Chapter Text
The morning of the First Hunger Games surprised most districts with soldiers walking down the streets. That wasn’t an abnormal occurrence in itself, after years of riots and fighting stubborn rebels, but what followed would mark the beginning of a new era. Olympus claimed it was the era of restored peace and conjoined work within the country, but most districts were still flooded with rebellious sentiment, the scorches of the war that these soldiers tried to put out for good everyday.
Prisons were full of people waiting for their time to come, daily executions were held in the central squares. Communications were cut between the districts, but rumours would always run about rebel groups disguising themselves as refugees to travel between the safe camps, and therefore border controls were getting sharper, penalties higher.
District Seven woke up to a rising sun and crossed fire between Olympus’ soldiers and a supposed group of rebels. The bullets ricocheted for a shorter time than usual, the soldiers were in a rush to get to the main square, now under renovations. The major, an old man that had survived the war by hiding himself behind Olympus’ troops and turning his back to the people of the district, stood tall as these same people started to peer from their windows.
When the soldiers conquered the square, they exchanged a few words and the major rushed back to his house, too. One of the soldiers stood in his place, megaphone on one hand and gun on the other.
“People of District Seven, I bring words from The Olympus regarding the approval of the Treaty of Treason.” His voice resonated from all different corners of the district, the inhabited part at least. “It has been decreed that, in penance for their uprising against the country that feeds, loves and protects them, each district will offer up in tribute two young persons. These tributes will honour their district in a pageant of courage and sacrifice until only two victors remain, from different districts each. Each Victor will come back as a changed one to keep honouring their district and share the word of peace. May they serve as a reminder of Olympus’ generosity and forgiveness.”
A brush of paper was heard after his words, the final touch to his interpretation of Olympus’ script. The silence that followed was cut again by one of his comrades, who held the paper high this time as she read:
“The two tributes randomly selected to represent District Seven are Eurydice and Aristaeus.”
Minutes later, screams and trashing would follow her statement, but the prisons were far enough from the main square that the megaphone didn’t elevate the sound as the soldiers made their way back across the streets. Only the people that lived close to the train station and Olympus’ base heard as they took away these two tributes directly from the cells designed to hold captive the most problematic rebels.
The next couple of hours were a burst of whispered exchange of information and the first rumours about what was happening. Some people were convinced the show had been a morbid prank from disruptive soldiers and Olympus wasn’t even aware of it, others were faithful in the words and trusted this as the awaited end of the war. The few that knew any of the two names called held their breaths and prayed, but did it in silence: to openly express a relationship with a rebel was a death sentence.
A voice raised later that day, coming from the very main square, and most people recognised it as Orpheus, a traveller musician that had settled in District Seven a couple of months before, brought by the air of refugees from the further districts after the end of the war. He was loved among the people in need of distraction from the war and had quickly became a known name within the district. This time, his voice carried mourning and sorrow; still no one left their house to console him, fear was slowly sealing their doors. His lone voice flooded streets and marched towards the forest, where it would disappear with no eyes to witness his departure but those of birds. Small yellow orbs that followed his silhouette and carried his voice like an echo. Mockingbirds, they’ve come to call these creatures, an experiment of Olympus to spy on rebels’ conversations around the districts; from time to time they’re named as the reason for someone being executed. In District Seven, people have taken them as another animal to cherish and musicians usually plan their acts close to trees full of nests, the birds chorusing their songs and repeating them across the district.
Even later that day, rumours predicted the news that were finally confirmed by a different group of soldiers: both tributes from District Seven had died, but they should be still proud of their sacrifice for this country, and may their lives serve as stones to build a new Circen. Nothing really changed in the district after that day’s announcements, but it was true that the war had finally come to its end and some people couldn’t help but make the connection between the two events. These people would be the lucky ones that benefited from the consequences of the reformation, and their lives would be used as stones as well, the image of Olympus’ generosity, the ideal to follow.
The only time anyone mentioned Eurydice’s name again was months later, when Orpheus was brought to the limits of the forest for that day’s execution. The main square was finally reformed and no longer used as a place of death; instead, since the executions were getting scarce, they chose a prominent tree near the forest as the place to hold them, an old tree with strong branches that now had another use apart from nesting.
