Twenty Four Shades of Blood [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

District Eleven Reaping: Eden Aster and Cruz Ledger

The sky over Eleven is an stormy grey, purple clouds spreading over the district like a bruise. The people hurry in for the reaping, heads down, or at least, those who have been unlucky enough to be drawn for the final reaping do. The others will have to work on, regardless of weather.

Just as the clock in the tired old Justice Building creaks two, the first enormous splodges of rain clatter into the dirt.

Nobody even looks up, fearful of the reaction from the units of Peacekeepers. They stand tall and proud and pristine at every corner, checking as people pass. One or two scowl at the sky. This isn't like the rain in Two. Here, rain falls in great globs, hurled from the bubbling clouds with venom. In the middle of the street, cracked faces turn to the sky, dry dark lips splitting open in a smile.

Only for a second.

"Hurry along!" snaps a brusque, rough voice.

The tide of people continues again, brushing over the dirt ground. One dark wave, worn and thin and grey. Every so often there's a spot of lightness, a girl here, a whole family there. A boy with impossibly milky skin, even more impossible here, pushes sodden strands off straw hair out of his eyes. It's that odd rain, warm and sharp, the sort that falls in sheets. As soon as it touches you, you are soaked to the bone. Not that it takes much to meet people's bones here. If the Capitol could be here, just see how horrific this kind of skinny looks in the flesh (or rather, lack of), they'd long to be fat again.

A fork of lightning splits the sky clean in half as the escort shimmies timidly onto the stage. The district lights up white, spears of rain, the thousands of trees little more than dark-edged skeletons, the outlines of thousands and thousands of people staring up at her, before being plunged back into darkness. She wonders if it'll hit her florid umbrella and immediately drops the thing, instantly bathed in the hot rain.

The thunder growls hungrily across the sky as she takes her place behind the podium, gasping with the force of the water and the incredible noise, trying to see the edge of the square through the rain. She can't; just the swimming sea of white eyes blinking up at her, resigned and expectant. 

And she doesn't think that she could be any wetter if she'd jumped in her swimming pool. This dress is ruined.

Another crack dances across the sky, urging her to get on with it. Perhaps the voice in her ear says so too, but she can't hear it over the thunder. Enviously, she wishes that she was already on the train. She's never known it rain in Eleven before, but no wonder if it rains like this. It's like the whole of nature has taken offense to the situation and is taking it in turns to blind and deafen them. So how come the faces she can see look so happy?

The escort is young and naive; she doesn't understand. Children are precious here, where the infant mortality rate is higher than even Eight, but this rain means that the crops will grow well. Fewer people will have to starve needlessly. They will be able to fulfill the almost impossible quota that the Capitol demands. Fruit rots. Some of the wizened, wrinkled old men laugh to themselves at how the Capitol can stop themselves aging, but won't do it to their food.

What is best for the district is what matters most. The loss of two children is sad. Having to watch it is torture. But if it wasn't for the reaping, this would be as close as Eleven ever gets to a happy day.

A few children, even those in the pens, tip their heads back and open their mouths like a flock of little birds, letting the warm water soothe their worn throats. Adults gaze with ancient wonder on the rivulets of water down their faces, at the mud that used to be the hard dirt floor.

Lightning rips across the purple bruise clouds, momentarily reminding everybody of their comrades in the trees, still working hard. Only the relatives of those in the pens are allowed here. But nobody cries or looks upset. They are shockingly used to it by now. Maybe their children will be taken. Maybe not. Life will have to go on, or all their others will die too.