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.
They have the rain now. There is always hope.
In a lull in nature's rage, the escort's tinny voice screeches over the square. She is almost at the end of her speech and nobody had even realised that she was speaking. She looks so small next to the haphazard, crinkly Justice Building, and even smaller next to the grand tower of clouds. The storm rages furiously. A blast of wind tears through the square, a hammer of cold, whipping some names from the baskets. Someone has thought to shield them with little umbrellas, at least. For the benefit of the Capitol, the umbrellas are pattered with idyllic orchard scenes, the opposite of the nightmare in front of the stage.
Back in the Capitol, it looks like the weather in Eleven is bad, nothing more. They can't feel the storm, taste the bitter hope in the air.
The escort has to lean in to see the scrawled name without getting it drenched. The rain just doesn't seem to stop. She barely even feels it anymore. She's just going through the motions, focused on the dryness of the train; the Justice Building here probably leaks. It looks like it might topple over onto her now.
Frightened by the thought, she messes up the name. Thunder roars across her, hiding her blushes. The slip trembles in her fingers.
"E-Eden Aster..." she squeaks.
"Speak up!" the voice snaps. Or at least, she thinks that's what it says. It's hard to tell over the incessant rain.
"Eden Aster!" she shouts.
As usual, everybody slips out of the way to let the girl through. One or two do the sign, the fingers to the lips then flitting away again when the Peacekeepers look.
Eden's hair is plastered to her face. Someone has wound it into a plait, and it sticks to her neck, slapping at her back between her shoulder blades, a drenched rainbow of blonde. Her skin is a mottled tan colour, her grubby reaping dress showing the lines where her normal everyday shirt - she will only have the one - runs to. She squints up at the blurry stage, her forehead furrowed around pale eyes.
Even after she's wiped the rain from her eyes with a long, slender arm, she's still squinting. Everything is fuzzy. She's used to it.
She stumbles over her own legs as she trips across the slippery stage, crying aloud a little in pain as her ankle twists in slightly. Straight away she knows this is a bad thing; talk about making yourself obvious to the Careers. And the woman sticks a hand out in front of her. She can't be more than ten years older than her, and yet Eden automatically bobs her head like she would to a wise old woman, stood under the tree with her ancient basket and croaking some old sad song to herself.
The escort seems distant as they shake hands, which suits Eden just fine. Her knees are trembling, her body starting to become aware of what must surely be about to happen to her. The last thing she wants is sympathy. Or the fake sympathy that the escorts pour out every year. They love this really. They love being this close to the action.
Her mind replays the time she saw Una fall out of the tree, the way her foot stuck out in the wrong direction, as if she was going to try walking backwards. Bile rises in her throat and she only just manages to keep it down. She always looks away if somebody is going to get badly hurt. But you can't look away when that person is you!
"Hello, Eden," the escort shouts over the grumble of thunder. Is it moving away? It doesn't matter to Eden anymore. She blinks up at the fuzzy figure of the woman, or rather, across. If it wasn't for her shocking eyesight, she could look her straight in the eye. And she feels a wave of pity wash across her with the dripping rain. She can't help how she was born any more than Eden herself can.
"Hello, miss," she mutters.
The escort has seen this before. A sense of authority, whipped into all Eleven children. They bow down even when they don't want to. Even when their instincts say to do something else.
Eden's instincts are screaming at her to take the microphone and say something funny, something daft. It's what people are expecting from her, the ones who know her, anyway. And a lot of people know her. She's the cheerful one.
But the Capitol are watching.
She looks down at the blessed mud on her shoes as, under the thunder and the rain, the boy is reaped.
Like Eden, Cruz is like a point of light in the district. He makes his way up to the stage with a swagger, like he's about to start a fight with someone. His face is creased up, his eyes little more than slits of green in a slightly burnt face, soothed by the water.
Eden scowls. She doesn't like him. She doesn't like the way he walks as though he's more important than anybody else. She doesn't like the way he doesn't seem bothered about having to kill people. And she especially doesn't like the way he tries to break the escort's fingers, muscles flexing.
Cruz pushes the microphone away as soon as it is shoved in his face. This sucks. His fists burn to punch something but he has to hold it in, for his brother's sake. In the Games, it'll be fine. That's what he's got to do; no point in being scared of it. But here, it's just a bad example.
Still, he'd love to see that stupid little drowned rat of an escort flushed off the stage. She won't even try to keep him alive. He's just work and entertainment. Panem et circus. And all that bull.
The blonde girl is glaring at him, concentrated hate in her squint. He brushes it off. So they come from the same place, so what? They're enemies now. He won't let anything get in his way.
Eden finally finds a small smile as Cruz attempts to break her hand.
As the train carries the tributes away, beams of light burst through the storm.