Part One: Citizen
Clementine wipes the beads of sweat glittering on her forehead, matting the baby hairs to her dark skin, and sighs. District 11 is hot and muggy, it's just a fact of life, but the past month or so has been almost unbearable. The dirt roads that web across the district shimmer from the effect of heat waves late into the afternoon, and almost everyone has had to start wearing shoes when they walk around the place. A day hasn't gone by where at least a few people in the crops don't drop from exhaustion or heatstroke. It's usually both. In the past, the Peacekeepers assigned to the fields have stood there uselessly when a worker would drop. It didn't happen often enough that they were obligated to help. Nowadays they stand there with medkits and canisters of water.
Wouldn't want to lose a worker, too hard to replace them.
Supposedly the areas where the district is settled were hot back before the catastrophes, but nothing like the temperature today. Something about the natural disasters affected the weather, and District 11 was unfortunate enough to already be the hottest area of the continent when the temperatures started inching upwards.
Despite the shade of the Idowu's veranda, the torridity envelops Clem like a blanket and the thin, wooden roof does little to block the sun from beaming across her face. She groans in frustration.
"Where the hell are you, Florina."
She knocks on the door again and there's still no answer, though for a moment she thinks she hears movement from inside. She ties her locs back behind her head to keep the hair off her neck.
"Maybe she's in the town square already?" Winnow says from behind her. She walks over to one of the windows and ducks down slightly to see through it better. "A lot of stores are closing up early today."
Clem fans herself with her hand. "Maybe…"
There are a few more windows along the front of the property that she considers asking Winnow to look through while she's over there, but there's not much point to it.
She bangs the door with her fist a couple more times.
The merchant's square is empty and quiet, there are only a few shop owners milling about closing shutters and locking up for the day. Carrie Nachum, the old lady who runs the post office, swings her broom at an alley cat. She's an old thing with hobbled joints so her swings are slow and miss by a wide margin, but she relents, and the cat hisses and runs when she smacks it squarely on the head. Everyone is closing early in preparation for the reading of the card that will decide the twist of the Hunger Games this year.
There was one day a couple of months ago when Clem visited Florina to do their history homework. On the way out, Mrs. Idowu caught her at the door and they started talking.
They got onto the topic of the upcoming Quarter Quell, and she explained to her that the day has been celebrated as a day off much like the day of the Reaping, though much less morbid for obvious reasons. Plenty of that generation remember the last card reading, but there's barely anyone alive who watched the first one fifty years ago. Life expectancy in District 11 isn't long. You get two choices to watch the quell card. Stand in the square with everyone else and experience solidarity along with free food, or stay at home and be with family. The workers in the crops and orchards were actually let off before sundown which is something unheard of to Clem.
Her father will be home when she returns, and he'll be rolled over facing the wall and pretending to be asleep like he does when the Games are on. She'll pretend to believe it.
The sun is starting to dip lower in the sky and has shed the harsh rays for a softer golden light. The heat still does not relent, and she swats a bead of sweat from the back of her neck in irritation.
"I'm going to kill you, Florina."
The air remains quiet despite her threat. Clem huffs and rolls her eyes. "Whatever."
"Come on, they're not home. We can catch them once the card reading is over or after our shifts on the weekend." Winnow starts to step down the stairs and beckons Clem to follow her.
"Yeah, alright."
She starts going back down the steps. It's difficult to ignore her disappointment. Today is a difficult day, and it's going to be made more difficult when she goes back to her shack and has to therapize her father. Florina's face would have made the day just a little more bearable.
"I'd rather you didn't kill me, thanks."
Florina is standing in the now-open doorframe. Her dark curly hair is pulled back into a bunch, but several strands have loosened and they frame her face delicately. Her overalls aren't the only indicator that she's been doing some sort of physical activity; her lips and face are glossy from sweat. A droplet falls from her long eyelashes. She's as pretty as always despite the redness in her face and neck; it just makes her look like she's blushing.
Clem attempts a stuttered response, but Winnow cuts in.
"Couldn't hear us?" Her hands are on her hips. Florina's eyebrows raise apologetically.
"I was moving some things around for ma, sorry. I was up the back of the store."
Florina steps aside and allows them into the building. She gives Clem a toothy smile and Clem gives her one back. Winnow grumbles past like an old man.
