Chapter 6: The plane crash

[April 2373 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark – District Twelve]

An icy wind blew around my nose as I stood close to the peak of Mount Mitchell, one of the highest elevations in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Of course, compared to the real mountains we had further west on the continent or in the Austrian and Swiss Alps in Central Europe, the peaks here were not much more than hills, really, but still impressive and formidable. Coming here, alone and away from civilization, without a need to talk to anybody for a few days, was something I particularly enjoyed to do, also because the area was not so far from my home city, Appacolia.

I did not mind the cold and the wind, as I was dressed appropriately in ranger outdoor gear, standing next to a larger patch of dirty snow and slush and enjoying the sight. Almost no cloud was in the sky today, and that was why I had picked that very day to get to the peak. I had made good time, and thus I could now afford to sit down on an almost flat rock and unpack lunch from my backpack. Rex, my loyal and beloved dog, was stretched out next to me on the same rock, which was warmed by the sun, and he looked at me with clear expectations. He knew exactly that he was not allowed to hunt for himself up here, in the core zone wilderness of the huge state park, and thus he relied on me to provide food for him.

While I ate and also handed over a few dog biscuits to my canine companion, I thought about the history of the region and the district. More than a century ago nobody had lived in that area, not only because some of it was still contaminated after the Great War, but also because people were not allowed to wander around freely. The closest habitation was what used to be called 'District Twelve' further northeast. There had been a high fence around the district, not to keep potential threats out, but to keep the citizens in, as they had been needed to mine coal. Traveling between districts had been limited to official business only, and the citizens in the district had been kept almost like prisoners, not being allowed to tap into the natural resources around them, not even for hunting and growing more food. The coal miners had been exploited and poorly nourished, and they mostly had had to rely on getting food from other districts, assigned to them by the Capitol and thus increasing their dependency on Capitol goodwill. Only a major revolution had been able to stop that practice, more than one hundred years ago, after a first rebellion which had failed, another seventy five years or so earlier; the first one had been the reason, or rather the malicious excuse, for the installation of the so-called Hunger Games. History books had many details on the events of those times, and I was quite happy that I lived today rather more than a century earlier.

At least we had freedom now and we could freely travel to other districts; for convenience, we had kept the names, though not the strict borders. Some people had started a petition to get some of the old district names back, like renaming 'District Twelve' to 'Carolina' or even splitting into 'North Carolina' and 'South Carolina' to reflect the historical situation in the former 'United States of America', but that movement did not have much traction. Nowadays, population on the continent was recovering; during Snow's regime, total population in Panem had been about four and a half million, compared to more than 400 million before the Great War, and now we had somewhere between 20 and 30 million. This was still very low, so much lower than what we had had just prior to the Great War and the global apocalypse, but we had many people moving between the districts, and there were quite a few immigrants from Europe, who longed for some adventure and challenges over here rather than the more established and comfortable life in Central Europe, plus a smaller number of people from other areas of the world, too. A lot of the continent's land area was still – or rather again – largely unexplored and offered opportunities for those who looked for that, provided that they paid attention to wildlife and radiation levels. Radiation was still an issue in some regions, but in most areas we had checked out so far it had dropped sufficiently to not worry much any longer; we suspected that most of the radioactive material being used during the Great War had had a half-value time of only a few years or decades.

Nevertheless, even while being here on vacation, I used my advanced tricorder on a regular basis to measure levels of radioactivity, and my readings would be used later on to update the official maps maintained by the district rangers. The ranger organization had been founded during the second and final rebellion; the rangers scouted the environment, extended and updated our maps, checked for radiation levels, made sure that there weren't too many wild animals close to population centers, helped citizens who had managed to get lost or had had an accident, and more. Gale Hawthorne and the famous Johanna Mason, victor of the 71st Hunger Games more than a century ago, had been the founders and first leaders of the district rangers, and they had done a lot to get the organization started properly, specifically spending much effort on training junior rangers.

Of course the mountains would not likely offer suitable places for any kind of settlements, but there might be sources for other valuables, like rare plants, animals, or maybe some minerals. I was proud to be a district ranger, and I enjoyed being outdoors for many days. Observing nature and just having my dog with me was easier for me than to be with lots of other people. I was doing all right with children, but talking to adults was sometimes difficult for me; I was not a very social person for sure, and thus I had picked a job with allowed me to deal more with nature and ecological aspects than with people.