Orpheus had been caught wandering the borders of the district, trespassing the forbidden marks on the forest. He was held accountable, but that wasn’t the crime that would assure him the death penalty; he was also accused of hiding information about rebel movements and holding a relationship with one of them. He didn’t deny any of the crimes nor showed himself regretful, but announced proudly how he had helped Eurydice escape to the woods the day of the reaping. The rope was tensed soon after he began to talk, but he had the time to exclaim how his lover was alive somewhere in the woods and he would wait for her in a future life. The birds kept repeating his words, like carrying whispers of the dead.
Those echoes flew around for some time and people joined them claiming they sometimes saw a figure in the forest, footsteps printed in the paths to the bridge. Then, they died out as the smoke dissipates from a dying candle and the names were quickly forgotten as two new were added year after year.
A local tale might have resulted from those rumours, a child’s lullaby to put kids to bed or else, it sang, the Witch of the Woods would come and bewitch them with eternal sleep. People forgot Orpheus’ name too, other musicians came after and kept the bars and taverns full with noise to drown out adults’ sorrows, but Eurydice was alive in the children’s dreams.
Yet the rebellious movements grew stronger again after years of peace, only this time it was just a distant noise for District Seven. As the annual reaping kept taking place year after year, people grew used to calling it by the name Olympus imposed, The Hunger Games, and feared their own names or their loved ones’ being the next to be called; but they also learnt to mourn in silence and to cheer out loud.
When almost thirty years later, the air carried again smoke from the war in the further districts, District Seven knew better than to rebel against Olympus. Those thirty years they had tasted peace, if not infested with fear, but peace nonetheless. When rumours about rising rebellious groups made it to their ears, some people even brought the information to Olympus’ forces in the hope they were rewarded with gold or protection. And when the Games were stopped only to be resurrected again a couple of years later, they learnt to embrace their comeback as a reinforcement of the promise of peace. Olympus called this second rebellion nothing but a proof of their protection for the districts, after the criminal groups were neutralised once again. They called these people foolish and traitorous, and assured that peace was restored once and for all; the guilty districts were held accountable for their uprising: districts Thirteen and Eight completely annihilated, the first for being the head of the rebellion, the later for showing its total support of it.
A new wave of refugees from the recent war brought new faces and stories to District Seven, and they offered their local tales in return. The Witch of the Woods was alive as ever, a song of past years sung by new voices to put their little ones to sleep.
She wasn’t the only shadow haunting the woods now, old tales mixed with new ones and the forest that used to mark the limit with District Eight quickly became the setting for ghost stories. Apparently harmless songs that served a deeper purpose than to entertain and amuse: they were subtle reminders disguised as lullabies. Reminders from the people to the people, and many were clever enough to discern from them the figures of martyrs.
Almost twenty years of peace would follow the second rebel defeat where the Games were more than ever a sign of unity for Olympians and the closest districts, while it was but a threat for the rest, a constant prompt of where the power still dwells more than half a century after The First Rebellion. Some people believe you’d have to be foolish to think in a new uprising, the outcome had been proven time after time; others think you must be foolish to believe that peace has been restored, since it has been proven time after time that fear is but a fallible weapon; that people would always resist and rise against what they hold unfair.
Yet another generation is born to the war, raised with the stories of martyrs turned into whispered lullabies and the weight of the annual Games over their shoulders; no different than the past one. And the sparks of rebellion are catching yet again, this time a little more ripe, a little more prepared for what might be coming in the following years.
The 48th Hunger Games had come and gone, leaving behind mourning families and cheerful crowds. To some people it had gone just as it always does, death and betrayal were recurrent events to the Games, but to a growing number of people they’d marked the beginning of the end of Olympus’ ruling. The following Victory Tour raised the amount of riots and kept Olympus on guard until it was over.
Half a year later, the 49th Hunger Games starts with worrying signs of disruption across different districts; some loud rebellious groups seeding chaos around their bases on the districts, and yet it is the silent ones that worry Olympus the most. Plans are already being made for the next Games, the Quarter Quell, where they can bend their own rules in front of everyone’s eyes without fear. In the meantime, they’ll have to deal with the disruptive figures in a more subtle way, and so they’re eager for this year’s Games.
Forest marauders are not the threat Olympus thinks to worry about, they have bigger concerns than to fight ghosts.