I wait in line among children who radiate fear, sweat and poor.
An official-looking person pricks my finger and stamps the wound on some-document-or-other. I can almost see the clumps of bacteria on the needle.
I frantically suck the blood from my finger, searching for any taste of AIDS. The bustle and humidity and germs make me want to pass out.
I'm ushered into a pen with the other eighteen-year-olds. Most of them are my classmates. Or, they used to be, since by my age most kids have dropped out to work in the mines.
Why you'd choose hard labour over school, I have no idea.
Some of them stand straight and defiant, refusing to show fear to the swarms of cameras that scrutinise us from the rooftops.
However, the majority of us are hunched and shivering, despite the blazing sun.
The only sounds are the nervous shuffling of feet and the occasional cough – whether that's due to sickness or a sheer need to do something, I don't know.
I hope the latter. I don't want to catch something from one of these germ-riddled cretins.
We all glance nervously at each other, just waiting for the ceremony to be over.
This won't do. I raise my chin and say, "You're all way too scared, you know. We've come this far without being picked, what are the chances it happens now, in our last year?"
Silence responds.
Then one of my classmates says, "What kind of logic is that?"
Someone else adds, "Our names are in more times this year; it's even more likely."
"Plus some of us had to increase our odds for tesserae."
"Yeah, what are you on about Madnight?"
A boy standing next to me chimes in, "Pft, look at who's talking, guys. D'you really think Mudnut knows about tesserae?"
"Actually, it's Midnight." I correct him.
"That's not what your daddy calls you. I've heard Mudnut, Madnit-"
"Don't forget Nidmight!" This time it's a kid in the seventeen-year-old's pen.
"I don't even know you!" I protest.
People around me snigger.
Haymitch only gets my name wrong because he's drunk when he picks me up from school. I swear the man only drinks on the days he has to interact with me. It's so inconsiderate of him.
Huffily, I say, "And here I thought my classmates were my friends."
"What made you think that, Nidmutt?" Someone replies.
My face flushes and I mumble, "It's Midnight."
I comfort myself by knowing I alleviated the tension for them. I can deal with being bullied– I'll just go home after this is over and troll people on my PS5 to relax.
Before their giggles can smother me, they're cut off by the piercing screech of feedback from the speakers.
Onstage, Effie Trinket grapples with the microphone stand. It slides between her fuchsia silk gloves and clangs onto the stage. The noise rings through the speakers and we all cover our ears.
"Oh goodness!" she says in her thick, Capitol accent.
She bends down, simultaneously lifting the mic stand upright and straightening her violet powdered wig.
She nearly topples in her eight-inch stilettos. Effie yelps and struggles to right herself.
"Oh! Nearly lost my tuck there!"
She smiles, stretching her garish magenta lipstick to the edges of her face.
Who in their right mind though that District Twelve – the paragon of misery and misfortune – would appreciate an amateur drag-queen to sentence two children a year to their deaths? Perhaps they hoped we would find some comedy in it.
Leaning down to the microphone, she clears her throat. She's far too close and her cough resonates loudly across the square.
She smiles sheepishly and backs off.
"My goodness; what a hullabaloo! Right, are we ready to begin?"
She gets no response.
"Wait one second." she looks around, lips pouted, "Oh my! We're missing Haymitch!"
Just then, two peacekeepers dump a struggling Haymitch onto the stage. He clumsily stands up and brushes himself off. From his tilted stance, I can tell the liquor has taken effect.
"You become more and more unsightly each year." Effie comments, just loud enough for the mic to pick up.
"And your makeup hasn't gotten any better." He slurs, "I can see your stubble showing through."
She glares at him.
"Miserable goat." She snaps.
"RuPaul wannabe." He retorts.
Effie gasps and crinkles her pale foundation in a frown.
Good one, I mouth to Haymitch. He gives me a discrete middle finger.
Effie meticulously reorganises her countenance to look unrattled.
She says sweetly, "Now, shall we begin?"
They show the boring video of the war, with President Snow talking over it like an annoying kid at the movies. If he wasn't blabbering on about peace and allegiance, I could convince myself I was watching a Call Of Duty playthrough.
When the video ends, Effie is the only one to clap.