"Has Logan visited yet?" Clem asks.
"With this heat? Don't you think you're giving him too much credit, I doubt he'll leave his house."
"I would not be surprised if Mayor Hedley kicks him out of the house so he stops annoying her. She's probably stressed enough about today without having him buzzing around her."
The two of them laugh.
Florina leads the way into the back where the storage room is. The Idowus have clearly tried their best to keep the heat out; the shutters and doors are closed to have the place as cool and comfortable as possible. The building is well off for a store in District 11. Compared to a lot of businesses, which keep themselves afloat by the skin of their teeth, this one has managed to avoid falling into despair. Mrs. Idowu's grandfather won the Hunger Games a long time ago, he's the first name on the list of past District 11 winners that they read out at the Reaping, and though he can't technically just give her the money, the family always somehow has enough money to fix the peeling paint or the broken floorboards. But not enough for an industrial fan apparently.
The Idowus use their familial wealth and prestige to help people, something Clem has always admired them for. It's hard to be jealous of people like that.
The strategy of closing everything up has worked somewhat but there's still an underlying mugginess that fills the air. Despite it not being very hot within the building, Clem continues to sweat. At least there's protection from the sun now. The storage room in the Idowu apothecary is the coolest place in the building besides the cool room downstairs, where pastes and antibiotics are stored to keep fresh for their upper-class customers. There are boxes set up around the slim room for sitting on. They've only just entered the room when there's a knock on the front door.
Florina rolls her eyes and groans. "Make yourself at home and give me a couple of minutes." She gestures towards the boxes and rushes back off to the front of the shop.
The storeroom is as pleasant as it could be given the heat, and the boxes are weirdly comfortable albeit a little flimsy. Winnow sits uncomfortably on one due to her muscular frame, her legs stretched out awkwardly. The box puffs a little from the weight.
They sit comfortably in silence. The room is dark but oddly calming. Eventually, Florina comes back, sternly arguing with someone.
"My parents barely allow me to go in, what in Snow's name makes you think you've got permission."
Logan pulls a face but drops it.
"Logan decided to drop by." She says. "Tell us what you know."
Clem and Winnow share a look.
His golden-brown eyes move to Florina, "You sure the place isn't bugged?"
"No chance. Chaff Habarti comes down from Victors' Village once a month for grandpa's painkillers and he and ma talk in here. The bugs would pick up on either an affair or treason and either one would be revealed by the Capitolian news before he could even make it back up the Village, and given the way ma looks at my pa, it's definitely sedition they talk about."
Logan puts his palms to the roof and Florina rolls her eyes.
"She told me it's not! Just get on with it."
"Ma had a meeting with Cassius Branch." He starts after an over-dramatic sigh. "Right after little Rue McKissak got speared in the arena last year and the riots started. They were discussing strategies to dissipate the crowds and get ahead of any future ones. Things have eased up enough for a few weeks that the Peacekeepers are loosening their grip. Slightly.
Branch was talking about how his job as head Peacekeeper was on the line and so was hers as mayor, and he let slip that District 8's also been having riots."
Winnow rolls her eyes and scoffs,
"Yeah, because a bunch of sickly people with smog-filled lungs are for sure doing the damage we've done here. Our people have torn down silos and set crops on fire. We see the kids from Eight every year during the Games; they're slow, stiff-jointed, and they barely make it past the first few days. I don't think I can remember the last-"
"They took control of the Peacekeeper's headquarters."
Winnow leans hard against the shelf behind her. It shudders slightly.
"How on earth did they manage to do that."
Logan shrugs. "Not quite sure as Cassius Branch didn't disclose that information to ma, though something he said to her implies that a lot of people on both sides died in the process. The entire district is supposedly on lockdown, and no one is allowed out of their houses under any circumstances."
"That means no one is working!" Florina cries. She cups her face in her hands. "They're probably all starving!"
"Yeah, that's likely." Winnow says.
Clem wipes more sweat from her face. "Well, we have to be careful. Unless we want to end up like Eight, people need to stop burning shit."
Logan scoffs. "Says you. Do I have to remind you of the week you spent in prison for fighting those Peacekeepers?"
The corners of Clem's mouth tilt upwards in pride but she forces herself to keep a neutral face.
