Chapter Text
People I would not kill:
- My younger sister, Ymir Fritz, because she’s the person I love the most in the entire world. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my little bunny.
- That being said, Fern. A medium-sized dog with thin, beige fur that looked like he’d been electrocuted. My sister loved that thing. I hated sharing food with him at first, but I knew we both had something in common.
- Wellie. For reminding me, amidst all the violence, that I was born kind.
- Armin Arlert. For seeing through me even in my nightmares
The list was really short; I found myself thinking about it the moment I opened my eyes, waking up from some strange dream. I don’t remember what I was reading, or if I had finished writing, but the shock was still there, like a scream stuck in my throat. I raise a hand toward the ceiling and watch my fingertips turn a bluish hue, as if I’d left my hands to freeze in a freezer.
The first rays of morning sunlight streamed through the window and bathed the entire room in a cozy yellow, making me wonder why I had woken up feeling cold in the first place. These were my favorite moments of the whole day, being able to lie in bed watching the faint light illuminate the darkness, putting an end to the early morning. It was the moment when my consciousness hadn’t fully awakened yet, and my thoughts hadn’t started to weigh on me. In those brief moments, that’s when I felt a little hope. Just like when it’s three in the morning and you think, “I need to do something with my life.” But hope is a word that wouldn’t have crossed my mind until a few years ago.
But today, a different kind of darkness had taken hold of the district, one that wouldn’t fade with the arrival of morning. It was that awful feeling of not knowing how to greet someone on your street after the loss of a neighbor. Because everyone knew there was nothing to be said that would ease the pain of a loss that could have been prevented, in all fairness. Because today was the Reaping day.
Usually I wouldn’t go this far, but today I got up from bed before everyone else in the house to make breakfast, because I wanted my mom to worry as little as possible. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t let it show, but I could tell from the way she moved. The way she clenched her fists stiffly on the table, and the look of sadness she couldn’t hide.
My dad wouldn’t say a word. He’d try to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. Maybe, in his mind, if he pretended hard enough, none of us would even exist. That’s what it already feels like daily.
I think that’s why I sometimes think about killing them. Because I have to deal with their feelings and comfort them about our possible death in the arena every year, even though they never protected us from the death that has always been right in front of us. Like when we almost starved to death back in District 12. And because even though they knew it would be like that, they still had two daughters, who would have to grow up alone in an empty house that smelled of mold and was full of rats. I wanted to kill them for not protecting my sister when she almost died, years ago. When she was almost murdered. And for not protecting me when I had to get my hands dirty with blood for the first time.
I have to take deep breaths to keep myself from clenching my fists and digging my own nails into the flesh of my palms. I start counting the seconds it takes for the water in the kettle to boil, and I relax my hands just as it’s about to whistle. I turn off the heat and turn on the sink faucet, rubbing my hands together a few times under the water to calm myself down.
That’s enough to keep me going for the next few moments while I finish making breakfast: a slice of bread for each of us, fish broth, and a few strawberries. Today the bread was fresh and the broth was made with the really good parts of the fish, seasoned with salt and seaweed, and for a drink we had seaweed tea. The Reaping at least gave us a fancier breakfast than usual.
People might think that we eat well in District 4, after all, we produce fish, so surely our meals must include fresh fish, a variety of seafood, the district’s special bread, vegetables…? But that was how the district’s wealthy and careers lived. They also lived in beautiful homes by the sea and showed off their own tridents during training. But my family had none of that to show off. We were originally from District 12, and got here in 4 when I was only 10 and Ymir was 6, because our father had skilled labor and technical expertise in refrigeration, canning, and preservation, due to District 12’s heavy mining machinery. Due to that, he was useful to process and transport the fish to the Capital.
Our house was near the fish processing warehouses and the fishing fleet repair areas. It’s the least glamorous part of the district, almost forgotten by tourists from the Capital. The furniture was old, made of wood that had once been beautiful but was now stained by sea salt. My mother and I spent hours scrubbing that furniture, as if we could also scrub away the smell of poverty that permeated the wood. In District 12, she had been a teacher, which means she was forced to teach about the importance of coal to the Capital to children who would die of starvation or in the Games.
The street where we live is narrow, with uneven cobblestones, and the air has a lingering smell of salt, dried fish, and machine oil. But even so, it was a move that saved our lives. From all of the things that could possibly haunt me to this day, what I fear the most is having to hear my sister crying from hunger again, watching her waste away before my eyes as her skin grew pale and her eyes became sunken. But even worse was not hearing her cry, because then I knew her stomach had stopped aching, given up on begging for food. It was like drowning in water; at first you struggle to get out, but once you get tired, you lose your strength and just let yourself sink.
In District 12, you learn that your body is a traitor; it lets hunger consume you from the inside out, prioritizes your vital organs, and lets the rest wither away. That’s why we start killing. Animals, I mean. Some people hunt illegally beyond the District’s fences. I never found it easy to kill animals, because they don’t even know they’re a target; it’s unfair. People, on the other hand, know they’re going to die someday, and they know they’re pitted against each other, even if you don’t want that at all. Aren’t the Hunger Games a perfect example?
I pull up a chair to sit down and hear the sound of Fern’s little paws tapping on the floor as he comes out of the bedroom to meet me. He sits down at my feet, and I give him a gentle stroke behind his ears. Fern had proven himself worthy of my trust, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, even of my love. After all, I even fed him with the canned food we got through the tesserae, since for the first time we didn’t need it to survive hunger.
Ymir’s silhouette appeared in the bedroom’s doorway; she was always very quiet, but I had already grown used to her presence. I let out a quiet chuckle because her hair needs to be brushed, but I invite her to eat before we start getting ready for the Reaping.
“ - Let’s eat first, lil bun. There are strawberries for you.”
