District Nine
Wren Sylvia Hayes's POV
Dressing for the reapings. It seems that my mom is more worried about the things I wear more then I do. She picked through clothes that were both mine and hers, some used and some old, some were mine while some were from her childhood.
She mixed and matched items of clothing before getting me to wear them and show them off in front of her to see if they'd pass her approval. Most of them didn't, as she'd say that they weren't good enough.
"Can't we just pick our own clothes for one mom?" My sister, Aspen, asked with impatience in her voice. "We've been trying on pieces of clothes for nearly an hour now, ever since we finished breakfast, and you still haven't found the perfect thing yet."
I wasn't going to argue with that, mom was very fussy about things, and I didn't really like standing around here for hours on end to get the perfect dress for an event that would last only an hour at most. Still, she was my mom and she wanted the best for us.
"A lady has to dress properly for the occasion." My mom told my sister and I, again. "I won't let the two of you become irresponsible grown ups that can't do anything yourselves."
"I'll just dress in these clothes and it'll be good enough." Aspen said as she lifted up a pair of brown pants and a black shirt.
"No you will not." My mom said to her with some edge in her voice. "Those clothes aren't proper and lady like. Now put those down and come back here unless you want to look poor and desperate. And you can also count your privileges gone if you don't cooperate."
Aspen huffed before she put the clothes down and walked back beside me.
Mom was strict with us as she always wanted us to grow up to be like her, lady like and such. She thought that it was for the better, so that we could behave properly and look that way so that we could attract someone in our lives that would take care of us.
She always said to us, 'you aren't going to find someone by behaving and acting like little children.' And while that may be true, her lessons were only half the battle.
Aspen looked around the room, trying to spot something that would get mom's approval, but from the way she was frowning at each and every item she looked at, I could tell that she wasn't finding anything that could speed this up.
While we didn't have much, we still had a selection to choose from, we weren't rich, but we weren't poor either, we were right in the middle. And while it was good to not be as hungry as the people in the poor sections of the district, we were always struggling to meet ends meet. We always managed though, somehow.
"Can't Wren try some of my clothes?" Aspen asked, desperate to hurry this along. "She seems to of tried on all of her own clothes, and yours."
Even though I was too years older then my thirteen year old sister, she was as tall as our mom, who was four inches taller then I was. Not that it was a big accomplishment, I was five foot nothing, I was a very small person. Though it did mean that instead of my clothes being passed down to her, her clothes were being passed down to me. Though I occasionally do get a new shirt or pair of pants once in a while.
"Hadn't thought of that, thanks Aspen." My mother replied before Aspen gave out a smile towards me, which I then returned. Hopefully, her suggestion was going to get us out of here. Not that I didn't like being here with mom and Aspen, but, an hour of just standing around and waiting for mom to pick something out while explaining how important it was again and again, couldn't we be doing something else?
Trim Fetching's POV
"I'm going to volunteer." I told my friend, Sapphire Spectre, as we walked to the square.
"What?" She asked surprised by my sudden revel. "Why?"
"I'm going to restore my family's honor." I told her, not wanting to walk around the truth. I told her it, plain and simple, I wasn't going to lie to her, she was going to find out anyway.
"But," She said confused. "Your family hasn't done anything."
"That's the reason," I said as I thought of my brother. "We haven't done anything."
My brother, Jackson, got reaped last year, and died. Got killed in the bloodbath by getting a knife in the neck by the District Two girl. Ever since then, my family has been shamed by his death.
We were the most well off family in District Nine, we had most of the public support us, but when Jackson died, we lost honor, respect. Now I was going to get it back, through the barbaric Hunger Games, I was going to win our honor back.
I got up to the sign in table and the Capitol lady asked me the same questions she asked every year.
"Name?" She asked.
"Trim Fetching." I answered.
"Age?"
"Seventeen."
"Tesserae?"
"None." Not that we needed it, being the mayor's son had it's benefits.
"Proceed to the cage with your age number on it." The Capitol lady instructed me.
I turned towards the black steel cages with thick, hard plastic bordering the outside and started to walk towards them.
"This doesn't have anything to do with your father does it?" Sapphire asked me with concern.
"This has nothing to do with my father." I told her.
Wren Sylvia Hayes's POV
All these people, such a large crowd, and we're so close to each other. I was shaking from that. I didn't like large crowds, I preferred a little group of maybe three or four people, but hundreds of kids all packed next to me? I didn't like it. I feared it. What if someone asks me something? I'll have to respond and maybe say something stupid. I hoped that nobody would ask me something, I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of all these kids, some of which were in my class.
