the caged bird sings cries of valkyrie ⚔ protest initiation

[𝓂𝒶𝒽𝑜𝓊𝒽𝑜🕊]

Names carry weight to them, as mama used to say. They can act as a rite of passage for the rest of your life, and when you feel lost, they can be what grounds you. Aarón was the eldest, bringing light into the lives of Ramón and Carmen Jiménez. Next I came eight years later, mama naming me after the curious dove that stayed on her bedroom windowsill for some months, always watching over my crib while I slept. Milagros came four years after me, arriving with a weak heart and so small that I was too afraid to hold her for several years. Holding tools like wrenches from papa’s shop never feared me. Its weight felt comfortable in my grasp, reassuring and exciting even. Yet Milagros was fragile, like abuela’s china that resided in a dusty cabinet we would never eat off of. She was as coveted as the worn pages of mama’s green journal, with graphite scribbled notes in a language I couldn’t speak but would be a tune Milagros grew familiar with. Aarón and I however grew up to the sound of blowtorch heat, clanging metal gears working on the now abandoned rust buckets that haunted the side of town that our elders told us not to venture near.

They say the potholes that the faceless clad in white left behind are dangerous, but did they forget we used to play in those streets before? Did they forget what happened when they first arrived? I don’t think mama did. The echoes of gunfire and loud clangs would haunt her at night. Towards the end, at dawn, you could find her sitting in her canary nightgown on the concrete front steps of our house. Mama’s eyes held an indescribable sadness as she stared into retreating dusk, almost as if she were hoping to find them walking home. But Aarón and papa wouldn’t after they crossed the broken fence that barred off the other side of town.

Once every year, for the past four years, we were forced to march past the fence, past the ruins of our once colorful streets. A makeshift wooden stage would host our weathered mayor, whose face seemingly got more leathered with every meeting. They called the faceless “peacekeepers” according to our new “president.” In order for us in the districts to be grateful to our new leaders, every year we were supposed to sacrifice more, and more, and more; because those who bring peace only come to take our own. No amount of bodies would satiate their thirst, not my papa’s, not Aarón’s, and now not mine. Because this year, my name was called. This year these supposed peacekeepers descended through the crowd and onto me. Their gloved grasp dug craters into my biceps, dragging me to past the stage as my ears filled with the worst song to come. Instead of the tunes mama used to sing, my name escaped in shrilled sounds from Milagros’ mouth. Tio Ernesto wrapped his burly arms around her small frame, lifting her up while her Mary Janes kicked into the air. All I could do was shout for Ernie to take her away, because I didn’t want Milagros to end up like mama, waiting on the steps for me to come home, haunted by the ghosts of once before.

But maybe we’re all haunted, haunted by these faceless drones. They kidnap us from our homes, throwing us into metal bullets, humiliating us by dragging our feet into mildew tunnels beneath. Like flour, they fling you into the bars and slam them shut as if a threatening hawk. But looking around as we file in from all directions, I don’t see any beasts like the ones that deserve to be locked in cages. I see children, some tall and lanky and others chubby cheeked and petite that remind me of her. We’re kids, and yet those wielding guns act as if they need to be protected from us. They have the gall to shoot our family and friends back at home, but here, their guns might as well be made of plastic. Because they’d be stupid to shoot their dog before the hunt.

Head throbbing from my temple making contact to the bars, every part of me seemed to vibrate like the crescendo that echoed throughout our halls during weekday evenings mama spent cleaning. It was intoxicating and alluring, drawing me to grind my gravel cut feet into the ground beneath. My gaze steadied into the black mirror, latching my hands onto the metal before me and thrusting myself to meet my reflection. Tongue drawing back, my lips parted, and I spat, giving the mirror a finishing polish. And now, my own voice found me. Mama never taught me to sing, but she’d give a standing ovation at my next words; “you peacekeepers are cowards!” Fingers threading down the bars, my right hand pushed against my braid soothingly. My next verse drew power from the sunflower silk ribbon weaved through my locks. I’m glad you weren’t here Milagros, but just know I’ll always be with you, and right now I feel you too. “What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?”

griffin

[MATTIO]

The belief that an industrial territory like District Eight was confining and restrictive tarnished itself the moment Ander stepped forward after his name was called. He never should've taken Drift's advice and comply with attending the Reaping. At least in the woods he could have had a shot. They'd try to hunt him down for violating their rules and their games, but there would still be a chance. A boy with nothing to his name other than the clothes on his person and a lighter in his pocket held up alright for what, six years now? Stacked fences and camouflaged booby traps did not stop this Drifter from doing what he did best: surviving.

