CHAPTER V: DISTRICT NINE

Emilio Carver • District Nine Male • 16

A week before the Reaping.

Every Sunday, a shabby wooden booth was stationed casually and inconspicuously by the centre fountain of the marketplace. It was run by a boy named Emilio, and it was where he would conduct his weekly puppet shows for all the passersby darting in and out of the square.

His weekly puppet show was something along the lines of an indulgence for him; each Sunday, the family shop would be met with a lull, so his grandfather would dismiss him under the pretense of "closing early." It was the one day of the week Emilio could take off work and do something for himself, the one day Emilio could actually do something with the wood carvings he made that didn't involve selling his pieces to persistent, unappreciative hagglers. Instead, he would perform.

Here in the middle of the marketplace, his craft, his art, actually went noticed. Each Sunday Emilio would gather quite the audience for his puppet shows, something that made him both bashful and proud. Through his linen curtain his identity was concealed, allowing him to perform behind the guise of comfortable anonymity. A crowd had been gathered for some time now, approximately fifteen minutes since Emilio opened the show. They were waiting attentively for his next move.

With a flourish, he raised his wooden finger puppets. He had three positioned on his left hand and another two on his right. All five puppets varied in shape and size, and upon closer examination, one would be able to see the precise ingrains and incisions made in each of them, masterfully carved to create an artistic yet distinct rendition of figures from real life. The people in the audience wouldn't know it, but each of his puppets had been inspired from living, breathing source material. Neither would they know the painstaking, arduous effort it took to perfect the puppet designs.

When Emilio was younger, a ventriloquist with no name taught him the art of wood carving. That had been a summer of bleeding scars and splintered hands, but it had been worth it to get where he was at now. Years of practice yielded him the skill to craft these wooden puppets, and with them Emilio had his audience enraptured, drawn hook, line, and sinker.

"Stop!" The lanky puppet on his right hand ordered. The puppet had brown hair, the same shade as Emilio's. His voice sounded a little strained and raspy, a product of Emilio speaking in a register slightly lower than normal. "Don't you guys see who you're hurting? Corteo has nothing to do with this! Your fight is with me!"

The smaller puppet on his right hand, presumably Corteo, scurried over behind the lanky fellow. It was no easy feat to maneuver his fingers in that way, but Emilio's dexterity made it seem effortless. The lanky puppet shielded Corteo protectively, which only caused the three puppets on the other side of the booth to chortle menacingly. The skinniest puppet on the left side wheezed out with a nasally sputter, "Look at Avilio trying to play hero! It's pathetic!"

The lanky puppet from before, Avilio, seemed to shake his head. He bent down and whispered, "Run away, Corteo," to which the smaller boy happily obliged, fleeing the scene. Avilio then stood back up and advanced closer to the group of bullies, his posture rigid but resolute.

This time, it was the biggest, most crudely-carved puppet that spoke up. His gargantuan stature and rough demeanor spoke of delinquency. With a deep laugh, he boomed, "Oh, you're approaching me?"

When Avilio responded, his voice was completely unwavering. "I can't put you in your place without getting closer."

A smarmy cackle rose out of the trio. "A tough little thing, aren't 'cha?" The big puppet roared. "Me and my boys will teach you not to get in our way!"

But the three puppets hardly had time to charge before Avilio sprinted towards them, guns ablazing. He flew through the bounds of the booth and barrelled straight into his opponents with a frightening speed that left the crowd speechless. It was a beautifully choreographed battle and by the end of it, all three bullies were bound by a piece of thread that seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Not looking so cocky now, are you guys?" Avilio announced victoriously. His cheeky grin could practically be heard by the members of the audience.

Stunned silence. Then, suddenly, an uproar of children's voices seemed to surge out of the crowd. Emilio bashfully arose from behind the booth and bowed, causing the applause to soar even higher, claps pelting noisily off brick buildings and echoing throughout the marketplace.

A woman and her two boys approached him first. "That was a great performance," she gushed, emptying her pocket change onto the wooden counter. "You're a little bit of a role model to these two!"