Nobody seemed to even be looking at me, all of them talking to their friends about how confused they were about these cages they were holding us all in. I suspected that it must be part of the quarter quell, something was going to happen and it would heavily involve these cages. Or maybe they just got sick of kids running away when their names got called.
I listened in on some of the conversations around me, and I wished that I didn't, some were saying that the quell was to draw an age group and have them all go into the arena. That meant that there was a one in seven chance that either Aspen or I would get reaped. I didn't like those odds, they were even worse inside and out of the arena.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of kids in the arena, fighting to the death. And Aspen and I had higher chances of getting picked this year. It was frighteningly close how one of us could get picked.
Another group said that it was to stop kids from running away, another group said that it was to stop us from volunteering, I hoped it was one of those two and one of the other two.
"Hello there District Nine!" Our escort shouted out happily on the stage. "I'm sure your all wondering what the cages are for, but don't worry, those cages are for your own protection, more or less." Hopefully, but I doubted it, it was to keep us from running away. Or at least the person who was getting reaped. "Now, because of Panem's rising population and the drawing of the card, your about to find out what these cages are for."
She then walked over to the girl's reaping bowl and picked out a piece of paper, one of seven.
Please don't be thirteen or fifteen, I prayed. I didn't want either me or Aspen to go into the arena. "Fourteen."
Oh thank God, I thought. We hadn't gotten picked, but those fourteen year olds, now they were going to have to fight it out in the arena.
I turned to look at the fourteen year old section, only to see a black swarm inside the cage. The black swarm was moving about in a thick mass, consuming almost everything inside.
It wasn't until moments later that I saw that the black mass was a swarm of flies, and that they were eating the girls inside the fourteen year old cage. They stripped the flesh off their skin until there was nothing left except the whites of their bones.
Normal flies couldn't of done it that fast or that effectively, so it was Capitolly modified mutts made by the Capitol to be released on those that were picked. "Any volunteers?" Our escort asks.
Flies. Capitolly modified flies that'll eat you to death in such a painful way that you'll wish for it to be over. The games were horrifying, kids my age, some a little older, some a little younger, were killed in the most brutal ways for the sake of entertainment. And now, they were killed in the reapings, they weren't even given a chance. At least in the arena they have a chance.
Aspen, if her name gets picked she won't even have a chance of getting out of here. If she gets killed and I'm still alive, I would of done nothing to help her. I had to do something.
I suddenly find myself on the stage next to our escort. "And what's your name young lady?" She asks.
I found myself a little dumbstruck by how I suddenly found myself here, of all places. Wasn't I just in one of the cages below? I'm here now, so that could only mean one thing, I volunteered .
"Wren Sylvia Hayes." I told her, feeling the anxiety build up inside of me as I spoke. I never did like speaking, even to a little group, and now I was supposed to talk in front of the entire district?
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" The escort asked.
Oh no, I must of said it too quietly for them to hear it. Now I had to repeat it.
"Wren Sylvia Hayes." I repeated, but louder this time.
"Welcome Wren Sylvia Hayes"
Oh good, I said it loud enough. I didn't want to have to do that again.
Our escort then walked over to the boys reaping bowl before picking out a number. "Sixteen."
I didn't look at the sixteen year old cage, instead, I looked over at the crowd of adult, some were crying, some were horrified, others were just silent. "And what's your name young man?" I heard the escort say.
"Trim Fetching." He answered.
Fetching, isn't that the mayor's last name? Was this his son? His other son?
With light brown hair, deep sea blue eyes, and a tall and strong body, he looked like a younger version of last year's District Nine male tribute and the mayor himself. He had to be his son. "Shake hands you two." Our escort told us.
I slowly extended my hand towards him as he quickly grabbed my hand with his. I felt like pulling it away, but I didn't, just barley though, that would of been rude, and mom always said to not be rude to strangers, no matter how much you don't like them.
Thinking back to my volunteering, I was going into the games, but I didn't regret it, because Aspen wasn't.
Trim Fetching's POV
As I looked at the girl in front of me, I tried to think of who she was. Dirty blond, shoulder length hair parted to the left, dark brown eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes, a big nose, pale skin, and all on a very tiny body.
I've never seen her in my life, nor do I think I've ever hear of her. Wren Sylvia Hayes. Never heard that name before.
Good. She was a nobody, a nobody that I didn't know. That made it so much easier for me to cope with seeing her dead.
A/N: Lazy writer equals lazy chapter. At least the reapings are done with. Well, I'm never doing that again, that's what this SYOT has taught me. Fuck reapings, I'm doing something else.
It's over! The reapings are finally over!
Next up, some Capitol chapters before the arena.