Chapter Text
I remember everything as if it were just yesterday that I awoke on Reaping Day. One girl and one boy were to be offered up as collateral as punishment for the District 13 uprising 74 years ago. There was only one benefit to reaping day—all the peacekeepers would be too busy patrolling the town square to notice me slip past the fence. I rolled out of bed, slipped on a jacket, and grabbed my satchel before waking my sister, Prim.
My fingers stretched out, searching for Prim’s thin blonde hair, but found only the rough sheets covering the mattress. She must have had a bad dream and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. That day would have been her first reaping, which meant her name would be in the drawing.
I propped myself up on one elbow and drew back the thin, stained curtain. Enough light flooded the bedroom to see her curled up on one side, cocooned in Mother's curled thin frame. In sleep, my mother looked younger, still worn, but not so beaten down. Prim's face was as fresh as a rain, as innocent as the primrose for which she was named. It made it all the more painful knowing I had to prepare her for the reaping. Sitting at Prim's knees was the world's ugliest cat, Buttercup. He hissed at me, likely because even though it was years ago, I think he still remembers how I tried to drown him in a bucket when Prim brought him home. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged, so I had to let him stay. He earned his keep by getting rid of the vermin that tried to eat through our food stores.
I slid into my hunting boots, the worn leather molding to my feet. On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, sits the goat cheese Prim made from her goat that she made for me. I put the cheese carefully in my pocket as I slipped outside, leaving behind a note that I was out hunting.
Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, was usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at that hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who had long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. But that day, the streets were empty, even the shutters on the squat gray houses were closed.
Our house was almost at the edge of the Seam. I only had to pass a few gates to reach the field called the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of District 12, was a high chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire loops. In theory, it was supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day as a deterrent to the predators that lived in the woods, packs of wild dogs, lone cougars, and bears that used to threaten our streets. Or in reality, it was designed to keep us in. We were lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in the evenings, so it was usually safe to touch. Even so, I always took a moment to listen carefully for the hum that meant the fence was live. Right then, it was silent. Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flattened out on my belly and slid under a two-foot stretch that had been loose for years. As soon as I was in the trees, I retrieved a bow and a sheath of arrows from a hollow log.
My father had known how to find food there, and he had taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. Even though trespassing in the woods was illegal and poaching carried the severest of penalties, more people would have risked it if they had weapons. But most were not bold enough to venture out with just a knife. My bow was a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I kept well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers.
"District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety," I muttered.
I glanced over my shoulder. Even there, even in the middle of nowhere, you worried someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I had scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who ruled our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually, I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue. I discussed little more than trades in the Hob, which was the black market where I made most of my money. Even at home, where I was less pleasant, I avoided discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might have begun to repeat my words, and then where would we have been?
In the woods waited the only person with whom I could truly be myself, aside from Bella. Gale. I could feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace quickening as I climbed the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley. A thicket of berry bushes protected it from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brought on a smile. Gale said I never smiled except in the woods.
"Hey, Catnip," said Gale.
My real name was Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I'd said Catnip. That was years ago.
"Look what I shot," Gale held up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laughed. It was real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we made from our grain rations. "Mm, still warm," I said. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. "What did it cost you?".
"Just a squirrel. Think the old man was feeling sentimental that morning," said Gale. "Even wished me luck."
"Well, we all felt a little closer that day, didn't we?" I said, not even bothering to roll my eyes. "Prim left us a cheese." I pulled it out. His expression brightened at the treat. "Thank you, Prim. We'll have a real feast."
Suddenly, he fell into a Capitol accent as he mimicked Effie Trinket, the maniacally upbeat woman who arrived once a year to read out the names at the reaping. "I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!"
He tossed a berry in a high arc toward me. I caught it in my mouth and broke the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness exploded across my tongue.
"—be ever in your favor!" I finished with equal verve. We had to joke about it because the alternative was to be scared out of your wits.