Emilio could only blush furiously. "I-It's m-my… my pleasure!" he squawked, a little mortified about the delivery but still reeling in awe from the compliment. The women smiled and nodded in response, and to her two boys she said, "Bailey, Scotch, tell the nice boy thank you!"

The kids did as their mother told them, making Emilio turn an even deeper shade of red. The small family of three left as others approached to express their gratitude, a few coming to silently deposit their coins. Despite conducting these shows weekly, he still wasn't accustomed to the praise. If Emilio was honest, he doubted he'd ever be able to get used to it, but it was fine — it just made these fleeting moments all the more sweet.

The crowd eventually began to thin out, and within a matter of minutes the marketplace was back to being as empty as it had been before Emilio's puppet show.

Well, almost empty. There was a figure still lurking a couple feet away, concealed in the shade.

Hold on… not just one figure, Emilio gulped, but three.

It took just a matter of seconds for three figures in the distance to turn into three within close vicinity, close, too close.

"Found your little hideout, boy," the stockiest one, Corvus, cooed. He shot his head up at once of his friends, the one Emilio recognized to be Hector. At Corvus's signal, Hector's hand shot out and grabbed the front of Emilio's shirt, balling the fabric into his fist. His grip was so strong that Emilio was practically dead weight under his clenched fingers.

Corvus continued with his spiel. "I've been trying to find out where you scurry off to every week, but to think it was right under my nose! In the middle of the marketplace!"

Corvus's two cronies erupted into a cacophony of dissonant snorts and chuckles. The skinniest one was laughing so hard that his nose started to whistle, an ear-piercing sound. With a pang, Emilio realized that the skinny one was none other than Marcus, the boy he had a crush on. Emilio's bottom lip began to quiver, but no words formed; only the beginnings of fat, wet tears.

All of them could see him crying which only made them jeer louder. Emilio's fingers were beginning to shake and the movement caused Corvus's eyes to flicker over to the wooden puppets still sitting snugly on Emilio's fingers. A sickening smile painted itself over Corvus's features. He bent close over Emilio's face, casting a shadow over him and pushing him closer to the edge of the fountain. "I was wondering, dear brother," he whispered, "tell me, were those puppets s'posed to be me and my boys?"

Brother. Emilio couldn't remember the last time Corvus referred to him by his real name. It was always an innocent word like boy, kid, brother, twisted into something demeaning and ugly by his older brother's foul tone. Ever since their father passed about six years ago, Corvus had turned into an ugly, malicious caricature of the boy he had been before. He and Emilio had moved in with their grandfather, but their brotherly dynamic had been forever altered. He used to be something like a role model for Emilio, the symbol of unyielding strength and spirit. But it all had seemed to come crumbling down with the death of their father. The once proud statue had turned into rubble, equipped only with the instinct to destroy. And unfortunately, Emilio was his favorite victim.

There had once been a time where Emilio was safe from Corvus's tormenting. When they were younger, their grandfather would step in and berate Corvus for picking on his little brother, allowing Emilio to make his escape. But nowadays, there was no such exit door. Gramps was bedridden and couldn't even leave the house, much less intervene between the brothers' conflict. Plus, Emilio was sixteen years old now, practically a man. He was the only source of income in the Carver family since his grandfather couldn't work and Corvus wouldn't. He should've already been able to figure out a way to get his brother to back off, but Emilio had never been one to assert himself. His older brother should've been the one to protect him, but on the contrary, he was the one that brought Emilio the most pain.

"The puppets — they — no, they—" Emilio tried in vain to muster some sort of response, but Corvus didn't seem to have any consideration for what his younger brother had to say.

"Stop blubbering already! Answer the goddamn question or we'll wreck 'em," Corvus snarled.

Emilio's eyes widened. "Y-you can-t—"

There was a sinister glint in Corvus's eyes. Emilio gulped, his body trembling with immense effort as he strained to keep himself hovered over the fountain. The water was a murky shade of green and depressingly shallow. It hadn't been cleaned in months, and the bottom of it was littered with pieces of copper neighborhood kids would skip in the fountain as a game. He was dangerously close to the edge, and Corvus was dangerously close to losing his patience.

