Twenty Four Shades of Blood [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

District Five Reaping: Carmen Vestas and Tyrion Valinor

District Five is very flat.

It seems to go on forever, an endless mess of tangled pylons, electricity stations, wind turbines, solar panels and even the occasional nuclear plant, as far away from civilization as possible. An explosion would still be devestating, not just for the district, but for the whole of Panem. Without Five, the Capitol would be quite literally powerless.

The people stumble, slightly dazed, through the narrow alleys towards the square. None of this matters to them. What matters is that today they will lose two of their children, two more victims of the Capitol's ever tightening grasp. Parents hug children close, alternately fussing over their clothes or bursting into tears. Trams rattle in from the far flung reaches of the district, bringing in the power plant workers and those living further away. Seedy, hunched old men with voices like oil slide through the pressing crowds, clutching grubby betting slips and whispering odds to those they pass, in case somebody will take them up. Occasionally there is a small yelp; someone has trodden on someone's foot.

"Name?" demands the woman at the entrance to the pens, silver streaking the golden coil of her hair. Twenty years she's been doing this. She's seen forty children plucked from the safe, haphazard nest of District 5 and hurled into an arena, and she's seen thirty nine of them die. She watches the young, pale faces pass and wonders which two it will be this year. Many of the younger kids cry when she jabs the sampler into their fingers but she stopped feeling guilty years ago. They'll be lucky if that's the only pain they feel.

The square is huge but nobody cranes their neck to see. Parents cram towards the front, babies slung around their shoulders, trying to get as close to their children as possible. The children stand straight, face blank with fearful anticipation. A few small groups chatter to each other but on the whole they are silent, tense, waiting. Friends stand close together. People fiddle with keepsakes, tokens. A few young couples hold hands over the fences, knuckles white. The lopsided Justice Building has never looked so threatening before.

The buildings circling the dusty square - usually the market - have collapsed their colourful awnings and many have put up black ones instead. A tram-full of light green workers spill into the rapidly filling square. A light drizzle begins to fall, droplets catching in people's hair, dark spots on ripped overalls. And still nothing is happening.

Whispers flit around the crowd. The escort has collapsed, some people say. No, somebody else whispers back, I bet one of the other reapings has gone wrong.

The air thickens with every passing minute.

A boy in the twelve year olds' pen is shouting for his sister, his face streaked with panic. She smiles weakly at him from her pen. He reaches out a hand but she is too far away.

Still nothing.

The rain increases, pattering onto the floor. The whispers get heavier, the screens showing an empty stage, well, empty apart from the podium and the two jet-black reaping balls, stuffed with names. If this carries on, there won't be time for the speech...

Thiago storms onto the stage, scowling. Taken by surprise, a few people burst into brief applause, but it quickly dies down when they see the furious look on his face. The rain isn't doing his makeup any favours but nobody dares to laugh.

"Right!" he roars into the microphone, rolling his 'r's so that the whole word is blurred, "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

The first few rows nod obediently. It's not what they want at all. They'd rather stand out here in the rain all day than start the reapings. But Thiago looks like he'd set the Peacekeepers on them if they so much as look at him funny, and even though it's been at least a year since the Peacekeepers felt it necessary to use the whips, everybody can remember the spots of blood on the dust floor, even if they didn't see it.