I watched as Gale pulled out his knife and sliced the bread. He could have been my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even had the same gray eyes. But we were not related, at least not closely. There had never been anything romantic between Gale and me. I wasn’t interested in boys anyway. We settled back in a nook in the rocks. The food was wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths. Everything would have been perfect if it had been a holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming the mountains with Gale, hunting for that night's supper. But instead, we had to be standing in the square at two o'clock waiting for the names to be called out.
"We could do it, you know," Gale said quietly.
"What?" I asked.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," said Gale. I didn't know how to respond. The idea was so preposterous. "If we didn't have so many people we cared about," he added quickly.
He was referring to Prim and Bella, who had been my girlfriend for two years. He may as well have thrown in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more?
"I could never leave them behind," I said.
"I wouldn’t ask you to," said Gale.
"But you can," I said, irritated. “You could leave now if you wanted.”
"Forget it," he snapped back. The conversation felt all wrong. What good was yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It didn't change anything.
We finished our hunting, a dozen fish, a bag of greens, and a gallon of strawberries. On the way home, we swung by the Hob, the black market. Jacob was already there, leaning against a stall, talking to a vendor. His smile was easy, a flash of white teeth against his tan skin. He caught my eye and gave a playful wave. Gale gave a little nod in return.
"Did you find anything good?" Gale asked.
Jacob held up a few small, plump rabbits. "Not bad. A few fewer mouths to feed for a couple of days." He winked at Gale. "What about you two?"
"A full bag," Gale replied, and Jacob's gaze softened as he looked at him. He was a friend of Gale’s and was friendly enough toward me, but there was a different kind of intensity in Jacob’s eyes when he looked at him.
We finished our business at the market, selling half the strawberries to the mayor’s daughter, Madge, who opened the door in her expensive white reaping dress. Gale made a cool comment about how she wouldn't be going to the Capitol, and Madge’s face became closed off. She gave us the money for the berries and closed the door.
We walked toward the Seam in silence. I didn't like that Gale had taken a dig at Madge, but he was right, of course. The reaping system was unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it.
"See you in the square," I said to Gale as we parted ways at my house.
"Wear something pretty," he said, a joke that felt flat that day.
I found Bella at the house; her quiet presence was comforting. My mother's face was still blank, lost in her thoughts. She rarely registered anything those days, so she didn't notice Bella eating from our table. She had been absent ever since Dad died in the mines and had never been present enough to acknowledge that her daughter was breaking several laws for being with a girl and hunting, amongst other things. It was better that way. Bella and I helped Prim and my mom get ready with a vacant stare. My mother had laid out a soft blue dress for me to wear. Bella helped me braid my hair. I could hardly recognize myself in the cracked mirror.
"You look beautiful," said Prim in a hushed voice.
"And nothing like myself," I said.
I hugged her because I knew those next few hours would be terrible for her. Her first reaping. She was worried about me because my name was going to be in the reaping several times. I protected Prim in every way I could, even putting my name in the drawing more times in exchange for wheat, but I was powerless against the reaping.
"Tuck your tail in, little duck," I said, smoothing the blouse back in place.
Prim giggled and gave me a small “Quack”.
“Quack yourself,” I said with a light laugh, the kind only Prim could draw out of me.
At one o’clock, we headed for the square, Bella and Prim staying close behind me. Attendance was mandatory. The camera crews perched like buzzards on rooftops. People filed in silently and signed in. Twelve through eighteen-year-olds were herded into roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones, like Prim, toward the back. Family members lined up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another’s hands. The space got tighter, more claustrophobic.
I found myself standing in a clump of sixteens from the Seam along with Bella. Bella nudged me with a worried look on her face. He hand grazed mine.
“We can't,” I whisper.
She looked me in the eyes, her eyebrows furrowed. “They won’t see, please.”
We looked straight ahead, holding each other’s hands in the crowd as we focused our attention on the temporary stage that was set up before the Justice Building. It held three chairs, a podium, but no tables or bowls. They were missing, or perhaps they hadn’t brought them out yet?
