District 9 Pre-Reapings

TW: This chapter contains mentions of sexual assault, bullying and discrimination.

LAURA ACKERMAN (13)

DISTRICT NINE FEMALE

Laura knew that losing her childhood would be inevitable.

And yet, no matter how much she tried not to dwell on it, she couldn't help but take one look at the vast, unknown future that awaited her like a bumpy road, and begin to wonder, what could possibly be there, waiting for the opportune moment to throw itself at her.

Even at a young age, she had known that the world was a cruel, vile place. But as a child, she could still have her mother by her side, and Laura was smart enough to know that adulthood would bring far more challenging difficulties than what she was going through in her youth. That was why she tried her best to preserve what little bit of childishness she had left in her, playing games with her friend Caddie, telling silly jokes that were frankly quite lame, running around the vast, open fields whenever possible.

But her childhood was rapidly slipping away right in front of her own eyes.

And it had all started the day she had been employed by that monster Catullus.

She had only been eleven, a girl who was too poor to continue her schooling, and one who looked far older than she actually was. This would prove to be an advantage in seeking employment, as Catullus was looking for young, thirteen-year-old children to work as maids in his house, although these 'maids' were more like slaves, but Laura didn't dare to point that out. Her neighbours warned her about working there, begging and pleading for her to change her mind.

"He does horrible things to those boys and girls who walk through those doors," they would caution, pointing at the steel gates that guarded the mansion Catullus, the Head Peacekeeper of District Nine, resided in. "Especially the girls. He ruins them completely."

Laura had only been eleven then, too naive, too innocent to understand what they had meant. Besides, working for Catullus reaped a far better wage than hard labour out in the grain fields under the whip of some abusive farmer, which was the only other option that Laura had.

So it had been a no-brainer for her, really.

It would spell the beginning of a living nightmare.

The servants' quarters were more like a torture dungeon than an actual living space, where up to ten people would be packed into a single room, sharing one cold, dirty toilet in desperate need of plumbing and tussling for sleeping space with the numerous spiders, cockroaches and lizards that also wished to sleep in this area. Privacy was at a premium in these quarters, and sometimes, Laura would wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by cobwebs and drool from other servants, as just a few feet away from her, a loud moan signalled that people were committing an act that would tear apart her innocence forever. The food served in this mansion was decent, Laura supposed. A couple of spoonfuls of rice was better than starvation. However, Laura couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy every time she looked out of the window of the mansion and caught sight of children prancing around on the cobbled streets of Wichita as they chewed contentedly on a savoury pastry fresh from the bakery. District Nine had an abundance of culinary delights, with the local cuisine being of special importance to the people here. However, Catullus couldn't care less about this delectable selection of cheap yet delicious food that he could so easily feed to his servants.

No, instead he insisted on shoving exactly two spoonfuls of cold, stale rice down each one of their throats every day. The rice carried a horrid stench that never failed to make Laura lose her appetite every day during meal times. She would crave bread, eagerly awaiting the weekends so she could return to her shambles of a home near the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers. It wasn't much, in fact, it was just a messy, dilapidated shack, but it was where her mother and siblings resided, where she could find solace after a long week at the mansion, where she could enjoy her mother's homemade bread and pastries.

It was also where the old, faded photograph of her father was nailed to the cracked walls, his cheeky smirk oozing with confidence, his cocked eyebrow daring, adventurous, his outstretched hand gripping tightly onto a sickle.

It was the last photo ever taken of him.

Just two weeks later, in the chaos of the Black Days, a dark, turbulent period of District Nine's history, he would perish due to a cholera outbreak in the Gleeson Fields where he worked at.

Laura could still remember that miserable look on his face as he stood hunched over the toilet, as a barrage of food and bile stormed out of his mouth and nostrils, just as his muscles began to cramp, causing him to fall on his knees and throw up all over the floor, breaking down in a devastated sob instantly afterwards.

She could still remember his pleas to be killed as he lay on his deathbed, covered in vomit and his own faeces, a far cry from the witty, humorous father he had once been.

His final moments were the epitome of psychological torture.

Laura bit her lip, trying to force his agonised cries of despair out on her head, but she never could. They were forever etched into her memory, a resonating echo of the past that refused to go silent.

There were, however, worse horrors that were still to come.

