A/N The tribute roster is filling up fast! There are only a handful of spots left. If you haven't submitted your maximum of 3 tributes or haven't submitted any yet but still want to get in on the SYOT action, you better submit soon! Thank you guys for all the amazing tributes and without further ado, let's get onto the chapter!
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"A reaped tribute from District One… now that's an oddity," Brutus said to himself as he closed the file for the District One tributes. "The girl seems like a classic career. I'm sure the stylists will have a field day with a beauty like her."
Suddenly the door behind him clicked open. Elsa had returned. She had a smile on her face, and Brutus could help but wonder why.
"Elsa!" he cried, loud enough to make the girl jump from the sudden volume. He jumped up from his chair and walked over to his assistant's desk. "Just the woman I wanted to see."
"Do you need something, sir?" Elsa asked calmly as she approached her desk, completely ignoring that Brutus was looming over it.
"You will never guess this fun little fact about our male District One tribute this year." He waited expectantly for his assistant's answer, but she continued to ignore him and clean up her desk. "Elsa. Guess."
"He's a child," she said plainly.
"Rats! How did you know?"
"Did you forget that I've already met them all? I only just got back from the train where I had them all fill out that questionnaire."
Brutus drew in a sharp angered breath. Elsa may have been under his control, but she didn't shy away from taking jabs at the old man whenever she could. Of course, for such insolence, she would have to be punished. Normally, he'd prefer to correct her now, but President Noctis but the tributes were already in the capital and there were still 11 more districts to shift through. Her punishment would be saved for later.
The old man walked back towards the plush chair in the corner and sat back down. He picked up the tablet and opened it to the tribute list once more. "Which district should I look at next? Going in order is so boring… Give me a number, Elsa! 8? 11? 4?"
"6," Elsa replied quickly.
Brutus nodded and scrolled to District 6's section. He stopped when he saw two names: Inez Weston-Castillo and Trent Howard.
"Alright, District 6, what do you hold in store?" With those words, the old man pressed the name of the male tribute.
Trent Howard, 17, District 6 (Submitted by wiifan2002)Trent gently caressed the silver blade in his hand. Its cool metal soothed his scarred fingertips- remnants of the trauma and surgeries from long ago.
"Back again, Arnold?" Trent teased.
The man before him snickered as he removed his peacekeeper helmet, revealing a breaded white face. "You know it, man."
"If the world is ever ready for me to publish my findings, I'll have to credit you. This district is crawling with potential subjects, but you have been my most prolific provider." Trent stabbed the knife he had been holding into the table, right into one of the grooves where he had done the same many times before. "But tell me, what are you doing here today? Aren't peacekeepers more closely monitored on reaping day?"
"Eh, I've only been gone a minute. This place is crawlin' with us right now, they'll never miss me," Arnold replied with a dismissive wave. "I have enough time to pop down to the black market and visit good ol' Doctor Death."
Doctor Death, the name that shook District 6 to its core. Trent had mixed feelings. He appreciated being likened to a doctor- especially at such a young age- but the "death" part he could do with or without. He felt it focused too deeply on the normal and natural consequences of scientific inquiry- the occasional horrific death- and thus threw an unnecessary shadow on his accomplishments. Nevertheless, the name alone attracted many who were willing to turn over their adversaries to Trent for the sake of science so it was a shadow he was willing to bear.
"Excellent," Trent said with a wicked grin. "But you do understand that as excited as I am, nothing can be accomplished quickly. I must, after all, attend the reapings."
"Shit. I keep forgetting you're a fuckin' kid. You talk all fancy and all that. Eh, that's alright. I just need these shits out of my hair, I don't care the price. We hired em' to work on some new rails for prison cars, but they showed up stoned to high heaven and that's just the latest fuck up on their list."
Trent's eyes lit up. "Morphlings?"
"Yup."
"Perfect."