My parents, my uncle, and my brother ran a chain of bakeries in the big city of Appacolia, the district capitol. My great-great-great-grandfather, Jacob Mellark, had owned the Mellark bakery in the former core district, and some time after the rebellion his youngest son Peeta had decided to start another bakery in the location which had just been designated the new district capital at that time. While the original district was closer to the mountains, where the coal was found and mined, our city was mostly on flat ground. We had plenty of water, fertile ground, nice forests, and the coast was not far at all. Scouts had suggested this to be the best location, and so far this had turned out to be correct. Except for occasional hurricanes traveling along the coast, weather was mostly moderate and benign, though slightly on the hot side.

When I had grown up, I had attended university in Appacolia to become an ecological engineer; baking was not for me, at least not for a living, but my brother would take charge anyway. It seemed that, together with Uncle Peter, Peeta had inherited the 'baking genes' from our ancestor and his namesake, the one and only Peeta Mellark who had competed in the 74th Hunger Games and won them together with Katniss Everdeen, his later wife. When I had been born, my mother, who was a very traditional Christian woman, had insisted to name me after a respected biblical person – Timotheus. While I had been sometimes mocked at school about my name, I had actually started to be proud of it once I had read the book of 'Acts' in the Bible several times as an older child.

My mother and my aunt, the identical twins, had been raised in a conservative Lutheran Christian family. My great-grandfather and Mom's grandfather, Mark Everdeen, son of Ryan Everdeen (born as Ryan Mellark), had married a beautiful woman from South America, who had had silk like skin with a golden hue, and when she had arrived in Nürnberg in Bavaria to start her education there, all on her own at just 18 years old and without knowing anybody, Mom's grandfather had literally bumped into her, by accident as he used to claim with a smirk, and they both agreed that it had been love on first sight. Great-grandfather and his wife were already dead since quite a few years ago, but their daughter Johanna Schulze, my grandmother and Mom's mother, was still alive and healthy. Her husband had not lived very long, but Grandma had many good friends in Rainbow Valley in District Sixteen, where her other daughter also lived, and she rarely ventured from there.

When my brother Peeta had been born, my parents had immediately hoped that the bakers genes would dominate, and it turned out that they had been right about that. When he had just started elementary school, he had already surpassed Dad in the art of cake decorations, and a year or two later he knew all of the basic recipes by heart. Nowadays, at the age of 21, he was practically in charge of all baking activities together with Uncle Peter, and a group of apprentices were learning from them; my own parents only advised here and there, but did not get involved in daily business any longer.

My sister, born next, had blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin like Peeta, and father had insisted to name her Primrose. The older she became, the more she looked Primrose Everdeen, her great-great-grandmother, as recordings from that time, when the original Primrose Everdeen had been about her current age, had shown. Like her ancestor, my sister was also interested in healing and medicine, but her character was different; she was much less outgoing and more shy and reserved, focusing on studying a lot.

Finally, when my youngest sister finally showed up, unplanned but not unwanted, as I had learned later, with dark hair and slightly darker skin like mine, my mother again used a biblical name – Ruth. We called her 'Ruthie' a lot, and she liked it. Ruthie was very open minded and friends with almost everybody; I had rarely encountered a person who could withstand her charms, and I was very glad to have her in my family, too.

For this week and the next I had some time off, and I was expected to be back in my home city in ten days, to resume my work. I had liked to hike since childhood, and getting into the mountains just by myself, well not quite alone, as I had my dog with me, usually helped to clear my mind and gain new energy. Besides, I would not have to talk to anybody for a week or so, which suited me just right. This was one of the reasons why I had gone for my current job: I was employed by the city as permanent contact person to rangers and university, working on projects related to ecology and power generation, perfectly fitting into my diploma thesis topic and connected to what my twin cousin researched, too. The job allowed me to spent a lot of my time outdoors and with the rangers, and only occasionally I had to report to my contacts at university and city council.