Laura wiped the sweat off her eyebrows, the long shift finally drawing to a close. The muscles of her legs ached tremendously, begging for its longing desire to rest to be fulfilled. Her head throbbed, the stress and anxiety of running around doing the bidding of Catullus piling a heavy burden on her head.

But it would soon be over and she could retire to the servant quarters and rest.

She was considered fifteen in this place, even though she wasn't, due to that lie she had told to even get employed in the first place. To be frank, Laura was surprised the trick had even worked at all. All Catullus had to do was look at where she stood in the Reaping Square to determine that she indeed had not been thirteen, or even of Reaping age, at the time of her application.

His idiocy was truly beyond the limits of Laura's mind.

A weary smile spread across her face as Caddie came up to her, that wide, eager grin plastered on her face as she weakly slapped Laura on the back. "Hey there, Cad," she chirped, her voice heavy with a blistering exhaustion.

"How's our little, ah, youngster, doing?" Caddie asked, smirking as she winked at Laura, who promptly rolled her eyes. Caddie was the only member of the household who knew about Laura's real age, a concealed secret she couldn't risk exposing, lest she face severe punishment for her lies.

"So, how's your day?" Laura asked nonchalantly as the pair of them marched along with the procession of servants down a flight of stairs.

"Absolutely terrible," Caddie replied, her face hardening, her eyes glinting with anger as she jammed her fist into her pocket. A sudden mood change that was not at all uncommon around here, as the environment tended to be rather volatile and unpredictable, a testament to the conditions of work here. "Those Dale brothers, the ones from Salina? Yeah, they were giving me weird looks. Ugh, I can't stand being around those two twats, especially not after what they did to Hannah."

It took a moment for a scowl to flash across Laura's face, the connotations of the brothers' looks taking a while for her innocent mind to register in her head.

At least she wanted to think that she was innocent, even if she knew she wasn't.

Laura wished she hadn't known about what those creepy, absolutely bastards of jerks had done to Hannah, a fellow maid girl, it made clinging onto her childhood that much harder. The tears sloshed down that poor, poor girl's face as she ran away from the mansion, her clothes tattered and torn, her skin covered in cuts and bruises, it had been a ghastly sight.

And yet, it had been expected.

The Dales were close accomplices of Catullus, being his favourite employees, since their estate in Salina was where mounds of gold Catullus's father had supposedly stolen during a raid on the District during the Dark Days was rumoured to be kept.

And according to some rather sinister urban legends, it was where Catullus would routinely carry out secret experiments on live human test subjects, that would explain the routine disappearances of little kids and old people from the streets of Wichita and Salina.

Keeping that secret stash hidden under lock and key was crucial to Catullus, which was why he had agreed to take in those two troublemaker black sheeps of the Dale family.

Those brothers were probably born with an absolutely twisted heart and mind.

But Laura tried to shove it out of her mind as she gave Caddie a hug, muttering, "Oh my, I'm sorry." It wasn't fair, how children like them had to face the horrors that this cruel world spat out at such a young age.

And yet, it was the cruel norm around here, one Laura had grown to accept.

Caddie blinked back a tear, shoving back a loose strand of hair. "Yeah, anyway, do you wanna play chess with Kenny and Gwenith again?"

Laura thought for a while. She wanted to play such games, to try and preserve her quickly dwindling childhood.

But she knew she had to sleep early, so she could wake up fresh and ready to report for duty.

There would be time to run around the fields and play jump rope and hide and seek in the weekends, a time when she could let that inner child in her come alive, but in the weekdays, she had to focus on the tasks and duties ahead of her.

Before she could respond, though, the booming voice of Catullus blared across the halls, louder than a boom of thunder from the heavens. The cold, sinister undertone in his voice was unmistakably characteristic of him, as was the low growl that followed quickly afterwards. Laura's heart began to thump wildly against her chest as terror held her in a vice-like grip. That voice, it was one she loathed, but whenever he shouted, it was enough to strike cold fear into the heart of servants, pulverising the life out of them.

"LAURA ACKERMAN AND CADDIE MAXWELL, GET INTO MY OFFICE THIS INSTANT!"

Oh no.

All eyes shifted towards the pair, who stood there, their faces frozen in a glassy state of horror, unable to move a foot towards the dark oak door that led to Catullus's office of terror, where unspeakable things were said to take place.