"People can live without new fabrics for a month or two. There's no way we're going into complete lockdown, Eleven's industry is essential.
Also, those Peacekeepers were being assholes, so it was deserved."
Florina grins at her.
"Yeah, well, at least the Capitol has eased up on its crackdown." Logan says. "We're lucky we didn't have more reason to fight back for longer."
Winnow crosses her arms. "What's District 8's reason then?"
No one responds. They have the same reason, and it always circles back to the Hunger Games but there's no point in mentioning it, there is nothing any of them can do to aid District 8. They've barely managed to scrape by as it is.
District 11 has been through hell during the past three months. Whippings, hangings, anyone suspected of treason forced into jail. The jail is completely unfit for humans; Clem had cockroaches all over her when she was locked up. That's the point though. To show the citizens of Eleven how powerless they all are when it comes to their basic rights and treatment. When Katniss Everdeen came around on the Victory Tour she spoke kind words about Winnow's brother and Rue McKissak, thanking them for their bravery. Ever since the 74th Games, Eleven has felt a sort of kinship with her even before their tributes were dead. An old man did the hand signal District 12 did to her when she volunteered for her sister; to convey thanks. He was rewarded with a bullet to the head, and the Peacekeeper presence throughout the District became an all-time high. Clem is continuously grateful that the Capitol focused on the central villages where most of the fighting is rather than the outer districts, or she'd probably still be in prison. The only reason lockdown eased up is for the card reading so they can have reaction shots.
Florina stands up. "Well, that was a lovely meeting, thanks for dropping by and ruining the festive mood, Logan."
He shrugs. "I gotta keep my girls informed."
"Now that you're here you're more than welcome to come and watch the card reading with us. My parents are at the Victors' Village with grandpa." She sighs and starts to say something, but shakes her head.
"I would but ma wants the family together for it."
It's obvious that Mayor Hedley is worried riots will break out and doesn't want her son in the middle of one, but Clem keeps her mouth shut. She can't blame her.
They leave the storage room and go their separate ways. Logan walks off towards the mayoral villa. As he walks off Clem can't help but think about how odd it is that he ever bothered to speak to them at school.
He has other friends in the other upper-class students, but he decided to also be friendly to the three of them as opposed to literally anyone else. Maybe he's leading a double life. Clem doesn't care.
The area of Merchants' Square where the huge screens are set up isn't that far, but with the current heat, it feels longer. The more time they spend in the sun, the more the air feels suffocating. Florina fills the air with what's been going on with the apothecary, but she can't quite link it to any information on how the Capitol is doing amidst the riots in District 8 and possibly other districts. She says they've barely had an increase in purchases.
Eventually, she falls silent and they remain unspeaking until Winnow suddenly looks up at Clem.
"We've known each other for two years and I never thought to ask why you're so passionate about this." she asks casually. It sounds forced.
Clem considers lying. It'd be easy to bring up how unjust the way the Capitol exploits the district is or the horror of watching two of their own be paraded around like prizes just to die a week later, but when she looks at Winnow she can see the sadness behind her eyes that matches her father's almost exactly.
Images of Thresh Robinson's death replay in her head. A broken neck sending the entire District into silence and shutdown. Winnow's cold and emotionless eyes.
"My aunt died in the last Quarter Quell. The one with double the amount of tributes. My pa rarely talks about her, and whenever the Games are on he gets depressed and overwhelmed, so I watched the tape in the school library one day when I was eleven. They don't show it on the television so I wasn't even sure I'd find it, but there was one copy in the school library. I was so scared of the Games back then and how I would be in the reaping in less than a year."
Winnow kicks a few pebbles along the dirt but remains quiet. Clem feels stupid and vulnerable but Florina nods her head as if to tell her to keep going.
"She died just a few days in when the mountain in the arena turned out to be a volcano. She'd taken shelter there to recover from a sting, and she died instantly."
Winnow's scowl has softened into a look of compassion, and the silence that ensues would've been awkward had it been with someone other than her.
Clem suddenly flushes with shame. She never knew her aunt. The only effect from her death she's ever felt is the grief that's followed her father for twenty-five years, and here she is talking about herself to someone whose suffering is so fresh. Someone who probably still doesn't know how it will follow her around for decades from now.
