Writers Games; Alliances

D5 Male - Lumen Wye [SoupForBrains] Task 1

  “I can’t do this, Lumen! I feel sick!” Burd said, her voice desperate and her breathing erratic. She gripped my hands so tightly that her finger nails dug into my sweaty palms.

“We’ll be fine, Burd. I’ll see you back here at lunch, okay?” I promised, as a matron put an arm around her small shoulders and ushered her away. I carried on watching as she was hurried into a line with the other girls out of the orphanage and onto the courtyard. She looked back from over her shoulder one last time, her eyes wide with panic, before disappearing out the door.

  “Lu-man? Want some?” Nickel offered his matchbox of banana chips and raisins to me as I carried him on my hip on the way down to the District plaza. I suppose I should’ve been honoured that he wanted to share his treat with me since he was renowned for pinching food from other people’s plates and hoarding it away in his pockets for later, but I felt too ill to eat.

“Maybe later, Nicky. Try and be a good boy, okay?” I whispered, setting him down with the other littlies behind a roped off corner of the town square. Nickel nodded vigorously, looking as though he was having some sort of seizure, but I knew he’d keep his promise. I kissed the top of his curly blond head goodbye and joined onto a line of guys more my own age. We waited.

  Johnny Ball was our last victor, a typically red-headed District Five resident with a bum-chin and a ridiculous goatee, and was now stood next to some blowsy Capitol woman/girl with oversized balloon boobs on the stage, all cheesy smiles. He couldn’t keep his leering eyes off her cleavage.

  “Ladies  first! As ever, I shall select a name, totally at random, from the Reaping Pool.” Boob announced, strutting over to the girl’s name ball. Her hand delved deep into the glass bowl and my heart nearly stopped. Please, please, please don’t let it be Burd…

“Cynthia Jaaaacksooon!” Capitol woman called out, waving the slip of paper in the air as if the poor girl had won a prize. Cynthia, who I think I’d seen around school, looked hopelessly tiny beside the Capitol girl and Johnny. She reminded me a lot of Burd; she had red hair just a little longer than Burd’s and was just as small and fragile looking, as if she would smash into pieces if she was to trip over. Every hair on the back of my neck bristled and a cold rush of adrenaline shot through me, as well as a dose of guilt. I couldn’t help but feel relieved that Cynthia had been picked and not my Burd. Now the only person I had to worry about was me.

Johnny started to head towards the Male Reaping Bowl. I noticed my hands were sweaty.

He made some lame gag about seeing ‘who in the Ball has the balls for the Hunger Games’. I didn’t laugh.

His fingers reached down into the glass sphere. I tried to kid myself that it would never be me.

But it was.

And my heart stopped.

  “Lumen! No!” Burd screamed and screamed so hard that a Peacekeeper had to hold her back in case she charged up onto the stage after me. I stood next to Johnny, his arm wrapped my shoulders in a pally fashion, both wanting to cry and to punch him in his stupid, Capitolised face.  I rather hoped it’d be the latter, but it wasn’t- two tears escaped my eyes and I cursed myself internally. I watched, unblinking, as a pale Mrs Coulomb hurried from the crowd and tried to console Burd, holding her closely and tightly. I didn’t hear anything as Boob Woman ended the Reaping ceremony, and, frankly, I didn’t care.

 “This way, young man.” A peacekeeper pressed a gun in the small of my back and steered me down the stairs and into the square. As the crowd piled out, Cynthia and I were escorted to the Justice Building. We waited for a minute as papers were signed; it only took a minute. One minute was all it took for them to write off our lives to the Capitol, like they were nothing. One look at Cynthia Jackson and I knew we were thinking the same thing; what had we done to deserve this? And how on earth did the Capitol ever gain this much power to be allowed to play with other people’s existences like this? I thought about making a run for freedom to force the Peacekeepers to shoot me down, but I didn’t. It’d be cowardly and meaningless, since they’d just choose another boy to be their pawn in this year’s Hunger Games. Besides, I at least wanted to see Burd before I had chance to die.