Maple [The 72nd Hunger Games]

Chapter 5

DISTRICT 10

    I stood in front of the small mirror, barely a foot wide on either side, to make sure my dress was straight. It was the only one I owned, one my mother made before she went crazy and the Peacekeepers took her away. The memory made my skin crawl and the dress especially tight in its lace white.

    I managed to buy a blue one for Aspen a few years ago and I braided her hair up into ribbons, leaving mine down and free. Together, the family walks together to the town square where the buildings stack up on either side and make me feel like they were closing in. Only small alleys trickle people in and out and we're stuffed in a crowd, shuffling slowly until we get to the square.

    There is a barred off section where anyone too old or too young stand to watch all the teenagers gather in the middle. They were safe from the Reaping, meaning either they lived through it or had yet to face its claws. We pass Quill, Hunter, and Aspen to Greta, who waits with Aesop and Grimm. All residents of District 10 are forced to attend, unless you are too sick or injured to show up. Peacekeepers will be knocking down doors about now, searching homes to make sure there is no one trying to save themselves.

    Boys and girls are split into two separate lines, loosely grouped on age. I'm with the other fifteen year olds. Oak is taken closest to the stage, Cedar a couple groups behind him. Next to me, Fox is somewhere, a lone ginger in the crowd, separated from me by bars.

    On a stage guarded by Peacekeepers, a man and woman sit on two chairs. They are District 10s previous Victors, mentors to whoever sorry losers get chosen. Abigail Abe is the squirrel woman with wild eyes and knotted, white hair. She won the elevenths Hunger Games and was in her sixties. People say she won by ripping apart the competition brutally, but whatever was left of that bloodthirsty girl now was gone, replaced with someone who jumps at their own shadow.

    Stone Wilks is the other. He's a large man, the old type handsome, and only about forty years old. He won more recently, but he barely spoke any words, but he wasn't a mute. Before the Games people say as a teenager he would never shut up.

    I shift between girls. Almost everyone in the crowd is silent except for the sobs of older people, tears streaming quietly down their face and the children crying because they don't know what's going on but can feel the heft in the air.

    Abigail tips on her chair on stage and Peacekeepers have to help her back up. She had been rocking in it since she had walked up there. One holds her there, making sure she doesn't fall off again. Stone only glances over before looking back up at the crowds. Maybe he's as out of it as Abigail, who every year I see her, only seems to get worse.

    Peacekeepers fire shots into the sky, causing people to jump and a few even cry out. I tuck my hands into my armpits, glaring angrily up towards stage as the Capitol's anthem begins to boom on the speakers. It's a thundering noise that is so loud it makes people want to clasp their ears—but none dare to do so with the Peacekeepers guns so close. It could be seen as an act of rebellion.

A blue-haired, dark-skinned man steps forward once the song has fortunately stops. Donatello Fickle has been around for as long as I have, but his face is so fresh and smooth of imperfections that he looks forty years younger. But he is unnatural, from his hair to the hourglass structure of his body, everything built and modified by the Capitol till there doesn't seem to be any human left.

"Good morning, citizens of District 10!" Donatello roars, throwing up his hands as if he expects us to cheer. No one says a word. Donatello laughs it off as if we were all in on an inside joke. "Here we are for another year! This is for the Seventy-second annual Hunger Games!"