"You do realize," he spat, "Grandfather isn't here to stop me. I can do what I please, and you're. Pissing. Me. Off."

He nodded towards Hector and he abruptly let go of Emilio's shirt, causing him to almost tumble backwards into the fountain. Corvus used the momentary diversion to wave Marcus over, who began prying the wooden puppets off of Emilio's fingers. He hardly had time to object before his tormentors began tossing his creations into the water, each one landing with a dissatisfying splunk.

Emilio could do nothing but watch, hot tears spilling into his mouth. The scene was so barbaric. His chest was heaving and he could feel his shoulders start to crumple and cave in on his slight frame.

"Are you gonna get them? Are you gonna get your freaky little puppets?" Corvus sneered.

Emilio couldn't breathe. Desperately, he searched for something, anything to hold onto and steady himself with. His head felt like it was swimming, and then it was actually swimming. Hector's fist had suddenly found itself entangled in Emilio's brown hair, and it was holding him underwater. His vision seemed to move in frames, flashing shots of the oxidized coins he had observed mere moments prior. Amidst his rising panic, he opened his mouth to scream, fully aware his calls would be futile under the oppressive, stifling quality of water but he found himself unable to think or care. Another beat passed and then a steely yank pulled his head out the fountain, the unadulterated pain from his scalp almost making him forget to breathe entirely.

There was too much happening. Emilio's eyes stinged from the acidic fountain water. His nose was sniffling, His hair was sopping wet and his throat was raw from crying out. Worst of all, there was a tension piercing through both sides of his temples, a tension so strong that he couldn't seem to concentrate on much else. From the corner of his eye, he duly noticed Corvus and his friends departing south-ways from the marketplace with an easygoingness that seemed to mock him, as if they hadn't tried to drown Emilio just moments before.

His abandoned puppets floated miserably among the algae that coated the surface of the water, their wooden shells now stained with a nauseating green. The distant laughter of Corvus, Hector, and Marcus was like a cruel background music for the nightmare that had just occurred. Watching their receding figures made Emilio feel sick to his stomach. To think that not even an hour ago, he felt like a star. Now, he was just an inconspicuous, insignificant member in the audience, unable to interfere in the plot of his own life.

Emilio sat on the edge of the fountain, trying to collect himself as he wheezed and sniffled. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale again. He shook, but now that the adrenaline was wearing off, his fear made way for something else. A certain bitterness burned from inside his brittle heart, but Emilio knew it was going to be a while before he would be able to nurture it into something worth using.

Wisteria Rose Peak • District Nine Female • 16

A week before the Reaping.

As she traipsed through the wheat fields of District Nine, Wisteria couldn't seem to get their words out of her head.

The afternoon sun beat down on her crown of long, coily, black hair. It seemed that during this time of day, the sun's rays were relentless, merciless, unforgiving. The heat made her head throb, but Wisteria could hardly feel it with what was occupying her thoughts.

Wisteria Rose Peak was no stranger to the harsh criticism of her peers. She was known as an easy recipient for taunting, a reputation that was given to her by the girls at her school. Earlier that day, between classes, one girl had mocked, "Wisteria Rose Peak," from above her desk, the girl pronouncing the "k" far too harshly for Wisteria's liking.

"Pretentious bullshit. Your folks think they're in District One or something?"

Her comment brought forth a couple snickers from her classmates, all at Wisteria's expense. She didn't like how her name had fit in the other girl's mouth. It was a raucous, discordant sound, something that made a lump form in her throat and her heart go hard.

When Wisteria refused to even acknowledge that she was there, the girl frowned. She leaned down, her lips not even an inch's distance away from Wisteria's ear. "You think you're fuckin' better than us," she snarled. It was more of an accusation than it was a question. "Admit it. It's so obvious from the way you talk, and the way you never hang out with anybody else, that you think you're hot shit."

