Chapter Five: Count my Ribs, Tesserae

Maize had never experienced starvation in her first life.

She didn't care for it.

Her District hadn't had a Victor since the 45th Hunger Games, and the people were beginning to feel it. Whenever a District's tribute won, the District was gifted with bigger rations of food and materials, but it'd been so long since they had gotten that relief in the form of a Victor. There were times when she was younger that her parents would go without food, but only one missed meal a day. Now all of her family was missing meals. She hadn't eaten anything for the last two days. That combined with her heavy workload had Maize feeling extremely weak. Her hands trembled violently even as they hung listlessly at her side; Maize's knees felt week under her, but the blame couldn't be solely put upon her starvation.

She was going to sign up. Maize could do this. She was no coward. Her siblings would not go hungry today. The Hunger Games would be starting in two weeks and she was finally old enough to sign up for the tesserae. She technically should have been allowed to sign up last year during her first reaping, but her twelfth birthday had missed the cut off date to sign up for the tesserae. Her parents and grandmother had forbidden Maize from signing up, but they hadn't applied the same rules to Amla who had signed up nine times. Amla's name was in the pool a total of thirteen times this year. Apparently, her cousin's life wasn't as important as hers.

It had angered her how her baba was so willing to risk Amla's life, but not the life of his first daughter. Even if it meant that they would all continue to starve. They needed the grain and oil provided to survive. Her baba, who hadn't eaten in five days, had collapsed in the berry-picking fields yesterday and earned himself five lashings. Her grandmother was practically invalid at home, stuck in bed as she watched the twins and her baba. Maize's mother was in the fields, with tiny Hibis strapped onto her back. Even Hibis was suffering from the lack of food, their mother wasn't producing enough milk to keep the youngest Galloshire from the effects of malnutrition. His tiny belly distended and limbs thin. All of her siblings looked like that,

Hell. She looked like that.

Baby fat was nonexistent on her face, her arms and legs thin and built with compact muscles from all of her work. Her stomach would've been flat and even toned if she wasn't suffering from malnutrition. Maize wasn't as bad off as some of the other children in her District, there were poorer families, but her tummy did poke out a bit in the front. It was strange. And she often just felt like a balloon filled with helium. Bloated and yet empty all at once.

Maize stood in the line filled with other desperate children waiting to sign their lives away for food. How depressing. Amla was working in the orchard with Birch and had already signed up the day before on the opening day for the tesserae, so she wasn't afraid of running into her cousin. She kept her head down anyway, looking at her dirty sandal-clad feet and playing with the loose threads of her work shirt. There were only five others left in front of her.

She wanted to cry.

Her mind was often at war with her body's reactions. But she swallowed up her fear and forced herself to be strong. This was for her family.

Maize would never regret it.

She signed her name up nine times, one for each of the people in this new life that Maize couldn't live without. Her parents were furious when she'd come home with the new rations. But no one went to sleep hungry that night. Maize counted it as a win.

Her second reaping was much like her first. Uneventful compared to what happened after the Games were over. At least for her and the rest of the District.

The harvest has been particularly bountiful that summer. The Capital was lucky that the outbreak hadn't occurred until then. No one would have wanted for the poor Capitolites to miss their lovely strawberry jams with their breakfasts just because the outlying Districts can't drag themselves out of their sickbeds to harvest the crops.

Brier was sick. As was her Nyanya. They had come down with the pox, much like half of the District. But like others, her family could not afford medication. There had been whispers before the outbreak that the population in District 11 had grown at an alarming rate. More males had been born in their District in the last fifteen years than there ever had been. It had made the Peacekeepers...anxious. Her baba was convinced, as were more than half their neighbors as more bodies began to drop, that the pox outbreak was no accident. Even Piper was starting to feel feverish.

Amla and Birch had taken Hibis to their Auntie Calla's home since her family was being spared from the disease. Her mama was at home, vigil over the sick beds of their family while her baba went to his shift at the food processing factory. Maize was supposed to be working in the orchard, pruning branches and collecting any missed fruit, before heading off to the berry fields to do the same there.

But not today.

The Med-Bay was full of dying residents, crying family members, stressed doctors and irate Peacekeepers. The medicine to help cure the pox was expensive, three months' worth of rations for two, too expensive for most of the District to buy. Too expensive for Maize to buy. She only had one option. Maize would have to wait until a harried a nurse or a doctor left a cart unattended and take the meds. It was the only way that she would be able to get the lifesaving drugs back to her family.

Her heart was pounding in her chest and her knees threatened to buckle underneath her when a Peacekeepers blank mask seemed to trail after her form. She made herself busy by passing bandages to the nurse closest to her and then a green jar of ointment when asked. As soon as the eyes passed over her form, she prowled cautiously between cots and bodies until she could spot the cart full of meds being handed to the doctors in the waiting line. The administrator cursed when one bottle dropped onto the ground and rolled underneath some shelves but turned back to the line of doctors and continued to hand out meds.

This was Maize's chance. As slyly as she could, Maize passed by the line and pretended to trip over some discarded bandages. With her chest on the ground, she groaned while peaking under the shelves to see where the medication had rolled. The bottle had rolled on towards the back of the shelves, hidden behind dirty cobwebs and mothballs. Maize sat herself up, leaning against the shelves, as she stretched out her scraped knee in front of her and hissing exaggeratedly in pain. She bowed her back, leaning forward as if she was examining the wound more closely, before slyly letting her hand reach for the meds and stuffing it into her sleeve.

"Are you hurt girl?" a doctor asked as he walked by.

Maize shot her head up with a sheepish grin painted on her face, "I'm alright, tripped and scrapped ma knee."

The man stared at her now bleeding knee before nodding and ignoring her once more. She held back a relieved sigh before standing up gingerly. Maize couldn't just run out of here like the hounds of hell were upon her. She'd be caught for sure then. She carefully made her way back to the entrance of the Med-Bay before slipping out of the building and making her way to the living quarters.

Words: 1,333

Edited: October 23, 2019