"And now it is time to pick our two contest- I mean, tributes. Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman win!".
"Wrong show, love." Haymitch sneers.
."Tea and crumpets! I mean, happy hunger games, and may the odds be ever in your favour."
The crowd, who had started to chatter nervously amongst themselves, suddenly fall silent again.
"As always, ladies first. Although I believe every gentleman is a lady at heart."
Effie pootles over to the boys' fish-bowl of names, using pigeon-steps in her horrendous heels.
She reaches a perfectly manicured hand into the bowl and extracts a name.
I hold my breath almost as long as it takes her to unfold the paper with her shiny pink talons.
"Mern… Merville Aber-" She squints through her peacock-feather lashes, "I can't read this straight-person handwriting."
She looks up, disgruntled.
"Merville Aberton or whatever, come forward. Don't be shy now."
People shuffle around me. Then it clicks.
I swallow the pebble lodged in my throat. I raise my hand.
" Actually, it's Midnight. Midnight Abernathy."
My voice echoes across the silent square. My classmates gape at me.
"But Abernathy isn't my actual name. I mean, it is… But Haymitch isn't my dad or anything. Well, on paper… I mean…" My voice peters out as I catch Effie's eye.
"Midnight was it?" She simpers, "Come on up then; we don't have all day."
She smiles in a way that is supposed to be reassuring. Instead it looks like a pink wound splitting her face in half.
One step at a time, I walk up to the stage.
As I pass Haymitch, he slurs, "You've inherited my luck, son."
I can't respond. I'm gobsmacked.
This can't be real.
I don't believe it.
What were the chances…?
I'm in the Hunger Games! This is incredible! I get to prove myself to everyone! Haymitch will respect me, my classmates will worship me, and nobody will call me Mudnut ever again!!!
I revel in my luck and all the possibilities as Effie extracts a name out of the girls' fishbowl.
After a long moment of concentration, she said, "Kerinthia Claudine."
In the crowd below me, the girls in the eighteens' pen part to let the tribute through.
She struts forward, head held high with rainbow hair falling to around her shoulders. Even though a polar-bear mask covers her entire face, I know who it is.
Kerinthia - or Valkerie, as she's known.
The girl charged with the murder of Pinty's parents.
Handcuffs clank around her wrists and I notice the other girls give her a wide berth, even for a tribute. Peacekeepers eye her like hawks.
She must have been let out of prison specially for the Reaping. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I think, wittily.
Valkerie walks up the steps to the stage and Effie positions her next to me.
I smile at her. Two emerald eyes glare daggers at me from behind her mask.
"And there we have it! Our boy and girl tributes for District Twelve! Now, all that's left is-"
"Nuh-uh, you ain't takin' me away yet."
Valkerie has stepped forward. She addresses the crowd.
"Like hell I'm goin' through everythin' I have, just to get reaped anyway. Y'all think I'm a murderer. I killed li'l Pinty's parents, right?"
Boos resonate from the crowd. Someone shouts, "Go die in the Games!"
Valkerie persists, "Right, I confessed to it. Solid proof that, ain't it Pinty? And I have the scars to prove it. 'Cept do y'all wanna know how I really got these?"
Suddenly she reaches up with both cuffed hands and tears the mask from her face. A grotesque mountain-range of scars pucker her once-porcelain skin. I inch closer to vomiting the longer I stare at it.
It's visible now that she's staring at the twelve-year-old girls' pen. At Pinty.
"That's right, Pinty. If I'm gon' die anyway, your blackmail don't hold up no more. I didn't kill Pinty's parents. She did. She's the one who mutilated my face. Jumped me one night .and told me to give a full confession or she'd plunge the knife deeper next time. Well now I'm headin' to the slaughter anyway, so Pinty… you're comin' down with me,. freak."
As she finishes, peacekeepers begin dragging her to the back of the stage. Meanwhile, more peacekeepers make their way towards Pinty, pushing their way through the twelve-year-olds.
"The hell?" Pinty blurts, "You can't believe that pussio. She's spittin' straight cap!"
I hear an officer declare something about the case being reopened. Pinty has once again become a suspect.
Pinty backs away, raising her fists. I want to reach out and help her.
