The 66th Hunger Games

Guri

The whistle echoed through halls and into each cavennous room, calling all the younger workers to cease their menial tasks. At sixteen, Mollier Stritch was in her second year at the hydroelectric dam, having completed the eight mandatory years of schooling for all children before transferring to one of four different kinds of power plant that the district were in charge of, dependent on their testing results. Mollier scored in the top ten of her year and was therefore shipped off each day to the dam where her focused studies continued in a format that felt a lot more like labour rather than learning. Lower scoring students went to the older forms of power, wind, nuclear and solar based. They were mostly back up for the Capitol.

The dam was provided the city with all thousands of lights that, if you were invited to the top of the dam at night - which had only happened once to Mollier - you were able to see the light pollution on the clouds just at the horizon where the wealthy and ignorant lived lives the districts could only imagine. She had recalled her supervisor telling them that they were the creators of that glow, they were the fundimental ingrediant to keep all of Panem going. Mollier was sure it was supposed to make the new workers special. But even at fourteen, she felt nothing but frustration that her hard work and all that education was feeding the lives of those just far away enough to pretend the districts didn't exist. Exept for a few weeks of each year of course. Then suddenly the districts were the cattle pens from which their prime calves were plucked for the indulgance of the rich, feasting on their suffering.

The whistle blew a second long note and Mollier set down her folder, signing off the last of her checks and rose to return it to her locker, trading it for the light cardigan she had worn to fight the chill of the summer morning. Looping it over her freckled forarm, Mollier set off to find her friend who worked in the next hall down, hoping her prescence would make that churning in her stomach ease off a little. All the young staff were quiet as they left early, barely a smile between them. Unsurprising really. The great equalizer was coming the next morning.

As Mollier stood by the door to the next hall, she tugged at the band that held her dark thick hair out of her face and let it fall down to just below her chin, releasing the tension that always built after having it up all day. Her hair was short but had so much volume in the mass of curls that if she were to have it down, it would constantly drive her mad, flopping in her face. Though the residual tension in her bones remained, turning her stomach, making it gurgle.

"Hungry?" Valvine's voice was something of a marvel, it was ever so high pitched which made it sound like everything she said was either in song or in sorrow. Mollier gave her a small smile and nodded.
"Starving, let's get going." The taller of the pair took Mollier's hand and they made their way to the buses that took the long cracked road back to the surrounding towns. Mollier gazed at the dam for a moment before stepping onto the bus. She always saw it as the embodiment of the capitol. Huge and imposing, a momument to success, the focus on the structure rather than the gallons upon gallons of water that had to fall to keep it running. She turned back to Valvine as her hand was tugged onto the next bus that had groaned to a halt before them. Thankfully their district was a little more advanced than others, meaning they had had the reprieve of a weak air conditioning unit, which, if you sat in the right seat, would take the edge off the July sun that beat through the windows, higher than when they usually left the plant. But everyone under nineteen had to leave early on such a day. It was not for a joyous reason. It was mandatory. To prepare.

Vlavine and Mollier lived in the same village, about thirty minutes drive away form the dam, known simply as Guri. The knowledge of the name was mostly lost, other than that it was named after somewhere far away, from long ago. The bus halted and both girls stepped down onto the concrete, followed by the three other teens who worked at the dam. Two boys named Joule and Yaw and a girl who was a year younger, called Ulana. Immediatley the boys headed to the left, down the path that lead to the lower portion of the village, which sat on the side of quite a significant hill. Older generations would always say the people of Guri were born with one leg shorter than the other so to stand level on the slanted ground. Ulana looked at the older girls, and mumbled something quiet, nervous. Before either could ask what she said, the red head scurried off to the left as well, down the same path that Joule and Yaw had taken. Mollier turned to Valvine and found her face matched the same false sense of calm, the only sign of anxiety flickering behind those deep brown eyes.