have been able to go anywhere without destroying those limbs. I was angry, angry at myself, if I had just woken up when I was supposed to, or maybe even a bit later, if I had just woken up last night, none of this might have happened. She could have had a chance of living.
I was sad for Sami, she had to endure this cruel torture, then get dumped here and be left for dead in the freezing cold. It was too much for me.
I didn't want Angel to see Sami like this, she didn't need to see her like this.
I picked Sami up with both hands ever so gently before carrying her away from the big tree. I carried her a fair distance away before setting her down gently on some jungle underbrush. I pulled out the arrows that were in her limbs and held them in my hand. Even though they were Sami's and she was killed by them, Angel and I still needed them, Sami didn't need them with or in her.
I looked at what used to be the orange haired Sami from District Seven and thought of how in this short time, she had changed. Before, she used to not talk a whole lot, she still didn't, but she at least talked to us some, before the Games, she seemed to be scared to talking too much, or just talking in general. But then she started to talk a little more, became more and more comfortable talking to us. In that time, I kind of viewed her as a younger sister, even though she was a year older then me. The time we spent together, the three of us having the occasional small talk, building that bow, getting the idea to turn Angel's spear heads into arrow heads, crafting those arrows, those were some good times, even though what we made was created to kill other kids. I hoped Sami had some good times as well.
"Goodbye Sami." I said to her quietly before standing up and walking away from her. I didn't look back, I didn't want to see her cut up body the way it was now, I'd just think of what she looked like before that, how it was before, that's who she was.
I don't think I showed a lot of emotion over her death, but people fall over dead all the time in District Eleven with the causes being toucher, bullets, starvation, dehydration, fatigue, sickness, heat stroke, and everything else, District Eleven had no shortage of ways to die. I don't think I showed a lot of emotion, but I was still sad over her death, if anything, she deserved something painless, not what had happened to her.
I heard the nearby mockingjays and other creatures go silent, and I knew that behind me was a Capital hovercraft picking up Sami and taking her away from these Games, and I glad for that, she'd be back with her family soon, they'd want her back, not like how she was right now, but they'd want her back.
I walked out of the thick jungle and stepped into the clear area where I had found Sami's body to see Angel stepping over the roots of the giant tree and was heading towards me.
Angel stepped over the last giant root before looking up and seeing me. "Did you find anything?" She asked. She didn't know, and I felt that she didn't need to know, not now, she'd find out that Sami died tonight when they show the dead tribute pictures. She didn't need to see what had become of Sami while we were asleep. We were used to death, but that still didn't mean that she'd need to see it.
"No," I lied to her "I found nothing."
A/N: So what did you guys think of the backstory of Aerin's scar? I feel as if during this chapter I repeated a lot of things, what do you guys think?
How long do you think you'd survive in District Eleven with their murderous peacekeepers, hard work, and lack of food?
Death list
17th place: Sami Lavisa. Cut apart by Alexander.