The 71st Hunger Games: Purity

Chapter Three - Johanna

"First, a girl," Joven announces as he reaches his hand into the bowl, his skeletal fingers fishing around in the sea of names. Between his two fingers, he picks up a small slip of paper, unfolding it slowly. I hear the paper crinkle in the microphone, and I hear his voice ring out a name, a sense of familiarity in the syllables he calls:

"Johanna Mason."

Oh fuck. That was my name. I look around me, trying to scout out Maria or Emilia, trying to signal to them that I was going to be alright. Of course it was my name, that's just my luck. My parents die, my life is shit, and now the capital is going to kill me at seventeen.

I wipe my hands off on the skirt of my dress, approaching the stage slowly. If I was going to die, at least Maria and Emilia would be left with a little more. At least there would be less people to eat the food, less bodies to use the water. Maria would even have her own room. As I take my place on stage, I lock eyes with Emilia in the back of the reaping area. Everyone always told me I had such sharp vision.

I wish I didn't now.

I see tears pouring out of her eyes, staining her cheeks and probably her nice dress below. She raised her eyebrows at me, as if to say "What now" and I simply shrug, which causes her to start crying more, dropping her head into her hands. I knew she was stressed out, and I knew she wasn't going to be able to really raise Maria on her own. I felt a few small tears building up in my eyes, but I swallowed them down, feeling the salt water burn my throat and make me wish I had just let them leak out instead of forcing them in.

By the time I had surprised my emotions and tuned back in to the words of Joven, he had already hobbled his way over to the boys section and had selected a name out of the bowl:

"Aspen Sherdum" he calls out, and my eyes instantly scan the masses of poor — yet relieved — tributes that were thankful to have evaded this death game for at least another year. A woman cries out in the back of the reaping center, with dark skin and hair that was streaked with grey. She must be his mother. I look back at the tribute approaching the stage. He was tall, his arms and legs moved about somewhat uncoordinatedly, and it looked like someone had placed these long legs on to his thin body. His hair was up in an afro on top of his head, which only added to his height.

"The district seven tributes for the 71st Hunger Games!" Joven announces, but even his announcement sounds apathetic and unenthusiastic. I've always wondered when we were going to get a new escort, someone like those cheery ones, in districts three and four, that at least tried to boost audience morale.

"May the odds be ever in your favor," he concludes, signaling that the reaping had ended. After that, we were taken back into the Mayor's building, where Aspen and I were given different rooms to talk with any visitors we had before they took us to our death.

I had only three visitors, the first of whom was the mayor himself:

"Johanna, you're a smart girl. Resourceful. You have a fire inside of you, and you never stop fighting for that little family of yours. You're one of the best tenants we have here in seven. You pay on time, and you work hard in the fields," he places a hand on my shoulder, his eyes looking at me from under his bushy grey eyebrows. The mayor was a rather plump man, and I always wondered why he didn't take some of his extra food and give it to the district citizens who were starving.

"Don't let me down out there, I expect that rent in a couple months," he jokes, shaking his finger warningly at me as he walks out of the doorway, his hips nearly getting caught on the doorframe. The next—and final two—to come in we're Maria and Emilia:

They both embrace me, and I could feel Maria shaking as she held me, her cries racking through her body and spreading on to mine. No. I can't cry now. I have to be strong. Rigid. Don't let them get to me and don't let them hurt me, that's how I'll survive.