When I get out of the shower, my parents are already dressed and my sister is brushing her hair. She’s wearing a white, embroidered dress that goes down to her knees and has puffy sleeves. I put on a gray wool coat dress. Instead of sleeves, there’s a cape collar that covers my shoulders and chest; on my legs I wear white tights, and on my feet, matching flats. The buttons on the cape collar are red and match the belt that cinches my waist.
I walk over to Ymir, who is sitting on the edge of the bed, and place a white hairband in her blonde hair, which falls perfectly straight down her back. I gently cup her face with both hands to get a better look at her. Her eyes are cloudy, her irises white, and she doesn’t look directly at me. I smile anyway, and since she can’t look at herself in the mirror, I say:
“ - You look beautiful. Even Fern agrees.”
At one o’clock in the afternoon, we set off for District 4’s central square. It’s a really fun place, right by the sea, with the ocean visible in the background and boardwalks leading down to the sandy beach. On a typical day, the various shops surrounding the square would be open, selling decorations and accessories made from seashells, fruit smoothies, and weather-appropriate clothing. But today there were posters from the Capital hanging from the buildings, and film crews adorning the area, as if they were preparing for a festival. But the main attraction would be our death.
People form the line for registration in silence, and the young people aged twelve to eighteen are separated from the rest, placed with the older ones in front and the younger ones behind. That way, I end up at the front line, far from Ymir. It wasn’t easy to let go of her hand, but I knew I couldn’t control what was about to happen, and I couldn’t show how much it was tearing me apart.
I fixed my gaze on the stage that had been temporarily built for today, and I barely noticed when one of my hands nervously reached up to the back of my neck, clutching a few strands of hair tightly. The stage had been built of dark wood, perhaps from dismantled ships, with details of nautical ropes. Fishing nets hang like flags, shells and starfish have been painted on the buildings, and normally the smell of salt and seaweed would evoke an ordinary day at the beach, but today there were flowers in the decorations, which made the place look and smell like a funeral.
There are several occupied seats on the stage, one for the district mayor, Marinius Tide, another for a very tall woman with terrifying eyes and smile. Yelena. She was the representative from District 4, newly arrived from the Capital, wearing a petrol-blue suit with lots of ridiculous shell embellishments. In the other seats were the District 4 winners from previous editions of the Games. Among them, the ones who catch my attention the most are Mags Flanagan and Hange Zoe.
But before I could think too much about them, the town clock struck two, and the mayor began to recount the history of Panem and the Hunger Games. To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention to anything, and my only concern was to stop the thoughts that were invading my mind and terrifying me, like: “your sister is going to be chosen,” “she won’t last even a day,” and all the horrible ways I imagined her dying.
I knew they weren’t true, because even if she were chosen, I would volunteer as a tribute in her place. That’s why I’d joined the Career Center and trained so hard all these years, wasn’t it? If I killed them all and won the Games, my family wouldn’t have to fear having to go back to District 12 anymore. We’d live in The Victors' Village and… I wouldn’t be invisible anymore. That seemed like a problem, because then the Capitol would keep an eye on me and every step my family took. My skin burns just imagining all those eyes turned in my direction, placing bets on my chances of winning or dying, dissecting my body torn apart by another tribute or by mutts, and… Crack.
I look at my hand and see that I’m holding a clump of hair.
“ - Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.” Yelena’s voice fills the square, and I start rubbing my hands compulsively on my coat and my hair, trying somehow to smooth them out and keep myself presentable.
The reaping is about to begin. She’ll start with the girls, right? Wrong. This year she heads for the bowl with the boys’ names first. She reaches into the glass bowl and pulls out a slip of paper.
I swallow hard as part of the crowd holds its breath, and the other part, the Careers, cheers excitedly. Yelena crosses the stage once more to the microphone and announces the name loud and clear.
“- Armin Arlert.”
The boy must have frozen in his tracks, because the guys around him started exchanging glances and nudged him toward the stage. Sure enough, Armin was pale and looked like he was about to throw up as he slowly made his way up to the stage.
I rack my brain for where the name sounds familiar, and I remember there was a coach at the career center with the last name Arlert. He was already retired, so maybe he was Armin’s grandfather.
I notice there are no cheers of celebration for him. In fact, everyone seems a bit disappointed or sad, as if the boy on stage were already dead. It seems Armin wasn’t a very good bet for District 4’s pride.
“ - Bravo! A round of applause for our first tribute!”
Slowly, people begin to clap. Not everyone, some remain frozen like me, while Yelena walks over to the glass ball containing the girls’ names.
It’s okay, nothing’s going to happen… After all, what are the odds? There are so many names in there. My fears are irrational, my brain just wants to scare me
Her long fingers shuffle through the little slips of paper until she finally pulls one out and begins to unfold it. I feel the tension from the girls beside me, as if they’ve stopped breathing. I knew these ones were afraid, but there was determination in the eyes of some others, who clenched their fists, looking eager for permission to finally be able to kill in the arena.
What a strange thing. It felt almost kind of funny. The realization of a situation I couldn’t control seemed to have fallen upon me. But why now?
At some point of my life, I finally understood. Maybe it was at that one night I refuse to go back to, even only in my memories. But it could have been before that, too, when I was still just a child.
Death has always been everywhere, we just refuse to look and acknowledge it. Maybe this strange feeling is death itself placing an arm around my shoulder.
I gently close my eyes and let out a breath.
As long as I’m selfish and fight for myself, without needing anyone, without thinking of anyone but my family, it won’t be able to take me. Because somehow, I always knew that in the end, no one would come to save me.
The weight on my shoulders lifts, and I open my eyes, fixing them on the stage, as an unshakable feeling washes over me.
Yelena reads the name on the paper, announcing enthusiastically the second tribute.
And she says my name.