Wisteria distinctly remembered wanting to hide, wanting nothing more in that moment than to be gone and out of sight from the other kids and their cruel words. So that was exactly what she did; with a screech of her chair, Wisteria shoved her papers in her raggedy bag, got up, and made her grand escape in the middle of the school day.

None of the teachers at her school were paid enough to care to stop her, so she exited through the front doors with little resistance. She only had one class of the day left, her favorite one, but Wisteria didn't think she could sit through Literature with the way that day was going. No, now that she was out of the school, Wisteria had only one destination in mind. Just get to the lakes, she thought to herself. Get to the lakes. And then I can cool down.

It was strange. Wisteria liked her name — she liked it a lot, ever since she was a kid. Her father loved frivolous, artistic words like that, and so he named his three daughters Chrysanthemum, Wisteria, and Magnolia respectively. Sure, it was odd for a District Nine girl to have such a lengthy, flowery name, but Wisteria didn't mind it.

But if that was truly so, what was the reason for the strange sense of shame she felt creeping up her spine? She should've been used to it by now, used to the alienation. Wisteria had never been treated as anything more than the outcast, and not just for her name. For one, her interests were a little unconventional for a girl living in one of the poorest parts of District Nine, and she was well aware of that. The Peak family resided in a dusty corner of the marketplace, secluded and tucked away in the folds of infrastructural poverty. And yet, Wisteria wrote poetry as if she had time to kill, frolicked in the meadows as if she had not a care, and spoke with a smart tongue as if she could afford the privilege of good education.

Wisteria took after her father in that way, she supposed. Chasing escape in nature and in academics, against what society deemed sensible. Still, Wisteria had never harbored the intention to appear "holier than thou". She deserved to enjoy things as much as the other girls did, and she would never dissuade them from indulging in what they liked the way they did to her.

A curve in the beaten path of the wheat field signaled to Wisteria the uphill trek that awaited her. There was a sign lying dejectedly on the barren ground, which read, "TRESPASSERS BEYOND THIS POINT WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY."

Wisteria disregarded it, as she always did. She took just a moment to peer over her shoulder, more out of habit than genuine paranoia, and when her eyes met nothing but uncaring fields of wheat, she continued up the hill.

If her interests weren't enough to ostracize her for, there were also her peculiar looks. Wisteria and her mother couldn't be more different, except for when it came to appearances; in that regard, she took after her mother with an eerie resemblance. Looking at the two women side by side was like seeing double, apart from their eye colors. Rich brown skin, coarse and coiled black hair, dark brows and plump lips; all their features looked duplicated except for Wisteria's dark brown eyes compared to her mother's piercing grey ones. Regardless, it went without saying that there were more than just a few cosmetic differences between the Peak women and the popular girls that Wisteria went to school with, who boasted fair complexions and glassy eyes. She and they were both pretty in different ways, undoubtedly, but it seemed that prejudice ran rampant in their assessments of Wisteria's character.

She arrived at her destination at last, staring out onto the landscape which lay splayed before her. Under the beating sun, the lakes glittered, millions of miniature reflections twinkling about the surface of the clear water. Surrounding the edges of the lake were a muted rainbow of pebbles, which made a slope and the promise of a gentle descent into the lake. Over on the left side stood a cluster of trees which provided a secluded corner where Wisteria could, hopefully, unwind in the shade.

It was her little oasis — or, at least the closest thing District Nine had to one. She missed the days when her father would bring her and her sisters out for a brief excursion, an afternoon swim and a picnic on the rocks in their own personal paradise. He would tell them stories of a Panem without Peacekeepers, without the Capitol, without the Games. But, nowadays…

Nowadays, what is Father even doing? Wisteria wondered. It was something she was genuinely curious about. She made her way to the shaded area and set her belongings down against the crook of the molasses tree. Regarding her father's whereabouts, she was curious, but it wasn't as if it was truly a cause for concern. There had never been a time in her life that his presence had been a constant… not really. Many moments with him she could recall with a certain tenderness, a certain fondness, but although Wisteria called him her father, he was less of one than he was a traveller that would occasionally sojourn under her mother's roof. Throughout her childhood, Wisteria's father would enter and leave and enter again more times that she could keep track of, causing her mother to grow more impatient and irate with each passing incident.

