Nothing Personal

District Five Reaping

It was a beautiful day in District Five. The clouds drifted lazily over the wind turbines, the wind blew sweet air into the streets and the sun shone down warmly onto the solar panels. Even the nuclear plant, looming on the horizon, seemed less of a time bomb and more of a natural feature of the landscape. 

Children had woken up with a sense of dread hanging above them. Their parents had already been awake for hours, fretting and preparing meals and trying to make today less frightening. But the carefully prepared food and clothes lovingly laid out only reminded the children what they would miss, and many left the house feeling worse than before.

For those who didn't live within walking distance, the local trains and trams were the only way to get in, watching the district rattle past them. Only people who had special dispensation to carry on working - there was a constant demand for power - were allowed to miss it. The sun wasn't even beginning to rise when people began to prepare, secretly hoping that the black curtains many kept just in case wouldn't have to be used.

Everyone was gathered in the square in perfect time. People spoke only to their friends or stayed silent. Today they would lose at least one good worker, one faithful servant, and more than likely two. Their last winner, a sharp and intelligent man called Ernie, wandered around on the stage as a kind of showcase; look, it can be done. But Ernie was pushing forty now, and the teenagers no longer saw him as a role model but as more of an authority figure, someone to be obeyed but not admired. He was too far in the past to be real, and everybody in District Five was desperate for another winner.

"Isn't it a beautiful day?" Ernie growled at the crowd, checking his watch subtly. A couple of people nodded or shrugged. A pack of workers from the solar estate drifted in like the wind, dressed in light green overalls splattered in glue. Most of them had a slightly stunned look from gazing at the reflective panels all day. One or two filtered through the gently waving crowd to get to their children and give them a few words of advice or a warning to behave.

One went to a young boy; he threw his arms around her neck and sobbed desperately. She closed her eyes, her dry brown hair falling in front of her face. She was young, much younger than the other workers, anyway. Ernie watched sadly. Her big sister had been his district partner in his Games. She had died in front of him, poisoned by an infected spear wound inflicted by one of the District Nine tributes, a startled twelve year old with two fingers missing on his hand and a manic look in his eyes. Her last words to him had been to ask him to look after her little sister, and to find someone to volunteer if she'd been reaped. He had tried but failed. Luckily Marie was never reaped, but she never quite got over the loss of her beloved sister.

She had Ernie instead. He hopped off the stage and trotted over, ruffling the boy's hair and kissing his mother quickly. She smiled and leant into him, fiddling nervously with his collar.

"I'm sorry, Ern," she murmured, "I shouldn't be in such a state. But it's just...after Anne..." He put a hand around her shoulders, saying nothing. Marie never cried, but instead she went very quiet. The boy gazed up at them both, with his mother's light hair and his father's mild eyes. He was beautiful, in a vague and distant way.

"You'll be fine, my boy," Ernie said, taking his little hand. Yes, this year he would be fine.  But then there was the next, and the next, and the next...

"Good morning, District Five!"

Killie was already up on the stage. Ernie said a quick goodbye to Marie, forced himself not to be too emotional to little Archie, and scampered behind the stage and into the Justice Building. A few people - those without children - droned "Good mornin'" back. Killie smiled at them. She wasn't naturally showy, and her shy smile was genuine. "It's a lovely day today," she said, waiting for the little red light on the cameras, "We've had nothing but rain in the Capitol this last week."

Nobody knew how they were meant to respond to that.

She stood in the silence for a moment, one hand sneaking to her mouth without her even realising it. She slapped it away before she started biting her nails again.

"Well, you all know how it goes," she said, "First, the speech!"

Killie was new, and despite her best efforts still hadn't managed to memorize it, so she had to read off cue cards on the camera. It meant she didn't see the bored expression on people's faces. Some of the younger children, who knew the story but not this version of it, listened intently. Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, a little girl of no more than seven, chirped plainly, "But momma, that's not..." She was quickly and urgently hushed, and immediately started sobbing. Killie carried on.

"And now that's over and done with, we can get onto the reapings!" she announced, and everybody began to shift nervously, biting nails, fiddling with good luck tokens, grabbing loved one's hands. Down in the pens, a couple were holding hands over the fence between them.

"Your female tribute will be...Grace Collins!"

A few people couldn't help a sigh of relief, but they were drowned out by a desperate, heartbreaking cry from one of the green-clad workers. Grace slid out of the sixteen year old girls' pens, her green eyes wide. She was aptly named, moving as if her feet weren't leaving the ground, her entire body floating along effortlessly. For someone from Five she was skinny; her arms looked like little more than twigs. The dress she was wearing was obviously handed down and had been patched up several times. Her hair stuck up in tiny blonde spikes where she'd been running her hand through it. She kept glancing behind her on her way to the stage, at where the man was howling. "Come on, Grace," urged Killie.

"No!" The man broke through from the crowd and ran for the stage. He got his hand around Grace's little arm before the Peacekeepers, appearing out of nowhere, reached him, taking him roughly by the shoulders. With a sob, Grace threw her arms around him, but they prised her off. She stood, all alone at the bottom of the stage, watching the man be dragged away. He had almost identical hair, but his face was broader and his eyes blue.

"Big brother; she doesn't have parents," Killie was informed by a small voice in her headphone, and she quickly wondered where the information was coming from.

Another Peacekeeper grabbed Grace by the arm and shoved her up onto the stage. She was crying too hard to react. Killie called out for volunteers, trying her best not to look at the man, though it was impossible. Everybody in the district was.

"One of you brats volunteer!" roared a voice, cracking in the middle. There was a thump, and then the square went quiet, apart from Grace's sobbing. Nobody in the girl's pens moved.

Grace buried her head in her hands.

The mood was already sombre; now it was heavy with despair. Killie reached into the boy's names without even telling the crowd that she was doing it. She was going to have to break more hearts.

"Crete Relling!"

There was no fuss. Crete emerged from his pen, faltering at the gate and looking up at Killie with fear shining in his eyes. The next moment, he was sauntering up the steps, smiling shyly. Killie appraised him; althetic and striking, he looked too old for the pen he had come from.

"Crete, over here!" she called, and he ambled over, smiling and waving at people in the crowd. He took her hand and kissed it politely, bowing a little, his eyes creased at the corners in amusement.

"Killie, you look lovely today," he said. She blushed and pretended to slap him, putting an arm around his shoulders. 

"And so do you Crete. Crete Relling, ladies and gentlemen!"

The crowd burst into applause, their eyes lighting up. Like Killie, they had seen a winner. Or a contender, anyway. They had thought they had seen a winner, a glance of hope, before. A few kept glancing backwards to where the man had been dragged away.

Grace stopped crying, but her eyes were red and her handshake was weak.

Behind the stage, Ernie was creeping to go and see his family, weak with relief. Marie threw her arms around him; Archie clung to his legs.

Everyone drifted away from the square, trying desperately not to think about next year, and the next, and the next....

The sun kept shining on District Five.