Chapter Text
Chapter One- Orange Juice
Karmen never thought that he’d be alone.
All alone.
No one there to make him laugh, to dance with him, to sing with him.
They were all gone.
It wasn’t his fault. He knew that, at least.
“Come on, Burni! Lighten up a little!” said Karmen, waving one hand around and holding a bottle in the other. His balance slightly off center, he stumbled, only to be caught by a strong arm in front of him.
“I swear, Karmen, you’re going to die drinking,” replied a short woman, with dyed red hair and a deep complexion. Her face was barely hiding a smile, the corners of her mouth twitching up as she put her hands on Karmen’s shoulders and made him straighten up. Laughing, he found himself taking another drink from the bottle before shaking his head.
“Aw, give him some slack. It’s not often that he keeps himself down to one drink,” a voice from behind Karmen made him turn, revealing a taller man with windswept dark hair and an infectious grin.
Burni shook her head but couldn’t contain her laugh.
The room felt warm and vibrant, the flickering lights from candles next to the windows supporting the cozy atmosphere. Trouble’s Bar was always a hot spot in district twelve, especially in the evenings when everyone was done with work. They’d all go to the bar and spend the night dancing, drinking, and generally having a good time.
Trouble, who’d recently inherited the bar from his father (who was also nicknamed Trouble) could always be counted on to take Karmen’s side. They’d been best friends for years, after all. Poking fun at one another was a part of their friendship.
“Come on, man! Tell you what: I’ll go perform a song for you, and you give me another free drink. Sounds good?” said Karmen, turning to trouble and raising the bottle to him in salute. Shaking his head, Trouble rolled his eyes.
“You’ve had enough. You’re going to make me go out of business at this rate,” he replied, making Burni cross her arms and look triumphant.
“Fine. I’ll sing anyway,” Karmen started to belt out a song, one that was traditional in district twelve. He wasn’t sure where it was from, but then again, most of twelve’s history had been lost to time. Their traditions had been carried down through songs like this one, and by word of mouth.
Everyone in the bar turned to look at Karmen, who just kept singing. Once he had finished, there was thunderous applause, and he took a bow with a beaming grin.
Picking the bottle back up, he took one last swig to drain the contents. It burned as it went down his throat. The sensation was pleasant to him, signalling a job well done.
Several people came up to him and patted him on the shoulder or raised their drink to him in toast. Everyone always said that he had the best singing voice in the district, and he was one of the few that sang almost every night. Karmen loved to sing, and some nights he’d even get up on one of the wooden tables and do a little dance.
If he’d had more money, and wasn’t so poor, he would have invested in an instrument a long time ago. Unfortunately, instruments were hard to come by, and there wasn’t really anyone that was willing to make him one for free. Not that he hadn't tried.
Burni came over to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, while Trouble returned to tending the bar. He was lucky to have such good friends. Out of everyone in the district, he’d known Trouble and Burni the longest. When they were kids, they used to play outside the bar, next to the big tree with the makeshift swing. He still liked to try and sit on the swing from time to time, though it didn’t really fit him anymore.
Since they lived in such a small district, he knew practically everyone. Many people would come up to talk to him over the course of the night, and he’d greet them all like he’d known them for years, which he had. His friends were important to him, but so was keeping up relationships with everyone else.
A couple of peacekeepers were seated in a corner of the room, and they waved to him. He waved back, giving them a respectful nod. He didn’t love the peacekeepers, no one did. However, they’d built up a level of respect for one another throughout the years.
“It’s getting late, and I’ve got an early shift in the morning. I should probably head out,” said Burni. Karmen immediately shook his head, giving a pathetic fake sigh.
“Burni! You’ve barely been here an hour. Can’t you spare a little more time for your friends?” he replied, giving her puppy dog eyes. Patting him on the shoulder, Burni simply gave him a small smile.
“You know I have to wake up early. I don’t want to be hungover on the job,” Burni responded as he tried to look as sad as possible.
“Let her go, Karmen!” shouted Trouble from the bar, having to yell to be heard over all the clamor of the rest of the patrons. He was surprised Trouble could hear them from all the way over there.
Trouble used to sing a lot more with him, and their duets were known in the district for being almost eerily in tune. Ever since he’d inherited the bar, though, he hadn’t had much time to sing in the evenings.
Reluctantly, Karmen let Burni leave, and took a seat at the bar on one of the rickety old stools.
Taking in the smell of alcohol and burnt wood, he let himself enjoy a moment of peace and quiet before striking up a conversation with the person next to him. It was a hooded man, with eyes the color of burnt coal. Karmen couldn’t place him in his mind, and didn’t recall seeing him before. That was odd, since he knew almost everyone in the district.
“This isn’t how it happened. Time to wake up, kid,” said the man, causing Karmen’s vision to fade.