What had they done wrong? Laura wondered, tracing the bile as it ran down her throat, her palms drenched in bucketfuls of sweat. Getting summoned to the infamous office was never a good thing, no, it almost always signalled trouble with a capital T.

She had always done her chores, done all the dirty work that Catallus had forced upon her, done everything to win favour from everyone. She had followed every single rule, even the laxest of ones that no one had ever bothered to follow. She had even ignored those wolf whistles and catcalls Catallus and the Dale brothers constantly seemed to shoot at her, all in an effort to stay out of trouble and hold on to her job and meagre income.

She was absolutely certain she had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Nonetheless, she knew that trying to escape or stall would be a terrible mistake.

She glanced towards Caddie, who was still rooted to the spot, a ghostly whiteness splashed across her face. Laura grabbed her hand and tried to tug her along, but Caddie's hand was trembling horribly, an icy coldness running through her normally warm hand.

"Come on, we have to-" Laura implored, taking a few dutiful steps forward, but Caddie put up a bit of resistance. "It'll be worse if we don't go," she insisted.

As they slowly waded across the sea of servants to the room, Laura's eyes drifted to the crystal figurines proudly displayed on the walls of the mansion, tiny, intricately-designed objects that she had always loved to gaze in awe at. Her eyes rested on one of them, a man dressed in a cloak. His eyes seemed sympathetic, pitiful of her current plight.

Maybe it was her childhood imagination, but she could just hear him wishing her good luck and telling her to be dutiful as always.

The pair entered the room together, and instantly, upon seeing the look that Catallus was giving them, an uncomfortable premonition pervaded her senses. She gulped as he approached her.

This wasn't going to end well.

Her childhood had drawn to a close, and in its place was a period where the world would throw its heaviest rocks at her.

TOTLEN MILLET (18)

DISTRICT NINE MALE

If people knew about Totlen's secret activities, the judgement and mocking would be inevitable.

That was why Totlen would always remain quiet, never being in the spotlight or the forefront of attention, always keeping his personal information a closely-guarded secret that only he knew about. Sure, that meant he was more often than not detached from everybody else, but that was the way he liked it, and the way he intended for things to be.

They would never find out his hidden passions.

Born to a large family of nine in District Nine, yes, the sheer irony of that number was a joke that his oldest brother Marcos had told him an umpteen number of times, leaving Totlen nothing short of unamused. Marcos was a great guy, sure, but Totlen wasn't too close to him, no matter how much Marcos tried to reach out to him. Marcos really did make an effort to joke around and lighten the mood in the household, but he was often too busy to hang around with, and besides, those jokes that he told were pretty lame, although Totlen never had the heart to tell him this. He had hoped that the awkward, forced laughter he let out in the aftermath of a bad pun or joke would get the message across, but apparently it had not.

Ah well, he was too nice not to laugh at one of Marcos's jokes anyway.

Marcos was often the mediator between his parents, a pair of former lovers who know spent every single hour of their lives hurling out their frustrations and emotions at one another, spilling out chunks of verbal abuse as they bickered endlessly with one another after a long, tiring day at the Millet Grain Fields, the family farm that they owned and cared for in an effort to keep up with the Capitol's ridiculous production quota. Marcos, happy as he seemed, was just as exhausted, weary, in desperate need of a rest, Totlen could tell just as much.

Which was why he never bothered Marcos, the guy who spearheaded the pack of siblings, cared for them whenever their parents could not, which was unfortunately a frequent occurrence in recent times owing to their non-stop arguing.

But not even he would understand if Totlen ever revealed his secrets.

You see, the District known for its vast fields, tall granaries and exceptional baking skills hid a dark secret that trickled far beneath the exterior.. A glossed-over truth that lurked here and about, but no one ever bothered- or dared- to address.

The insane homophobia that had spread across the District like a plague.

Totlen had never quite known the origins of this appalling discrimination, and neither did anyone in Nine for that matter. But the laughably false rumours spread around certainly tarnished the reputation of homosexuals.

And Totlen was one of them, just that the District hadn't caught wind of his sexual orientation just yet.

Certainly, the attitude of these people was nothing short of cruel and barbaric, but Totlen had never plucked up the courage to fight against it, nor could he even bring himself to come out of the closet.

He would risk being outcasted and shunned by society for the rest of his life.