The relationship between her mother and her father seemed to be something straight out of a love story — at least, the beginning had been. Boy meets girl. She's beautiful, more beautiful than any girl he's ever met, but he's not just looking at her exterior. Boy woos girl with his poetry, his lyrics, his grand, romantic gestures. He's hopeless in an endearing sort of way, and she can't help but be charmed by his silly songs and his love for artistry. He makes her feel seen, truly seen for the first time in her life, and she falls head over heels for him. Against the protests of her family and friends, girl pursues the only love she's ever reciprocated, the only love she's ever known. The boy, Cypress, and the girl, Margaret, live ever after, whispering promises of eternal love and of a future of "forevers".

… except, it didn't exactly end up happening in that way. Cypress's silly songs and love for artistry, the same things Margaret had fallen for, came hand in hand with his crippling fear of commitment. Cypress had the tendency to play hooky for everything including his own family, and it aggrieved her mother to no end.

At the beginning, he would fall back on his grand gestures in order to win her back, and it would work. In the face of his radiant smile and his abundant gifts, she would shake her head and wonder why she had ever been upset with him in the first place. However, as the offences kept escalating, her smile grew taut and her patience tauter still. It didn't take a genius to figure out that her mother regretted what became of her. Today, no longer did her family and friends protest because it was far too late — Margaret had resigned herself to this life when she failed to cut off Cypress after the birth of their second child. She had once been the most coveted, the most desired girl in District Nine, but now she was the subject of humiliation, talk behind closed doors and a warning to little girls against pursuing things that seemed too good to be true.

Still, it felt wrong to advise children to give up and settle. Wisteria knew it hadn't worked out well for her mother, but she didn't think it was wrong to dream a little. It was miles better than actually dealing with real life.

A yawn caught her off guard as she was thinking. Suddenly, she realized how sleepy she was. One snap back to her surroundings and all the fatigue from the day started soaking into her bones, gravity pulling her limbs further into the ground and beckoning her to submit. Wisteria couldn't find a reason to say no. She stretched herself over the cool earth, resting her head on a stone cushioned with moss.

Okay, she thought, just a short nap wouldn't hurt.

A crack of thunder broke open the sky, and Wisteria shot awake with a jolt. The sky was dark, void of light save for the streaks of lightning that skirted in and out of the clouds.

Famous last words, she thought, but her aside was accompanied with more than its fair share of panic. Wisteria's tongue lied uncomfortably in her mouth and she was parched. Her joints ached with resistance as she moved to gather her belongings.

What time was it? How long had she been unconscious? Have I been gone long enough to make Mom worry? She stood with a single objective in mind: to make her way back home.

Although the clouds were misleading, thankfully it didn't seem to be storming where Wisteria currently resided. The lakes that had been beautiful and tranquil the last time she had been awake were churning with a dizzying alacrity, as if they had been waiting to come alive. With haste, she began making her way further into the tree cover, taking a different path from which she came. The farther away she got from the lakes, the drier the ground and surrounding plant life became. Further inwards she could feel plush ground turn into scritchy shrubbery, irritating the exposed parts of her feet. Still, she persisted, stubbornly weaving in and about the shallow forest to reach her destination.

The forests eventually faded into fields, and soon she was face to face with a chain link fence. With little trouble, she found the part where it was loose and took care to maneuver herself under so that it wouldn't nip at her skin or her clothing. Once she had successfully gotten through, she navigated her way towards the marketplace, where her humble abode resided.