The smell of burnt cinders and ash started to infest his nose, taking away all of the warmness from the bar. No, it was still warm. It was too warm.
He turned, trying to get out into the fresh air, but he couldn’t move his legs.
Suddenly, everything was on fire. Everything was burning. People were screaming, yelling, and he couldn’t move.
Where was Burni? Where was Trouble?
They were nowhere in sight.
“Wake up, Karmen!” came a voice from above him.
Vision clearing, he found himself lying on the ground, tree branches surrounding him and a rock next to his head.
“Ugh, you smell awful. Come on, time to get up!” said the same voice.
He blinked, and a girl’s face swam into view.
“What…” he stuttered, slurring his words slightly. The girl sighed, and grabbed his hands, trying to pull him up.
“Come on, lazybones! We need your help in the kitchen,” she said, and Karmen finally came to his senses.
He sat up, noticing the empty bottles next to him. The clearing was full of charred wood, most of it already removed for disposal or use elsewhere, but some beams still remained.
A tree stump sat a few feet away from him. Grimacing, he felt a tear run down his cheek.
Right. The fire.
Why had he come back here again? It had been over a year, and he was still replaying the incident in his mind.
He knew the answer to that question. This was the spot he always ended up in after drinking.
Luckily, Minnie was there to put some sense back into him.
Picking himself off of the ground, he followed Minnie through the path in the woods. She occasionally turned around to make sure he was still there, as he was still quite slow moving.
When they made it back to the kitchen, she opened the door for him, and he went inside. Instinctively, he turned toward the cabinet, only to find that a new lock had been put on it.
“You’re not doing this again, mister. Dad and I are cutting you off,” said Minnie firmly, meeting his eyes. He looked away, slightly grumpy, but understood why they’d done it.
Instead, she had a glass ready for him, full of some water mixed with a weird looking powder.
“What’s this?” he asked, unsure of what it was.
“Orange powder. Dad got it recently from the market, not sure how they got it all the way up here. He said it’ll help with hangovers,”
Tentatively, he drank it, nearly spitting it out. The taste was vile, but a sensation of relief washed over him after he knocked it down.
“That’s nice,” he replied, draining the glass. If it helped with the awful feeling in his chest, he’d take it.
His dreams about the old bar had been popping up a lot recently, especially when it had been on his mind during the day.
When it burned to the ground with Burni and Trouble still inside, he’d been outside, and had escaped without a scratch. He still felt immensely guilty for that day, but what could he have done? Rushed back in to save them? That would have been stupid.
“Karmen? Did you hear me? We’ve got some hungry customers!” said Minnie, already poking her head through the window into the small restaurant.
It wasn’t really a restaurant in the proper sense of the word, but it was what they had. He sighed, and went to put on his gloves. Time to get to work.
Chapter One Part Two
Minnie loved working morning hours in the restaurant. That’s not to say she didn’t enjoy the evening, but since she worked all day, she was typically pretty tired by the time closing came around.
The kitchen was practically her life. No longer having time for school, since her father couldn’t pay more employees than they already had, she took long shifts and worked hard to help the business stay afloat. It was less of a proper restaurant and more of a place where people came to and bought a meal from, though there was some seating inside.
“Number 13, coming up!” she heard from the front of the kitchen, immediately launching into finding the ingredients for the dish. Most of their dishes were really simple, made out of grain and whatever else they could get their hands on in the market. Everything was neatly put away in labeled wooden drawers or in the icebox, which was where she was headed first.
“Have we opened already?” asked Karmen, one of her favorite employees and the slacker that she’d had to wake up earlier.
It’s not that she resented Karmen for what he chose to do in his spare time. It was more like she felt he could be making better choices. He was lucky to be employed here, anyway.
“Yep! Get moving, sleepyhead!” she enthused, waving an arm at him while her face was buried deep in the icebox. Once she’d found what she needed, she moved it to the prep counter, and started finding their meager seasonings.
In an ideal world, she’d have all of the seasonings she needed to craft amazing dishes. Minnie settled for being realistic, though, and having even a pinch of spices was a luxury in twelve.
Sprinkling a little salt on the meat, she then moved it to a pan, where Karmen took over cooking it.
From where she stood in the kitchen, she could hear the conversations of the closest patrons to the door. Minnie never met to listen in, but she learned a lot from overhearing certain things while she worked.
“They’re bringing in another group of Peacekeepers for the games? Damn, are we not good enough?” said one deeper voice.
“Unfortunately, they think we need extra help. There’s been talk of a problem with some of the miners recently and they’re taking every precaution they can. Don’t want another situation like the 75th,” said a higher pitched voice in response.
“Oh, come on. We get it, you’re old. There hasn’t been any talk of rebellion in years. All of the rebels were stomped out,” the deeper voice sounded bored, and replied slowly.
Minnie moved her prep station slightly closer to the door. This was interesting, far more interesting than the usual district gossip. She hadn’t even been alive during the 75th games.