Shy, quiet little Totlen could only watch and observe from the events unfold from a distance, his eyes widening in alarm every time he caught sight of one of the former gang members of Nine's latest Victor Miller Thompson came barging into the sound of a suspected homosexual and beat him up.

It was a pressing issue that he could not gather the bravery to speak out against.

He was forced to hide it, conceal it, shroud it in a cloud of unknown mysteries, and it only sunk him further and further into his own realm of thinking, separated him from the populace at large who he perceived to be homophobic, when in fact, they were more sympathetic than they appeared to be.

Of course, Totlen did not know about this, nor was he aware of the fact that his father too had feelings for a man who worked in a nearby farm, a spark that had ignited further conflict between him and the wife he had vowed to love for eternity.

The only two people he ever really felt safe in confiding in were his younger sister Julianna and his old Grandma Quin.

So, when he found an old rag doll, its features tattered and torn but not quite unrepairable, the first thought that crossed his mind was to bring it straight to Grandma Quin. He had found it while cleaning the kitchens, in a hidden crevice just behind the fridge, a place no one would possibly check. The old thing was covered in thick layers of dust that blew into his face the instant he picked it up, that old, stitched smile on its face half-crooked, it's hand snapped in half.

But it was nothing he and Grandma Quin couldn't fix together.

After all, he had stitched his own dolls as a child from bits of material that he could gather, playing with them instead of the conventional wooden figurines and balls boys here often toyed around with.

So off he went, clamouring up the old wooden steps to the second floor, where he knew Grandma Quin would have just finished a class with Julianna and that girl Laura who often came over for lessons. Laura was a bit of an enigma to him, having revealed little about her past, or why she needed to receive schooling from Grandma Quin, but his family had been more than happy to help her out. As Totlen rounded the corner to head into the corridor of the second floor, he bumped face-first into someone. A sharp pain jolted up his nose as he stumbled backwards, quickly gripping a tight hold of the stairway railings to prevent a disastrous fall. He yelped, swinging his other arm around wildly as he struggled to regain his balance, his heart still thrashing about like one of the little twins of the family. Totlen swerved his head to face his 'attacker', a bewildered look in his eyes, but his gaze softened when he saw Laura standing there, clutching her worn-out backpack as if it contained a hidden treasure, her eyes wide in panic.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I- I didn't see you there," she gasped, quickly extending a hand and pulling Totlen to his feet. Her arms were astonishingly strong for such a young girl, although she did look much older than she claimed she was. Her lips trembled as she began to apologise profusely, remorse and guilt resonating through her body language. Totlen simply gave her a shy smile and chuckled slightly, a gesture that stunned Laura to silence. "W-why are you laughing?"

"It's fine, Laura, it wasn't your fault," he assured her softly, his voice a mere shy peep but he hoped Laura got the message.

Laura gritted her teeth, tightening that iron grip on her backpack. "Yeah, but still-" Her gaze shifted towards the old clock on the walls of the house, it's clock face covered in a thick layer of dust that clouded it like mist, but the hands were still somewhat visible, even if you did have to squint to read the time properly. "Oh gosh, the twins are expecting me, I have to go," she blurted out, her voice hasty, anxious as she tried to step past Totlen. Just then, a lightbulb flickered in the back of Totlen's head. Glancing down at the rag doll lying on his palm, he stopped Laura, who stared up at him with urgent eyes. "I think your brother might want to play with this," he told her, handing out the rag doll. "It's pretty worn-out, but Grandma Quin and I-"

"It's wonderful!" Laura exclaimed, blinking in disbelief, her mouth wide agape as she grasped the doll, turning it in her nimble fingers to examine its features. However a flash of realisation bolted into her eyes and she quickly glanced up, an apologetic look popping up in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you," she murmured, bowing her head slightly in remorse.

Totlen's shy smile widened a little. "It's fine, you don't have to apologise for that. What I was trying to say is, Grandma Quin and I could fix that doll up for you," he offered.

A grateful smile beamed across her face, but she shook her head, much to Totlen's surprise. "No, I think I can do it myself. Stitching together these dolls, it was a childhood pastime of mine, I like doing it, you know, just to feel like a young child again." A willowy sorrow wisped across her face, her lips pursing as she gazed longingly at the ground beneath her. To be a child again, Totlen couldn't really relate much to her, he had never made too much of an attempt to preserve his childhood. But Laura, she was different. She seemed to be fighting tooth and nail just to cling on to that final but of childish innocence, desperate to keep a firm hold of her past. "Anyway, I have to go now, the twins will be waiting and I need to take care of them, just to repay the favour."