If only that was still the case, Ander preferred a quality game of hunting and hiding. With the Reaping and these Hunger Games, the Capitol and their keepers dug their filthy claws into a fish bowl and dragged one fish out to suffocate. Instead of evading lazily placed fences, Ander De La Cruz found himself locked in a holding cell, waiting to see which of these twenty-four fish would find themselves dried up the fastest. A fish's suffocation was a slow death, though, and every movement made outside his claustrophobic box felt as if it was happening in slow motion.

"Like, okay, we get it, you won the war," he complained under his breath. One of the keepers dealt him a disapproving stare before continuing his march around the colosseum. "No need to rub it in." What a horrible kink for power-hungry people to have, sending kids to go and kill each other. Four years after the war, most of these kids don't even know what they're fighting for. Hell, Ander doesn't even know what they all fought for. Rights? Freedom? Dignity? Ander tried to force the pieces to come together, but he never had any luck. He was the furthest thing from a citizen that he could be. The Drifters stayed as far away from conventional society as they could. Regardless, Mom and Dad, Luca, and countless others were shot down in the crossfire just for trying not to get in anyone's way.

His fingers curled up against the bars that blocked him from slamming one of the Peacekeepers with his fist. Oh, how he wished he could. What was the worst they could do, send him into an arena where he'd probably be slaughtered or lose a limb, or both? He chuckled to himself, scratching at the metal bars with his nails. It helped to pass the time, not to mention at least partially drown out the desperate shuffles and grunts of the other kids trying not to go into their cell as well. Everything echoed, from the uniform footsteps of the keepers to the leaking ceiling dropping little droplets to keep him at his toes. Ander wanted to get rid of the sound, but he resisted the urge. Last thing a Drifter wants is for the last day of their life to be made hell by a couple of people who think they're somebody. The only thing worse than hearing it, though, would be being forced to let it drop on his head, like he read about and heard rumors of as the Capitol's method of torture during the war. If he pushed his luck, Ander wouldn't put it past them to do it as some sort of punishment before they toss him out into the colosseum.

He desperately sought to do something else with his hands. For a typical day, all he would have to do is reach into his pockets, pull out a cigarette and a lighter, and he'd be at peace for at least a few minutes. The Peacekeepers confiscated him of both those things before he even made it to the train cars. A smoke, though. Damn, wouldn't that be nice? If only the world outside his delusional was nice. Cruel, horrific, authoritarian, restrictive, bitchy, pains in the ass, sure. But the world was not nice, or any other quality for that matter. Not even neutral characteristics were acceptable by Panem's standards anymore!

He leaned his head against the wall, eyes drained and fingers no longer scaling the bars. Being forced into one place with nothing to do was exhausting. They wouldn't even let their sacrifices practice. What's to stop someone from, say, 'accidentally' swinging their sword so hard that they let go, decapitating one of the spectators? Ander rested his eyes and smirked at the thought.

"You peacekeepers are cowards!"

The sound of an insult caught Ander's attention quickly, and he leaned his body on the opposite side of the cell now, trying to get a better ear for what was happening. The Peacekeepers seemed to be paying no mind to the girl who called it out, continuing to make their march and escort whatever tributes were left to their cells for the pregame show. The voice echoed loud throughout the colosseum like a parent scolding their child could be heard from two doors down the street.

"What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?"

Ander liked her thinking as whoever this girl was was making her plea to the rest of the kids in cages. If any of them were going down, it might as well be with a fight. Not a fight against one another, but certainly a fight.

"She's right," he whispered, releasing a wide exhale as he picked himself up straight on his feet.

He couldn't tell how close or far away she was, so there was no telling how loud he had to be to show his approval.

Simple words wouldn't be enough. Instead, he howled toward the direction he believed the girl to be. "FUCK YEAH!"

Nonconforming and noncompliant, he kept going, shouting on the top of his longs. For all he knew, it was the last opportunity for him to do so before the shouts of excitement drew out into shouts of pain.

Make some noise, make some trouble, make some mischief. Drifter style.

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

The mushroom crew celebrated in the junkyard the night before the reaping.

All the usual trash bags were in attendance.

Koopa from the edge of the block brought a dime bag of skunk weed that Birdo would roll into joints at the edge of the bonfire. Rosalina dragged Daisy even if she hadn’t wanted to come, promising that by the end of the night they’d either wind up with someone or be so shit faced it wouldn’t matter. Toad would grab whatever he could get his hands on to start the first – cleaning fluid, rags, a coil spring mattress – and light the fucker up so that by the time most of them got there was already threatening to turn into a blaze.