“Well, it’s not like I experienced it myself, I’m not that old,” replied the higher pitched voice.
“You just chose to serve later in life, right. I’ve heard it a million times before,” the deeper voice said with a tinge of sleepiness.
Karmen passed over the cooked meat, and she went to work chopping it up and fashioning it into a dish. Some potatoes there, a tiny bit of bread, and then it was done.
She arranged everything nicely on the plate and opened the door, using her free hand to hold the plate as she walked out into the main room. At one of the tables near the back sat two peacekeepers, an older woman and a younger man, both of whom already had their food.
“Number 13, coming right up!” she said, delivering it to a man with graying hair and a beard near the front. He nodded at her before digging into the plate. Probably one of the miners with a later shift, if she had to guess.
“Hey, girl! Come over here!” said the older peacekeeper, beckoning her over to their table.
Anxiously, she walked over, worried that she’d done something wrong.
“Could you get me some water, please?” asked the woman, to which Minnie gave a hasty nod and ran back to the kitchen. Making sure she used one of the bottles and not the water from the well, she poured a glass, then ran back out to deliver it to the peacekeeper. The woman gave her an approving nod, and Minnie felt a sense of relief wash over her.
Back in the kitchen, Karmen was still working on orders, looking a little groggy but more alert than earlier.
“Bad dreams again?” she inquired with a sympathetic look.
“Always. I wish you could have met Burni and Trouble. I mean, you probably crossed paths with each other, but they wouldn’t have paid the time of day to a kid like you,” yawned Karmen.
“Hey! I’m only four years younger than you!” she pouted, stomping a foot on the floor.
“That’s like, two decades in kid time. You’ll understand when you’re older,” Karmen teased, cooking some eggs while he talked.
“Stop it, you big buffoon. Before you know it I’ll be taller than you,” she spat back with a twinkle in her eye.
Karmen was already short for an adult, and while Minnie was also short, she had no doubt that she’d grow more in the next year. That’s what she told herself every year, even though she hadn’t grown since she was 14.
“Keep your hopes up. You’ll need them,” replied Karmen.
Rolling her eyes, Minnie got to work on the next dish, occasionally bantering back and forth with Karmen as they worked. The other two employees were off today, and her father was manning the front register, so it was just the two of them.
“You know, I’ve always thought that it was arson. Someone had to burn the bar down on purpose. Maybe it was a competitor, maybe it was an idiot kid, but I can’t believe people just let it go. It’s been two years,” said Karmen quietly after a moment of thought.
“Really? That’s hard to believe. What would someone have against Trouble?” replied Minnie, face falling.
“Everyone has their own motives. You gotta stay alert,” Karmen responded simply.
Personally, Minnie had never been to the bar. She’d never even been allowed in because of her age. There was another bar in town, but it was a long walk, and it got pretty rowdy there. Still, Karmen had promised to take her when she turned 18 and was legally allowed to drink.
Only a year until she turned eighteen, but six years until she aged out of the reaping. The decision to change the age range had been before her time, back after the short-lived rebellion, and she had no clue why they did it. Maybe to make them suffer more? Now people had to worry about being reaped from the age of fifteen to twenty three.
On days like this, she started to think about her mother, and her extended family. How her mother’s younger sister had been reaped and how her mother died out of grief a few years after Minnie had been born.
She’d barely known the woman, and some days she’d wonder what her life would be like if she was still alive.
“Hey, Karmen? What do you think about the games?’ she asked, curious as to what his opinion was.
“Well, you know. They’re the games. I obviously have no desire to end up in them, and I have to watch them every year. Why the question?” he replied, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because of my aunt. Do you think that they’re rigged?” Minnie whispered, not wanting their conversation to drift out into the other room.
“No. District twelve is a small district. Everyone knows someone who was selected and then died. We have like three victors, right? Well, living victors. I’m surprised we even have that many,” replied Karmen with obvious disinterest. Clearly he didn’t care a lot about the games. Minnie wondered who he knew that had been reaped.
“One month until the 128th games. Don’t they do some sort of announcement from the last victor around this time?” she asked, causing Karmen to sigh. It was clear he was done with all of her questions.
“Yes, and if you don’t pay attention to that meat you’ll let it burn,” he gestured toward her pan with a spatula, causing her to hastily turn the heat down on the stove.
For the rest of the shift, they worked in tandem, talking and teasing each other until it came time for Karmen’s shift to be over. Since Minnie basically lived at the restaurant, with her family’s apartment being above it, she would probably keep working until they closed for the night.
They really needed to hire someone else, but they just didn’t have the money for that at the moment. She hoped that they’d have a month with a higher profit, though that seemed almost impossible. For now, she’d continue to work hard and give her all. Anything she could do to support her father was a worthwhile task in her eyes.