I yell, "Get away from her! She couldn't hurt a fly!"
The officer growls, "Other than that confession, which has now been revoked, all evidence points to this tyke having done it."
Pinty glowers. She retorts, "It's cap, my G. Man's innocent. Total cap, innit."
One of the peacekeepers grabs her from behind and another pats her down. He extracts two skinned rats from her pockets and wrangles a knife from her clenched fist.
"You're under arrest, Pinty Massacre-Lyncher, until we come to-"
"Man bloody volunteers!" She shouts.
The silence seems to gain a new layer of weight.
Pinty glowers up at Effie on the stage.
She clenches her jaw, saying, "You got beef with that, fam?"
Effie's face lights up like a dingey streetlamp.
"We have a volunteer!" She exclaims.
Pinty wrenches herself free of the men holding her and shoves past Valkerie as they move in opposite directions. I can hear the crackle of the glares they shoot each other.
I'm almost convinced I overhear Pinty mutter, "You're still gonna die before me, Maskface."
Valkerie spits, "Get back in the trashcan you crawled out of."
How could she be so mean?!
After the longest silence of my life, Effie says, "Goose on a spoon, what an unexpected turn of events! Well now! District Twelve, may I present to you your two…" she scans the two of us, " intriguing… tributes: Midnight Abernathy and Pinty Massacre-Lyncher! Happy Hunger Games everyone! And to our contestants, good luck… and don't fuck it up."
I watch as the will to live drains all at once from Haymitch's face. Then the liquor and excitement prove too much and he unceremoniously faceplants the stage.
Minutes later, I wait in a modest room in the justice building. Any minute now they'll be sending in the swathes of people who want to say their goodbyes and wish me luck. It must be taking so long because they can't decide who to let through.
Of course, there won't be time for me see all my admirers.
The door opens and one singular person walks in.
A boy, about my age, wearing a smart shirt and a beige fedora.
He closes the door and we face each other awkwardly.
Eventually, he says, "I can't believe you just did that."
"Did what?"
He looks at me sheepishly.
"I'm not saying I don't appreciate it, but you really didn't need to pay me back."
"Pay you back?" I don't get it.
"I let you borrow my pencil last week. That's why you volunteered for me, right?" he questions.
"Volun- I didn't volunteer. And I don't even know who you are."
He studies me with disbelief.
"I'm Merville Aberton."
The name Effie read out. It wasn't me.
I shout, "Why didn't you say something when I came forward?! You thought I volunteered for you? I don't even know you!"
He looks taken aback.
"You don't… You don't know who I am?"
I shake my head.
"But I'm in your class at school."
"Right. You think I pay attention to the peasants that bully me?"
"We've been friends since the first grade."
I shrug my shoulders.
I say, "Nope, still don't recall."
"We dated for three years!"
Now I'm the one who's taken aback.
"Hold on." I say.
I turn away and run a hand through my hair, racking my brain.
The cogs grind together.
"OHH!" I realise, "You! Yeah, Mervin!"
" Merville."
"Right. Yeah. No. We weren't dating. I'm not gay."
"So… All those times you came over… you always stayed the night, we shared a bed… What was that?"
"Any excuse to stay away from Haymitch." I mutter, "It's not my fault you were eager to have me over. Plus… your sister makes good cakes." And she's hella fit, I think. I tactfully don't mention that part.
Mervin takes a step backwards.
"Midnight… That's my mum. And she doesn't bake. I made all those cakes."
I take a while to process.
Mervin mutters, "Unbelievable. Or, I suppose the worst part is that I actually do believe it, coming from you. I should have known."
I step towards him, ignoring his flinch as I put a hand on his shoulder.
I say, "Mervin. It's ok. I don't mind that you got the wrong impression. Afterall, when someone like me wants to hang with someone like you, it's not surprising that you'd end up gay for me."
He takes my reassuring hand off his shoulder and the door opens behind him. A peacekeeper beckons him through.
"Alright," he says, deflated, "Well, good luck in the Hunger Games, anyway. I guess I won't be waiting for you if you win."
He leaves with a tear in his eye. The door shuts behind him.
What a tactless, inconsiderate toad.