"You don't have to repay us anything," Totlen insisted meekly. "We're just happy to help."

"Thank you, but it is my duty and besides, I must admit, I do like skipping ropes with them, you know, childhood nostalgia and all," Lauren told him, before she gave one, final wave as scampered down the steps.

Totlen continued to saunter down the corridor, until he reached Grandma Quin's room. It was a fairly modestly-sized one, with not too much decoration around, with the exception of a large snapshot of the family posing together hung proudly on one of the walls.

Back when Totlen's parents didn't argue all the time.

Grandma Quin was sitting on a wooden rocking chair, a kind, warm, nurturing smile on her face as she narrated a tale from her past to Julianna, who gazed at her from the floor with big, eager eyes that seemed on the verge of popping through her thick glasses. Totlen quietly slipped in, so as to not interrupt Grandma Quin.

"You know, before the Dark Days and all the rebellion stuff happened, I once ventured into the Capitol on a train," she was telling Julianna, her slightly raspy voice rich with that distinctive storyteller tone she always had, her face bright with expression, her hands waving wildly to portray certain gestures. "I spent a couple of days there and let me tell you, it was the most extravagant, extraordinary place I have ever seen! It is something out of a fantastical dream, I couldn't believe my eyes!"

The Capitol.

While most in Nine deeply resented the Capitol and would very much like to see it burnt to the ground in a fit of revenge, Totlen was a secret admirer of the place. The fashion, the makeup, everything about it fascinated him to the core. The way the escort to their District never seemed to have any qualms about his or her sexual orientation, the way they dressed, the food they ate, the riches they possessed, the technology they were capable of, the Capitol never ceased to fill him with awe and wonder, a mythical place that was tantalisingly close the borderlands of their District- a place his sister Taylen had reached before by sneaking onto one of the Red Trucks that regularly visited each town, stopping by at the ancient, ruined statue in the Ceres Markets in Wichita every noon- yet one he knew he could never reach.

The fashion was of particular interest to Totlen.

Because there was yet another secret that he hid from everyone with the exception of Grandma Quin.

He loved putting on his sisters' dresses and created his own makeup using materials such as grain.

It was a secret that thoroughly embarrassed him, but nonetheless, it was something he enjoyed doing, even if he knew that the exposure of this secret would wipe away any sort of reputation he once had.

Still, the satisfying feeling of staring at his mirror in those beautiful dresses and with his ingenious concoctions of makeup on was unmatched.

Besides, if it was perfectly acceptable in the Capitol, why couldn't the same be true here? Those escorts, in their glamorous fashion, always seemed to be mocked and bullied every Reaping, it simply wasn't fair, and it did nothing to boost Totlen's self-confidence.

He gazed back at his grandma, who continued to animate tales of her voyage to the Capitol, as Totlen and Julianna listened attentively with a wide-eyed fascination.

Sometimes, Totlen wished he could flee to the Capitol, the land where he could freely express himself.

A/N: What did you think of Laura and Totlen? How far can they go? Who's your pick for the finale thus far? Let me know your thoughts in the reviews, you don't have to review, but each and every one of them make my day aha. Well, there we have it, thank you to cartierscrown for Totlen and LadyCordeliaStuart for Laura, these two were great if not a little hard for me to portray at first aha, but it's cool I struggle a lot with interpreting tributes lmao (gestures to the circa hundred times I opened and closed Quianna's form). So, before we move on, I wanna advertise some of my friends' open SYOTs over here, please consider subbing to them, it would make their day I'm sure and it would make my day too as a result. There's The Queen's Gambit by the amazing queen Rune Whisperer (check out her moodboards and blogs, they're stunning), Into The Abyss by the fantastic Remus98, who has an incredible knack for worldbuilding, like it's legit incredible, A Game In The Shade Of Red by the wonderful chcolate and last but by no means least, Mission Zero by the astonishingly brilliant queen Marie464, aka my twin who I can't thank enough for always being there for me. And yeah, please consider subbing to them, and I think that's a wrap! Have a nice day everyone, and I'll see you next time for D10! Cheers :)