The square was unnaturally quiet today, Reaping day. Commonly there would the incessant clatter of machines at work, the whir of thread as it spins round and round on spools, and the knocking of looms while the shuttle runs, under over, under over. I can't pretend that I ever found pleasure in any of these cacophonic noises, but their absence was always unsettling. Even with the whispers and the call of birds overheard the world was far too quiet, far too at ease, particularly for what was about to happen.
I looked about at the gaunt, sullen faces that surround me in every direction. Their eyes just as wide and searching as mine. Brothers and sisters, sweethearts all meeting at the simple rope divide between genders, hoping to hold hands and cling on to one another for as long as possible, just in case. I couldn't help but feel that they were just as unsettled by the silence as I was. Actually, I'm sure that they were, for in my memory there was only one other day that the textiles were quieted to such a ghostly hush, other than for Reapings, and that was the day of the accident. Most people, even my elder sisters Rose and Silk attested to the ill luck that such an event should, and could ever occur. Though what no one spoke of was how all the rebel inclined had been on shift that day, that somehow the leakage of gas could go so unnoticed until it was too late, and in some way, a spark could have been made to ignite it all.
No, no one spoke of it, the incident that had left me an orphan to be raised by Rose, and Silk, but we all thought of it. No one could hide Eight's past, after the ill fated seventy-fourth Games we were the first to rise to rebellion. That was likely the reason why we were so forcefully put back down and watched with a keen predator's eye. At fourteen, I was already well used to the threat of a rifle pointed at the back of my skull while I worked. I ran a set of needles, as we liked to put it. There was an assembly line of workers, each trained to sew a different part of each garment. I did the pockets and shoulder seams of peacekeeper's uniforms. It was simple, ridiculously so after two years of repetition, but at least I had built up a certain amount of constancy in my stitching.
Rose who was twenty-five and as a to be single mother was scandlously expecting her first child, was a pinner. This meant that she attached clothes together, temporarily before they could be sewn. It was a good sign I suppose, that she could be so patient in doing a job over and over every day, just to have it undone, moments after the fabric leaves her station. Because isn't that what mothers were supposed to be, patient?
My other sister, Silk, whose hands were a perpetual greenish blue toiled in the noxious fumes of the dyeing station, dipping, swirling, and soaking the cloth until it was the desired hue, or myriad of hues. I'd have liked her to work somewhere better, doing something that didn't lea've a chemical burn in her lungs which wheezed every breath, but she couldn't, not confined to the chair as she was.
As much as I owed my sisters for raising me, I think Silk felt a little inadequate at the factory, that she owed her getting around to me, like she was of no use, and was a burden. It was true that I stayed after work to help load the heavy crates onto Capitol trains because dyers were among the last to leave at day's end, but that thought couldn't be farther from the truth. Rose and I would both, frankly go insane without Silk's quiet calm, and her way of managing to solve any argument we might have had after only giving each side a brief listen. She was sort of the heart of the family, Rose was the brain, while I was the much under appreciated voice. I managed to be able to say what the other two couldn't, even behind closed doors.
Being the voice though, was also dangerous. The three of us knew all too well where our parents' allegiances had fallen before their deaths. Rose, who was smarter than was good for her at times always demanded my silence when expressing ideas that could otherwise be considered dangerous. I was always the first to complain about our treatment, our low standard of living, although, granted I had nothing to compare it to, and always the first to be reprimanded for such things as well. I wasn't exactly proud of the lashings I had received in the past, or the rations I had cost my family and the other families of those who worked my shift, but some injustices couldn't go unopposed.
I felt like saying something now even, as I felt the crush of oppression full and unopposed upon my shoulders. Only a cruel and immoral leader backed by a fundamentally flawed and faulted society could have come up with and maintained the evil that was the Hunger Games. Had we, I wondered exchanging nervous smiles with those around me, brought this upon ourselves, not through a failed rebellion, but rather our inaction, and simple compliance. Yes, I think we did.
"Happy Hunger Games everyone!" called down Roman Lunardon from his tall stilt like shoes. It was one thing that seemed eerily constant about the man. Each year he grew more rotund, and each year he dawned taller and taller pairs of shoes as if to compensate for it.
We, the children, gathered in the square's heart edged closer to one another, like frightened, wounded animals. Everywhere hands flew out gripping the person beside you, and I was no different, clinging to girls who, at the moment I didn't have the attention span to look at. We had woven ourselves into a great living sheet of fabric as we watched Roman and waited tearily for what he had to say. Subconsciously I wondered if this is what made Eight so dangerous, caused it to be so heavily guarded and oppressed, more than any other, aside from the former districts of Twelve and Thirteen? In Eight we seemed a collective spirit, and cared for one another. Not that others didn't, but it seemed as apt an explanation as my brain could muster at the moment.
"Prine, Ivory, congratulations!" Roman called out with enthusiasm from the stage.
My own name ringing in my ears I felt my hands on either side being squeezed in an effort to be comforting. I spotted my sisters some ways off. Rose, head held high and powerful like a hawk as she was shooed away by the peacekeeper who had come to push Silk's chair. All the while Silk herself remained prestine and calm as ever.
The electing room which was small seemed even more so as peacekeepers pressed against the walls to make enough room that their toes didn't get run over. I wondered absurdly how large families managed the space when the irritable looking man in metallic curls said, "You may now cast your votes." a pen positioned over his clipboard.
"I cast my vote for-" Silk began, her eyes closed and peaceful. My hands quickly flying over her mouth to cut off her words as strangled, choking sounds began to work their way up from my throat.
"Don't say anything!" Rose sobbed, her swollen belly rubbing against my arm as she came to kneel beside me in front of Silk.
"We, we have to talk things out!" I said through my tears, as one green-blue hand came to caress each of our faces.
Silk shook her head, pulling away from my hands as she did so. "There is no discussion." she put simply before voting for her own death.
I collapsed forward, my head in my dearest sister's lap. It was a selfish thing to admit but I did have a favorite, it was likely for juvenile reasons because Silk never seemed to be able to get mad at me, but it was true. I was sick, dizzy, my heart hammering and head light as the world around me spun. Rose was crying, murmuring quiet lamentations to herself, and I knew that I couldn't let her die, not with the baby, and that I couldn't let her live with that guilt either.
This was the cruelty of the Capitol, the real punishment of the voting, not that each family lost two individuals, but the voting itself. Knowing that you chose who is to die. Even the families of Victors have to live with this pain, the nagging guilt, the knowledge of who among them was deemed expendable. My voice was barely audible when I took that guilt away from Rose, after all I was probably going to die anyway, why make her live the rest of her life with Silk's blood on her hands?
The whole world seemed suddenly devoid of color as they separated us. Then the peacekeeper spoke, and all I could see was red. "Some great loss she'll be!" he mocked.
Rage burned through me and I spun on him. When my fist connected with his jaw the contact was like striking thinly veiled stone, and rattled through my form as I felt the bone slide in the wake of my knuckles. In no time I was on my knees, the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to the exposed skin behind my left ear. Still the fight didn't go out of me until a heard a desperate cry and Silk's calm commanding voice.
"Prine, stop." she said.
Turning to look I found that she too had a gun leveled at her head, a strong hand shoving her to sit forward in her chair. Beside her stood a weeping Rose a firm arm around her shoulders, a pistol pointed decidedly at her round abdomen. They would make her feel the baby die first before allowing her to die if I didn't surrender. Ice filled my veins as I finally seemed to understand what merit our lives really held.
"It's alright, he isn't wrong." Silk continued, but I was already a rag doll being tugged and torn away from them, my only comfort was that if I went peacefully now, I wouln't have to watch.