When she arrived at her doorstep half an hour later, the sun's rays were already breaking through the distant mountains, painting the sky with crisp, pale yellow strips of light. Just as she had feared; without intending to, Wisteria had fallen asleep through practically the entire night. She gulped, trying to visualize her next move. Perhaps she could climb into bed and pretend she had snuck in when her mother had been asleep. Perhaps she could—

Before Wisteria could concoct a different strategy, her mother rushed out from the front door, advancing towards her daughter. She looked almost animalistic, eyes wild and hair untamed. Her slight frame quivered like a leaf in the wind, and she seemed torn between enveloping Wisteria into a vice grip or exploding. She seemed to grapple with the choice for a couple moments longer before settling upon the latter.

However, her mother's outburst wasn't like anything Wisteria expected. Her mother's brows hiked up harshly, her face twisted into a strained, pained caricature of simultaneous helplessness and frustration. It took Wisteria only a moment before it dawned on her.

Oh, she thought helplessly. This is how Mom always looks when Father comes home.

"You," her mother started, "have been gone all night." Her voice faltered at the tail end of her statement, but she raised an accusing finger at Wisteria to compensate for the anger that might've been absent from her tone. Wisteria knew what her mother wanted. She wanted Wisteria to concede guilt like her father did every time, but she wasn't going to give her mother that satisfaction.

"I was at the lakes."

"What could you have possibly been doing at the lakes, with the weather like this?"

"It wasn't like this when I went." She retorted, hoping her voice held the right amount of both statement and defiance.

Her mother exhaled shakily, nearing tears. "Wisteria Rose Peak, I don't want you going out there anymore, whatever the weather."

Wisteria could only scoff in response, incredulous. "I— I'm grown, Mom! I can go where I like! Please, leave me alone!" Even though she was meeting her mother's words with matched ferocity, she felt something buckling down inside of her. A little bud of guilt from inside of her chest began to crack open, and from it she felt the slightest twinge of shame. But she couldn't back down now. She might've been in the wrong, but she was too far in it now to admit defeat.

Wisteria looked up. And sure enough, proof of her victory stood in front of her in the form of her mother's tears, now spilling freely over her cheeks. "How did it end up like this," her mother croaked, and something inside of Wisteria broke, seeing her mother deconstructed before her the way she'd be during one of Cypress's absences. And Wisteria had no rebuttal.

"I thought I did things right," she continued. "I thought I did things right by you, and by Chrysanthemum and by Magnolia. I just— I just wanted to give you what I could, and I prayed that it would be enough." Her voice wavered even more with her next words. "Somewhere along the way, I must've failed. You're just like him, stuck in your own world, chasing impossible things."

Silence. Her mother gave Wisteria a look she couldn't quite place — longing? Regret? Wisteria was still there. She couldn't have been more than just an arm's reach away, but her mother looked at her like Wisteria was already gone.

"You want more than I can give you, Wisty. I don't know what to do," her mother says at last.

She turned her back on Wisteria and went back into the house, the front door closing with a disconsolate click. And then Wisteria was alone, just how she wanted, except it wasn't, not at all. Not like this, she thought. A lump formed in the base of her throat, swelling like how it did when her peers had mocked her but with a different sense of shame entirely.

"It's not wrong to escape sometimes." A desperate self-consolation, but the waver overtaking her voice only shattered her efforts. "It's not wrong to dream a little."

Her words fell on deaf ears. The sun made its grand crescendo into the heavens, but Wisteria couldn't feel its heat through the cold that permeated through her heart.

District Nine Reapings

July 4th, 10:17 AM

Female Slot: Wisteria Rose Peak - 15 slips

Male Slot: Emilio Carver - 16 slips

a/n: hey did you miss me? i'm back with another update less than a week since my last one. my power is off the shits. well actually tbf it took me more than two months to get last chapter up so i guess i should get my head out of my ass. ahem but anyway! i hope you enjoyed the district nine kids, they are my precious sixteen year olds! a grand thank you to persephone fae and optimisms for submitting emilio and wisteria respectively, i had a blast writing them as you can probably tell from the girthy ass wc of this chapter! thank you goldie for being such a sexy beta and linds too ig (fuck you) :unf: now, onto the best part of a/ns:

q: would you rather be a werewolf or a vampire. why.

$wag im out this bitch,
b00bie