"Sorry" she mutters. "I know it's not about me but-"
"No, I get it." Winnow gives a smile but it doesn't reach her eyes. "You're doing it for your pa, and so no one else will have to go through that. So in a way, you're also doing it for me."
She kicks another pebble across the road. She always tries to hide her pain because she thinks it makes her look weak, and she refuses to let anyone talk about her brother when she's around. If anyone begins alluding to him, she glares at them until they stop. Clem awkwardly tries to figure out how to help her but nothing viable comes to mind. Winnow hates physical affection, so even a hand on her shoulder will do nothing but put her in a worse mood. It'd only be uncomfortable for both of them. Florina can get away with it though, and she hugs Winnow. They continue in silence.
The Reaping square comes into view slowly and already there are hundreds of people milling about, mostly the merchant class who live close by. The buildings stand tall and hide the backdrop of the slums and fields of overworked citizens. District 11 is so massive that it takes several days to reach the square from some villages and preliminary Reapings are held to ensure the chosen tributes are in the crowd. The large screen off to the right of the stage is on but nothing is playing, just silent static while the camera crew finishes setting up for reaction shots of the crowd. One of the crew, the crew leader Clem assumes, is yelling at one of her staff for dropping a stabilizer. She and Winnow side-eye each other. The woman shouts orders while the crew hurries around frantically. She swings her clipboard around crazily. She mutters something to a Peacekeeper, who starts passing a message to the Peacekeepers around the perimeter of the crowd. They begin to push the crowd into a tighter space.
Florina puts an arm around Clem's shoulder.
Eventually, the screen flickers to life with the Capitol seal emblazoned onto a black background. It then changes to a shot of President Snow standing on the podium he does every year when he welcomes the tributes to the Capitol. His eyes as always are unsettling and glaring. He looks out at the crowd.
He begins to speak, to remind the nation of the Dark Days from which the Hunger Games were born. Because sending defenseless kids to a death match as punishment for their ancestors trying to break free of an oppressive system is clearly fair. He explains that when the laws were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell. It would call for a glorified version of the Games to make fresh the memory of those killed by the Districts' rebellion.
"On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it."
Clem rolls her eyes. Such a Capitolian tactic; not only pitting the Districts against each other every year during the Games but then dividing the Districts from within.
How horrific, she thinks, to be called to that stage and know that a majority of the district decided your life mattered the least. If that were her she would not return home regardless of whether she died or not.
"On the fiftieth anniversary," President Snow continues, "as a reminder that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, every District was required to send twice as many tributes."
Those numbers don't sound quite right but she understands the effect. Worse odds, more people to distrust, less hope, and twice the amount of corpses going home on the trains. She thinks about how large the pool of competitors would've been. She wonders how scared Aunt Lena was.
"And now we honour the third Quarter Quell."
The little boy in white steps forward, holding out the box as he opens the lid. In the box are rows and rows of yellowed envelopes. Clem clenches her jaw; whoever came up with the Games clearly prepared for centuries of Hunger Games. When would they have ended? Will they ever? Hundreds of years of slaughtering the districts' children isn't fair punishment for a rebellion.
President Snow takes an envelope marked with a 75. He runs his finger under the flap and pulls out a small square of paper.
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder that without the Capitol's everlasting empathy and abundance, the Districts would have nothing, the tributes will not receive the aid of sponsor gifts within the arena."
The crowd in the Capitol erupts into cheers almost instantly, clearly just reacting mindlessly to anything they hear. The twist could be that the Capitol must compete and they would cheer for a couple of minutes before realizing what it meant. The people standing in the town square remain silent, clearly trying to decipher what this means for the tributes.
The Capitol contributes nothing to the Districts but fear, death, and tyranny. How dare they claim empathy and abundance. They kill twenty-five children a year for entertainment.
She looks at Winnow and she's sure the rage on her face mirrors her own. The large screen flickers through the Districts. One is cheering and Two is clapping politely, but the rest are stone-faced masses defying the Capitol in the small way they can with their silence. Showing that they do not condone this horror.
The program cuts into commentators, rapidly discussing the twist and bringing up the past two Quarter Quells to compare how they work. One of them says these Games will be going back to the roots of the first nine Hunger Games, and how the odds truly will be in this year's victor's favour. They discuss in excitement the prospect of this year's batch of tributes and which districts have the best chance of victory.
Clem's blood boils.