Together [The Hunger Games Fanfiction]

District Five || Mind Puzzles and Maternal Protection

Is it Christmas??? Is it my birthday??? I actually updated??? Yes to all of the above. Happy holidays everyone, I hope you had a fantastic day today! What are you thinking of the reapings so far? I know they're tedious to read, but if you have any favourite's, comment below!

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The house was a shade of putrid green. It was one of the old homes that still stood in the poor neighbourhood of what was a typically wealthy District. The peeling paint showed that those who lived there were the poorest, the ones who fed off those with larger incomes. Yet that presumption did not apply to the Twipsen family like it did to many others. They- the Twipsen family, that is- were in fact not poor. It was just an unfortunate series of events that brought them to their tiny, crumbling home on Branson Street. Number 45, to be exact.

While their house was small, it seemed perfectly fitting for them. The boy, young- looking younger than he really was- sat staring vacantly out the grimed window. His father, who could barely keep a job, sat at the small kitchen table with a day-old newspaper in his hand and lukewarm coffee in the other. Only the boy, however, had an unruly mop of brown hair that stuck out against his pale skin. He had the day off today. Of course he did. It was the reaping, after all.

Staring out at the broken pavement the boy saw a young woman walking. She dropped a coin from her pocket, the tinkling of it hitting the ground almost audible to him. He stared at the coin, the sunlight that glinted off it holding many possibilities. That coin could change everything; it would change everything that was going to happen. Of course, he knew, that by his watching of the coin, his path had now changed, turning ever so slightly so that he could not go back to being the person he was before he saw that coin. It was a conundrum muddled in a mass of countereffects.

That was his thing- patterns. He lived and breathed them. Everything could be explained through patterns. The world was built on cause and effect through his eyes. Since the dawn of time things had been planned out exactly so, the last detail of this tiny coin being dropped cumulating in some greater end. His schoolmates thought he was weird, and he was well aware of that. He would never admit it to his father, who was quite a nice man in reality, but he sometimes didn't even do his work- because why do work when no one cares? If the universe was planned out, the boy thought, then the universe planned for me not to do this. Of course, if his thoughts were true, then the universe planned for the Hunger Games, which, he thought, was unfair and undeniably cruel.

But so it goes, and so it was planned that at exactly 11:01 on a chilly April morning that his father snapped his newspaper shut, and Rayn, already dressed in his reaping clothes, climbed off the counter in deliberately slow movements. Today was one out of the seven most dreaded days that children counted down. It was his first, which meant that Rayn had to forgo six more, unless he was reaped, which he really hoped he wasn't, as he knew his father wouldn't be able to cope. Not after the situation that his father refused to talk about- mainly, his mother's death. It had been two years, or, at least, two years as of yesterday. As such, his father had not spoken a word for a week.

There wasn't much to talk about in the Twipsen family, and, as such, the occasion in which Rayn's father picked up a heavy coat and walked out the door only served Rayn in the fact that he should get going. The wind bit at his cheeks as he trailed after his father. People were already ambling outside, towards the Square. Pitiful glances were thrown their way as they walked silently to the town. Most, if not all, of the people in Five were aware in some form of another of the most unfortunate happenings that had occurred to the family. That didn't stop the children from being distant and cold to Rayn though. Difference separates even the closest of situations.

As Rayn got into the line in which already had a considerable amount of children in it, he turned for his father, but his father gave him a quick nod and then all Rayn could see was his back, weaving through the crowd. He stepped up to the man, from Six, where both transports and drugs were made. Danger and safety, all rolled into one District. It was a quick business, and Rayn was aware of the customs. A quick prick of his finger which hurt more than it should, a stamp, and then he was off to the back of the pens. Like cattle, the children were herded in. But Rayn was grateful Five could fit everyone in the Square. Footage from last year's Game showed Six and Eleven's people and children being lined across nearly the entire town. It really messed up their scheduling when the little girl who was at the very back of Eleven was called. Took her nearly fifteen minutes at a quick walk to reach the stage, at which point the escort was quite miffed at the time being off.