His mind began to race with possibilities. Like electricity, thoughts coursed through him, connecting and sparking as an experiment formed. He had always wondered about the mechanics of morphling addiction. Maybe with a couple of Morphlings in his hands, he could discover some new method to aid the addiction recovery process. Of course, to do so he would have to put them through extreme withdrawal, overdose, and unregulated treatment. They probably wouldn't survive, but at least their name would live on with science.
As the ideas kept coming to him, a chuckle built up in his throat and escaped through his grinning lips. Arnold watched as Trent worked himself up into a hysterical fit. He slapped his leg before catching his breath and finally saying through a strained voice, "I already have so many ideas." Trent leaned over the desk, "Tell me, who are my new test subjects?"
"Maria and Emil Weston-Castillo."
Inez Weston-Castillo, 16, District 6 (Submitted by chcolate)On reaping day, Districts typically shut down. By mid-morning, all businesses are closed and their workers head home to spend time with their families and prepare. However, as the hour of the reaping rapidly approached, Inez and her older sister, Carmen, were only just getting back from work. Physically and emotionally exhausted, the pair approached their home where their younger brothers were playing on the rickety front stoop.
Spotting the pair's approach, Hugo and Ruben instantly dropped the sticks they had been drawing in the mud with and ran towards them.
"Ñaña! Ñaña!" Hugo shouted as practically ran into Carmen to give her a hug.
"How are my pollitos? Have you been good?" Carmen said as she attempted to steady herself from the forceful hug.
Inez smiled as she watched her sister practically get attacked. She adored her little brothers, she just wasn't one for physical affection- or affection at all, for that matter. Suddenly, Inez noticed something strange in this routine sight. Hugo and Ruben were in rags- their play clothes which hardly counted as clothing anymore.
"Hey," she interjected, "Let me see you two." Hugo and Ruben pulled away from their eldest sister and presented themselves to Inez, a guilty look on their faces. "Why are you still wearing your play clothes?"
"I don't know," Ruben replied.
"Boys, we have to leave for the reaping in fifteen minutes!"
"I thought Mama and Papa were going to help you get dressed?" Carmen asked.
The boys exchanged glances, their differences in expressions were striking. Ruben, the elder of the two, seemed hesitant but his sad eyes spoke volumes. Meanwhile, Hugo's face was contorted in a little boy's frustration.
"They didn't help us," grumbled Hugo. "They never help us."
"Hugo…" Carmen muttered in disappointment, although who the disappointment was towards was unclear.
"T-they're in the kitchen," Ruben added. "They're acting funny again."
Inez grit her teeth. The tension spread through her body along with a complicated mix of emotions: frustration, sadness, disappointment, and anger. She wasn't sure what would even be considered normal to feel in a situation like this, so she considered it better to show none of it. Meanwhile, she could feel Carmen's emotions radiating out of her.
"I'm going to talk to them," she said, her voice clearly restrained.
"I don't care," Hugo replied.
"Excuse me?" Carmen shot back.
"I don't care! I don't want their help! I don't want them!"
Carmen bent down and stared sternly at her baby brother.
"You do realize that you are talking about your parents, yes?"
"I WISH I HAD DIFFERENT PARENTS!"
Smack!
In an instant, Carmen grabbed Hugo's hand and slapped his wrist.
"You never say something so disrespectful again, understand?"
His only reply was his eyes welling up in tears.
"Leave him alone!" Ruben's cries fell on deaf ears as Carmen walked away into the house.
Inez was left with her crying brothers outside. This was a normal scene, she wasn't embarrassed anymore. In the beginning, when her parents first lost their jobs, she'd sit on the front porch of their old house and dissociate for hours while they sat inside, high off of morphling. Now, this happened practically every day. She tried to redirect the boys by getting them to play again, anything to keep them away from the house so they couldn't hear Carmen yelling.
The ReapingsMr. Howard smiled as he straightened his son's lab coat.
"You really didn't have time to change?" he teased.
Trent chuckled. "You know I came right from the lab, and besides, science never rests!"
"I'm so proud of you, my dear boy," said Mrs. Howard, pure pride beaming from her voice. "After all you've been through, here you are, still studying to make the world a better place-"
"Can I go now?"