Two of the three chairs were filled with Mayor Undersee and Effie Trinket, District 12’s escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary white grin, pinkish hair, and spring green suit. They murmured to each other and then looked with concern at the empty seat.
Just as the town clock struck two, the mayor stepped up to the podium and began to read. It was the same story every year. He told of the history of Panem, the country that rose out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He listed the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace.
“And as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated,” the Mayor intoned, his voice gaining a manufactured gravity, “President Snow has decided this year’s games will be different.”
The crowd stirred.
“On this 74th annual reaping, two boys and two girls will be reaped to cleanse our society of all unnatural inclinations. These individuals, already identified through rigorous societal monitoring as holding affections outside the natural order, would be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena. Over several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing, if indeed any remained, will be announced as the winners of the games. Their district, if they survived, would be showered with prizes and a public re-education campaign on the virtues of the traditions upheld by the capital.”
He continued, his voice unwavering, "This is the Capitol's way of reminding us how we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. And a powerful lesson: that bonds born of selfish, deviant desires will always turn to dust under pressure. Thus, this year will mark the first annual Purification Games."
Whatever words they used, the real message was clear: Look how we take your children, your beloved, and sacrifice them, and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen. And we will use your sin against you, until it breaks you.
To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol required us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. "It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intoned the mayor.
Then he read the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we had had exactly two. Only one was still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at that moment appeared hollering something unintelligible, staggered onto the stage and fell into the third chair. He was drunk. The mayor looked distressed. He quickly tried to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.
Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trotted to the podium and gave her signature, “Happy Purification Games!”
Bella squeezed my hand tight. I dared not look at her now that it was clear the capital may very well have known about us. Her hand shook in mine as I breathed. At least I knew Prim was safe from the games. There would be no drawing that year after all.
Through the crowd, I spotted Gale looking back at me with a ghost of a smile. It was time for the calling of names. Effie Trinket said as she always did, “Ladies first!” and crossed to the podium, smoothed the slip of paper, and read out the name in a clear voice.
"Bella Swan!"
My blood froze. My breath caught. It was exactly as I had feared. The entire square seemed to hold its breath. Bella let go of my hand and could barely move before the peacekeepers ripped her away from me. She looked back at me, tears flowing down her cheeks.
Bella? Wait, no… Not her.
“Bella!” I called out to her, shoving past the crowd to reach her. “Bella!” I yelled again.
A gasp ripped through the crowd. My eyes found Bella's, wide with terror, then resolute. The unspoken vow: I'm not going anywhere.
Peacekeepers divided the crowd and grabbed me harshly by the shoulders. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. What about the drawing? What about Prim? I can’t leave her behind. I tried to fight against them to find some way to stop this bad dream.
Before the murmurs could truly break out, Effie spoke into the microphone once more.
"Katniss Everdeen!"
A gasp ripped through the crowd. My eyes found Bella's, wide with terror, then resolute. The unspoken vow: I'm not going anywhere.
Effie Trinket, with sickening glee, then announced, "Now for the boys!" She smiled as she spoke. "Peeta Mellark!"
Peeta, a strong blonde boy, I recognized as the son of the baker’s slowly made his way to the stage. He was shorter in height than most boys his age.
Another name was called almost immediately. "Edward Cullen!"
I looked to the crowd before me to see a tall, bronze-haired boy of tall stature being yanked away by two peacekeepers as he tried to fight them off, screaming that he’d kill them all. The Capitol had selected its couples. It was a baseless threat, but it never stopped people from trying to get away.
Bella and I looked at each other with a horrible understanding passing between us. We were being paraded around as a public display of the Capitol's power. Two peacekeepers, their faces hard, moved to escort us to the stage.
I looked out over the crowd, past my mother's blank stare, past Prim's trembling face, and I found Gale and Jacob.
"Don't let Prim starve!" I yelled out.
I saw their eyes, my face contorted in grief and anger. Bella, next to me, just shook her head. She panicked, her face pale, and her hands trembling. The peacekeepers took hold of our arms and dragged us through the heavy metal doors, away from everything we knew.