Even at this time in mid spring the top of the mountain was snow covered; a cold wind from the north had added a thin layer recently, but that would be gone soon. Some valleys a little further down already showed signs of spring; all around me the grass was getting green, the first flowers were coming out, and animals like groundhogs were waking up from hibernation. Animals like those were strictly protected and did not shy away from occasional contact with humans; during the last few days I had managed to sit very close to a few of them and watch them for an hour or two; they fed from grass almost all of the time, as they needed to gain a lot of nutrition after the long sleep. Rex was smart and trained enough to understand when he was allowed to hunt and when he was not. When I observed animals, he stayed next to me, and even when we both had groundhogs only a few meters away, feeding from grass and not paying much attention to us, Rex was sitting still and seemed to enjoy the scenery like I did. He was the perfect companion for me, and not for the first time I thought that such an animal was better suited for me than a human companion – there was no reason to talk all of the time and there were no misunderstandings and hidden expectations.

Not far from my location, in a steep rock wall close to the next peak, I could also see a group of ibexes climbing. They were able to navigate almost vertical rock walls, and it was really interesting and fascinating to watch them through my field glasses. Occasionally, one of them set a few stones free to roll and drop down, but they always managed to avoid getting harmed. Closer to the city I had, some time ago, watched some of them even climbing the almost vertical outer walls of the dam for a hydroelectric plant.

In the sky I saw some large birds. I certainly was not an ornithologist and could not be sure, but they looked like eagles, I thought. If I recalled properly, another ranger, who knew a lot about birds, had mentioned that eagles had been seen in this area, specifically around the lakes west and northwest of here. I imagined that their nests might be somewhere in the steep cliffs, but probably in a section even the ibexes and chamois could not reach, and I lazily wondered if they already had fledglings this year, or whatever the correct technical term was for young birds not yet being able to fly.

In a different direction I saw a big brown bear coming out from a cave. It had probably just ended hibernation a few weeks ago and was searching for prey now. I got my map out and made a note in my notebook about the location; the district rangers would want to learn about that. When the bear was out and had looked around carefully, it growled, and three young bears came out of the cave; I could watch a bear mama and her three cubs through my field glasses. I guess that I spent most of the afternoon watching the bear family, the ibexes and other animals, and doing this filled my mind with peace and happiness.

In yet another direction I observed a small avalanche starting downhill from a mountain peak. The sun must have warmed the snow, until it lost contact with the rock surface, and a small section of snow moved down at increasing speed, until it came to rest in a valley. Except for a few shaded areas and a few mountain peaks, there was not much snow left at this time of the year, and I had even been in the area at a similar time of the year before to see no snow left at all. Of course I knew about the higher peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the European Alps, with mountains being white and covered with ice and snow all year around, but the elevations in the Appalachian Mountains were not high enough for that; in a few days all of the snow would be gone, not to return until November or so.

Eventually, in mid afternoon, I left the peak, as I wanted to get back to my camp before dark. Rex was quite happy about that, as he knew that he was going to be allowed to hunt around the camp, which was outside of the park's core zone. Rex was a quite big and sturdy dog with dense medium long fur; as I had been told when I had got him from an animal shelter more than one year ago, his race was a 'Berner Sennenhund' ('Bernese mountain dog' or 'Swiss mountain dog'), although I was not sure if he was a pure breed, and when I had seen him for the first time, it had been instant love on both sides. He was quite a big dog, measuring about 70 cm at his shoulders and about 50 kg now, and he was still growing a little and adding weight and muscles, even at his age of about eighteen months. Rex was the ideal companion for my long outdoor trips, happy to walk long distances, and always ready to keep me company. We had gone through a special ranger education together, which included a search dog training, and I had a special permit to have him with me even in restricted areas like in this state park core zone where dogs were not normally allowed. Earlier this year we had been able to apply that training, when a group of hikers had lost their way in bad weather, and Rex had been the one to find the group. This had happened just before the training was completed, and although our involvement had not been intentional, Rex's effort and success had been valuable and counted towards his score.

Before I left the mountain peak, I looked over to the remnants of the radar site which had been placed here more than a century ago, when District Thirteen had suddenly appeared again and European allies had helped to set up the site to provide early warning in case more hostile hovercraft came in from the Capitol. The installation had been located next to what used to be a viewing platform a long time ago, and they had probably used the former road leading up to the top to get the parts up here from the next flat area where a hovercraft could land. Or more likely, they had managed to get the device up here with one of those zeppelins which had showed up from Europe. The very top of the mountain had been cleared of trees, whereas all around spruce and fir trees covered the area; the elevation was not high enough by far to get us beyond the timber line.