Trent shot a glare at his little sister, Cynthia, who was standing impatiently next to her mother.
"I have to go get in line!"
"Oh, Cynthia, wait for your brother!"
She rolled her eyes, her discomfort practically palpable. Trent could hardly hold back his laughter. Little Cynthia, as small as she was, somehow managed to be smarter than her own parents. She saw things they didn't. She saw Trent for who he was. However, she was also smart enough to know that if her parents found out, it would kill them.
"It's alright," said Trent. "We best get going now anyway." He walked over and ruffled Cynthia's soft black hair, identical to his own. He didn't mean for it to be demeaning, but she glared up at him with anger in her eyes. "Let's go, manita."
Before they could walk away, Mrs. Howard gave both of her children a tender kiss on the cheek before sending them off. Trent placed his hand on his sister's shoulder and guided her with him toward the blood-testing line. Cynthia put up with it until they reached the line and out of her parent's sight where she practically shook him off.
"Cynthia…" Trent said sadly.
"Don't."
Trent reached out again.
"Don't touch me!" Her words were whispered to prevent unneeded attention but her words were strained with the anger of a scream.
Trent sighed and put his hands in his lab coat pocket. The pair began to argue back and forth in Spanish, so the majority around them couldn't hear their words. Meanwhile, the moments left until the reapings ticked down. Peacekeepers began to forcefully lead the last remaining children of age into the lines. The morphling families were always last. You could tell from their ratty clothes and the abnormal level of maturity in their eyes. This year, Carmen and Inez took up the very end. They had to practically run to the district square after prying their parents out of their drugged stupor and escorting them to the audience section.
Inez rubbed her shoulder to ease the pain from the peacekeeper shoving her. She turned the rub into smoothing out her white blouse, a hand-me-down from her mother that was just a few sizes too big. Inez remained stoic when her turn came and the woman pricked her finger and confirmed the blood was hers.
Attention! The reaping is about to begin! Please take your positions immediately
Carmen escorted her younger sister to the female 16-year-old section and whispered encouragement before heading off to the 18-year-old section. Inez stayed on the edge of the section and looked out towards the boy's side. She squinted and scanned the crowd until dusty red hair caught her eyes. Pilot, her best friend since kindergarten, sent a friendly nod her way from his side. Neither of them were standing with other friends, neither of them had any other friends. At school, the pair weren't exactly considered to be rays of sunshine. They were quieter and blunter than most and looked out for themselves more than worrying about being people pleasers- coming from the poorest part of District 6 didn't help their popularity either. Inez and Pilot didn't mind being the outcasts, however, because at least they had each other.
The Panem anthem began to pour across the district square, the music distorted by the quality of the old speakers. Everyone snapped to uneasy attention as the escort took the stage. He was a young bald man wearing a skintight leopard suit. Inez knitted her eyebrows in confusion as she noticed it even appeared he had surgically added whiskers to his face. He began to give the same old governmentally mandated speech nearly every escort had to give before finally getting to the moment everyone had been praying never came.
"Now, we shall announce the tributes for the 84th Hunger Games. We declare that we shall start with the girls." He moved up to the first fishbowl of names and plunged his hand into the sea of paper inside. As his hand dropped down, so did everyone's hearts, only for anxiety to rise up again as he pulled out a card and began to unfold it.
"We declare, the female tribute will be… Inez Weston-Castillo!"
The crowd shifted and people looked from side to side, searching for the owner of the name just called. Even the people next to Inez didn't recognize the growing fear of the girl standing beside them. This was Inez's 4th year at the reapings. She had seen girls fall to their knees and sob and boys begin to scream their heads off. All appropriate reactions to being sent to your death for entertainment. However, Inez simply drew in a deep, uneasy breath. It was like she was a little girl again, sitting on her old front porch and dissociating as her parents got high inside. While Pilot looked on in horror, Inez seemed somewhat stoic, resigned. She stepped forward, finally catching the attention of the crowd, and made her way to the stage.