Wario brought the liquor. He and Waluigi would show up as though they were the biggest fucking heroes ever, carrying in plastic bottles of bottle shelf liquor that could strip the paint right off the side of the house. But it was free, and it was strong, and by the time any of them had taken their fourth shot, they wouldn’t have to think about all the bad things they didn’t want to remember.

Three times, and they’d escaped a death that six others from six had already gone through.

‘Six from six,’ Toad would puff out, as though somehow the act of counting the dead made it mystical. They didn’t remember any of the names of those that’d died because they truly didn’t give much of a shit. They were lucky enough to have roofs over their heads, to not have died of starvation or been bombed out of existence while they were in kindergarten. ‘But honest to god, who cares?’ The pube-stached Waluigi would sing out whenever they tried to remember the names, shaming them to silence.

So what if they didn’t have some great revelation about death? Did it make them any worse to be sixteen, seventeen, and not have some great reverence for death? As far as people like the mushroom crew were concerned, they’d gotten the short end of the stick having to grow up during a civil war, let alone watch kids they went to school with die on national television.

‘So fucked up,’ Daisy would sniff between cigarettes, the absolute height of feeling toward the dead. The rest would nod along as though it meant anything at all, this – centering on a world cracked open and struggling to be born anew. Fresh into dictatorship, they were surviving any way they knew how. From a pair of brothers that hustled their way with playing cards (Wario was faster than people gave him credit for) to Birdo finding work in the world’s oldest profession (freshly eighteen, they’d tell you, making the choice when work had dried up and there were bills to pay).

The party had been in full swing when Mario arrived, his smirk plastered on, hand ready to shake and slap on his boys’ backs. He kissed the girls on the cheeks, idling in a breath of small talk, Peach lingering at his back, watching.

She’d wanted to wait until after the reaping, she said, because she was on some bullshit about making the moment special. That it was too auspicious for the two of them to fuck when the stars were aligned like they were, the luck wouldn’t be right for either of them.

That’s what he’d told Luigi, who’d been watching the door for their father, when Mario and Peach came out, red faced, smelling of perfume. He’d smudged his younger brother’s hair with a smile and a wink. ‘C’mon, beanpole,’ Mario hoisted the straps of his overalls over his shoulders with a grin.

He replays it all, laying on the cool of the concrete inside the cell.

Faces of boys that played at being men, so much that they’d forgotten they were boys. Girls who’d worked harder to keep it all together – their families, their friendships – that they’d pressurized into steel. Drinks spilled over the dust of the junkyard, their voices echoing out through the night. Moments he’d thought could stretch on to forever because they had no choice. No choice to not believe they could run wild even as the world told them, ordered them to be contained.

Mario tasted blood across his busted lips and crusted over his nose. Both eyes ached, one from the left fist of a keeper and the other from the end of his baton. Not that he’d been brave when his name had gotten pulled. Mario’d nearly shat his pants standing there, breath emptying out his lungs, eyes bigger than dinner plates when the keepers came for him. They pulled him forward and he started crying like a little bitch.

Fight or flight came next because like hell was he going to pay for whatever bullshit people who’d gone and marched off to war about before he was born. So he swung his elbows and tried to break free, even if there’d been six armed keepers willing to take down a seventeen-year-old boy.

One had grabbed him by the arm, another hit him with a baton, and he crumpled. He resisted, flailing his arms as though they all didn’t know the end to this tale. But it gave them the satisfaction that they wanted, fear that permeated the air to let them know they’d already won. One baton, two, three, five, six, a leg – STOP – no one says it, because how could they? No, there’s no savior here, no one willing to stop what they saw.

A boy, bloodied, beaten, strangled within an inch of his life. A message to ring loud enough through the square that they had everything to lose.

He managed to pull himself up along one of the iron bars and set back against the concrete wall. His left eye swollen, he could get at least a little view out of his right, not that it mattered. ‘Super’ Mario was fucked three ways to Sunday, sitting in a cage ready to be ground up with the rest of the unlucky losers.

‘You peacekeepers are cowards!’ A voice rang out.

Heh. He felt himself nod.

‘What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?’

Mario let the words spin around in his head. He had a way home through the rest of them. But it sure did look like he was not in any sort of shape that would make him a contender. And to be real with himself for a half second, he didn’t want to have to stab the shit out of another kid to get there. He may have shoveled shit for a living but that didn’t make him a shit.

“Yo. Queen shit right there.” Mario muttered out managing a smile. He knocked his knuckles against the bars in solidarity.