The site had not been used for many decades, but it had helped a lot during the final rebellion, together with a few other similar sites on other mountain peaks, and the citizens in the former district had known at least that any potentially approaching threat would have been detected early enough to do something about it. According to history books, the citizens of the district at that time had had to flee into the forests outside of the fence once or twice when their homes had been attacked. I did not know if they had also installed air defense lasers to go with it, but the expensive and valuable parts had been removed long ago, and maybe some time later this would be a memorial point or something like that. I sighed, thinking about the times when such installations had been necessary, and once again I felt blessed to live today and not a century or two earlier.

When I was about half way between the mountain peak and my camp, I heard an unfamiliar noise from somewhere above, and when I looked up, I saw a plane approaching; this was not a common event at all, and thus I stepped out from between the trees onto a small elevation to watch it as it passed some of the few small fair-weather clouds in the sky. It was a small plane, probably suited for four or six people only, with a single propeller, and judged by the noise, still powered by one of those old fashioned piston engines, too. The plane caught my attention, as those planes, which had been much more common before the Great War, were quite rare nowadays. Most people could not afford private flights just for fun and in addition, except for special and antique 'old-timer' vehicles, piston engines were also no longer tolerated, as they were bad for the environment; after all, mankind tried to minimize carbon dioxide emissions as much as possible. Long distance transports were done using the maglev trains we had inherited and revived from Panem, and of course we had a small number of hovercraft and other flying vehicles, but mostly for official and emergency services, like for police and paramedics. We had some usable roads, too, and there were cars, all electrically powered, but of course there weren't any real roads up here in the mountains. The one single road which had provided access to the top of Mount Mitchell in pre-war times was mostly covered by vegetation nowadays and barely recognizable.

Actually, seeing the mountains from an airplane was probably quite nice on a day like today, and I assumed that those in the plane had this in mind. From the almost cloudless sky and on such a sunny day, visibility must have been great, and they probably enjoyed the scenery and the view. Some people used zeppelins for sightseeing from the air, and with their slow motion and quietness they were, in my opinion at least, usually the better option, specifically compared to old and noisy airplanes.

While I stopped for a few moments and watched the small plane from my vantage point, I heard the engine stuttering, and after a few seconds it stopped working completely, with a lot of dark smoke being visible. I had a bad feeling about that; my knowledge of planes was quite limited, but I was not sure if the pilot would be able to land safely without a working engine. After all, there probably was no runway anywhere around, only hills, rocks, and meadows, and none of them very flat, either. The plane rapidly lost altitude, and it got close to the ground on a grass slope not very far from me; with my field glasses, I even could see some details, and for a moment I imagined that I saw some concerned faces looking out of the plane's windows. Of course, if there were indeed passengers on board, they would be quite worried by now, for sure.

The pilot apparently attempted to land on an extended stretch of grass, one of the few ones around without the majority of the ground covered by trees and rocks, and at first it looked like he might succeed. The plane managed to pass the trees and touched the ground, and it also succeeded to stay upright at first. It slowed down a little, but failed to come to a stop. The pilot had landed downhill, which seemed to make sense, but he had underestimated the angle, or maybe he had not had another choice. Following the increasing decline, the plane rolled ahead, right towards a group of big rocks and trees; maybe the brakes did not work properly, or the pilot was injured and could not operate them. However, it did not matter anyway as the landing gear broke down and the plane continued to slide downhill on its belly, accelerating again on the sloping ground and way too fast to be safe.

Only a few dozen meters before getting to those rocks, a door opened on the side I could see, and something or someone got out and dropped to the ground, on the grass, or that's what I imagined to see at least. Only seconds later the plane hit the rocks; I saw the front section getting smashed by a large rock, and the force of the collision certainly killed anybody who had not been dead yet. In my opinion it was quite unlikely that somebody survived that accident, but there was a chance that a person or two had managed to drop out earlier; while I could not see any movement on the ground, even through the glasses, I'd better check that out to make sure.

[Author's Notes: Not a lot of dialogue in here, I know. But this is supposed to be about a lonely hike in the mountains with some reflections, and I hope that the section helps to understand the background a little better. After all, we are in a time more than one hundred years after the events in the books, and this is not really documented anywhere. Fantasizing about the world decades after the final rebellion is something I like, and I hope that you may like it as well.

As far as I understand, District Twelve in the books is indeed supposed to be located somewhere in or around the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern part of the USA.

I realize that some explanations about families are redundant in the first few chapters. Please stay with me; this is important to understand.]