"Weston-Castillo…" Trent muttered to himself from his spot in the male 18-year-old section of the crowd. A strained chuckle escaped his chest. His new test subjects were also "Weston-Castillos." He had planned to obtain them later tonight once his parents went to bed. It was a rare enough combo of names, they had to be related. Perhaps their daughter? A sister? A cousin? His chuckle continued as he thought to himself:
What an unfortunate family… Today is truly their day of tragedy.
"We shall now move onto the boys…" the escort moved to the 2nd bowl and stuck his hand in. He moved it about, stirring up the name cards inside until he stopped and plucked a card off the top. "We declare the male tribute will be… Trent Howard!"
Like a wave, the people surrounding Trent took a step back. They stared at him, eyes wide with shock. Trent also hadn't moved. His posture from the moment his name was called hadn't changed. He was staring at the ground, hands in his pockets. The only thing that moved was his grin as it spread across his cheeks. With a smooth turn of his heels, Trent started to make his way out of the crowd. He could feel how the air had changed when he stepped out into the clear and it made it near impossible to contain the chuckle in his chest. With each step, it slowly began to slip past his smiling lips. At first, it seemed as if Trent might have been coughing or even crying, but by the time he reached the stage his restrained laughter turned into a howling mad cackle. His wicked laugh echoed around the District as he stepped up and stood next to Inez.
"We do declare that these are District 6's tributes for the 84th annual Hunger Games- Inez and Trent! Shake hands!"
Trent instantly put his hand forward. He presented it with all the decorum and poise of a gentleman, but when Inez grasped his scarred palms she knew she was shaking the hand of a killer. With this in mind, she took his hand as firmly as she could and looked him dead in the eyes.
Inez Weston-Castillo, 16, District 6"You have 5 minutes," a peacekeeper shouted as he shoved a kid inside the room where Inez waited.
"Pilot!" Inez cried when she saw her friend.
"Shit, Inez," the scrawny boy said as he attempted to catch his breath, clearly winded from having run to see her. Either from his exhaustion or from the shock of the situation, words failed him. "Shit!"
"I know…" Inez said as she plopped down on a sofa in the room. "I- I don't know what to do."
"Well, you gotta fight!"
"Have you seen what I'm up against?"
"Yeah, but I also saw you shake hands with em'! Inez, you just shook hands with Doctor Death- you stared him in the eyes."
Inez looked at her hands. She hadn't really fully processed what she had just done. She was so caught up in the fear of leaving her family that all she was thinking about was survival and to survive you need to make a strong impression- she wasn't thinking about who that impression was left on.
"Listen," Pilot got close to Inez, practically in her face. "I'm not watching my best friend die in that arena. After all, we've been through? Nah, Inez, you ain't dying that easy."
"I'm not exactly a fighter-"
"I've seen you wrestle your brothers! Better than I could."
"Well-" Inez was beginning to get flustered from the constant counter to her hesitations. "Yeah, b-but that's all I have, Pilot!" She chuckled nervously. "I mean, you know me better than anyone you know I'm not really going to be winning any sponsors."
"Pft, it's not like the district is going to be sending many sponsors to the other guy."
Suddenly, the door threw open behind them. A peacekeeper stood at the door with his baton and stared down at the two.
Pilot shot a worried glance back before beginning to walk back.
"Don't you dare say goodbye. Don't you dare!"
Before Inez could say a word, the peacekeeper escorted Pilot out of the room but he was quickly replaced by the rest of the Weston-Castillo family practically running through the door. Carmen, Hugo, and Ruben ran up and embraced Inez. Normally, she wasn't one for hugs, but this was the one time in the world she needed one. Her siblings broke out into sobs and began to sing their sorries and well-wishes, but Inez had their gaze fixed above them all. She was looking at her parents, still clearly stoned, standing in the doorway. They were crying, but not saying anything. Simply watching and starring. Inez could feel the anger in Carmen and Hugo as they shot occasional glares back at their parents. In the middle of it all, she stood up and walked up to them. She had so many things to say- advice, admonishment- but none of it came. She practically fell forward and hugged them both for the first time in years and when pulled back she said:
"I love you."
Then, the doors opened again and Inez's stoic silence began to break. This time had felt so much shorter than it did with Pilot.
"Wait!" Inez cried as the peacekeepers forced her family outside.
"PLEASE!"
Her cry fell on deaf ears as the door of the visiting room slammed in her face.
"I- I don't want to be alone…"
Trent Howard, 17, District 6"Take all the time you need," said a masked peacekeeper as he gently ushered Trent's family inside. From the voice alone, Trent knew it was Arnold.
Mrs. Howard was sobbing into a handkerchief while Mr. Howard rushed up and embraced his son.
"I believe in you, my boy," he said as he squeezed him tighter. "There will be boys in there who are tougher than you are, but no one smarter, you hear? That's all you need."
"This isn't fair!" Mrs. Howard said through tears. "Your health isn't good enough to compete- when you get to the Capital, tell them! Tell them about the accident and they'll send you right back home!"
Trent frowned, the emotions of others were lost on him but it pained him deeply to see his mother so sad.
"Mother, I'm afraid that's not how this works-"
"Just come home to me. I just want my little boy home, I can't lose him again! I just heard you sobbing when you were walking up onto the stage and I-"
Mr. Howard broke away from his son and moved to comfort his wife. Meanwhile, Trent looked at Cynthia. When she noticed his attention, she grinned. Sister like brother, she too had the capacity to form a truly evil grin. Her arms were crossed and she leaned up against the wall watching. Trent placed his hand gently on his mother's shoulder.
"Mother, Father, I love you both dearly, but may I ask for time alone with Cynthia? I wish to say our goodbye in private."
Cynthia's eyes grew wide at the request.
"Of course, my boy." Mr. Howard said with a nod.
Mrs. Howard cradled her son's face in her hands briefly before allowing herself to be led away. As the door clicked closed behind them, Cynthia spoke.
"You know, those are the only people in this whole district crying for you."
Trent frowned. "Manita-"
"Oh don't you Manita me like we're just two normal siblings living normal lives- You're a murderer! And you know what, Trent?" She said, venom in her voice when she said her brother's name. "I'm glad you got reaped. Now, Mom and Dad will finally see the real you. The killer."
"I am no murderer, I am a scientist trying to make this world a better place-"
"BULLSHIT!" Cynthia cried. "I hope the Capital does to you what you've done to your 'test subjects' for years and turn you into the most horrid and unfortunate mutt imaginable."
Trent's heart began to pound uncontrollably and he couldn't understand why. There was no threat, no trigger, nothing to provoke such a response in him, but suddenly he felt faint. He moved away from Cynthia and said down on the sofa to steady himself.
"I just… I just wanted to tell you that I know you fear me, but I would have never hurt you, Manita."
Her eyes grew wide in surprise. For a moment, sympathy flashed in her eyes like she was transported to back before the accident- to when Trent was her loving older brother. It lasted only a moment, however, before Cynthia's face soured again.
"Go to hell!" she stammered before running out of the room.
Although she left the door to slam behind her, Arnold quickly caught it and entered behind her. He saw Trent sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands, a confusing sight since he had never seen Trent display many genuine emotions before. Arnold walked up and put his hand gently on Trent's shoulder.
"Ey, we gotta get going boy," he said as gently as he knew how. "But don't worry, ya' will be back soon, I know's it!"
Trent let out a breath he had been holding in. With the exhale, his normal formal and monotone demeanor returned. He stood on and nodded to Arnold.
"Let's go, my friend."
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A/N That concludes our 2nd reapings! Big thank you to wiifan2002 and chcolate for submitting Trent and Inez, they were really fun to write because they both had interesting quirks around them that forced me to really think while writing them. What do you guys think about Trent and Inez? Any predictions about how they'll do in the games? Leave a review and let me know! Thanks for reading :)