‘FUCK YEAH!’ Another voice rose up and echoed through the passage.

He sat up straight, this time grabbing hard at one of the poles as though he could bend it between his fingers.

“YOOOOoooooo!” His side gnawed with pain, but Mario could feel the fire in his stomach. This was the sort of shit they’d have done back in six, cause a scene, be loud, unapologetic, crass, and fearless. Together. “Here we go!”

“Hell yeah they’re fuckin’ afraid. Afraid of this massive dong right here. What.” He coughed out a laugh.

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

I'll never admit it, but I'm afraid.

I'll never admit anything. Not like these kids. Not again. Speaking up for what I believed was right and true is the reason I'm in this mess. They take your pride and your identity and they turn it into treason, lock you up in cages, swing their batons and call it peace. Something odd about making someone so petrified they can't open their mouths and only then saying we're peaceful feels wrong to me. We're not at peace - we're just too scared to say otherwise.

But does that make me a coward? Curled up in the corner of my cage, arms already turning purple and blue from my accusations at the reaping? There's no such thing as District Thirteen, one of them grunted into my ear as they hauled me onto the train. Liar.

I'm not a liar. I'm not. I remember it, the place I came from. And I remember the way I shuddered at the sounds of war just like I do now - lips pressed tightly together, barely breathing, huddled up within myself with my eyes screwed shut and hands over my ears.

"I'm from District Thirteen," I whisper over the sounds of children hollering and Peacekeepers screaming, until it's the Keepers who are hollering and the children that are screaming. Quiet, so quiet - words that only I can hear. Words that keep me at peace. "I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from-"

I remember the way the earth shook, the way it filled with bright white light, the way I opened my eyes just a crack to peer through the gaps in the train carriage -

( a tiny frightened gasp, my mother weeping. )

and I remember seeing my home go up in smoke, vanishing as if it were never there.

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I'm a coward and a liar.

"I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen I'm from District Thirteen..."

There will be no peace tonight. Might as well speak my truth until it lulls me to sleep - for it's all I have left in this place.

[Kire]

Josephine Bartlett

She has been silent from the moment the peacekeepers first escorted her off of the stage. Even when they tossed her around roughly, throwing her to the floor of the train car and then hauling her back out at the end of the line. Even then, already starting to bruise, she made little more than a couple grunts. She would give them no satisfaction of seeing her pain, it would only make everything that much worse.

She never said a word, even as the doors open before her and slammed behind. Neither, though, did she fight or struggle. The rattling of bars and the occasional sharp word from another captive teen would send the peacekeepers gleefully reaching for batons - some would even simply use their fists. The protests were useless, hopeless, and only set to cause those who rebelled problems. Once a rebel, always a rebel. She wasn't a rebel, though, she wasn't anything.

The incoming parade of other tributes, lonely and walking with at least three or four peacekeepers who all itched to have an excuse to dole out punishment, felt endless. The slow trickle was enough to make it seem as though many more than twenty-four of them had been taken. Perhaps they had, no one really knew. She kept her head down and her nose out of it, knowing she would have to keep her strength up. This slow starvation was nothing new to her and so she wasn't afraid.

Voices at one point, an echoing shout, broke her from the mind-numbing quiet she had wrapped herself up in. The sound of a baton striking cage bars. Something was stirring around her. She didn't move, just held herself very still and closed her eyes to listen. Words, mostly shapeless but still identifiable as words, drifted down the hallway until-

"You peacekeepers are cowards!"

Cowards... cowards... the word continued to mock the peacekeepers as it bounced around this underground jail. It eventually died, just as they all would, but the energy never dissipated.

"FUCK YEAH!"

A different voice broke the stuffy, tomb-like quiet that had tried to settle around them like a shroud once more. Fabric torn, a death denied. Fools, both of them.

"YOOOOoooooo!"

Howling like a wolf's, a signal of togetherness and support. We are nearby, we are more than one. If they continue, all they will be is dead. Three tributes lost before the games began would not be too hard to explain away. If they pose enough of a threat to the Games continuing, they would simply be its first victims. She wanted no part of any of this.

If she could survive the gnawing hunger of the war, the endless days of nothing, then she could survive a couple days being roughed up by peacekeepers. The less she provoked them, the better. The fewer bruises she went into the arena with, the stronger she would be against those who had spoken out and gotten injured for their troubles.

Look after yourself first. She couldn't protect any of them from themselves, let alone the peacekeepers. Better to keep her mouth shut and her head down. After all, her family had always done just fine on their own. Solidarity is only good for those inside the group, something she had never been.

[kap]

Sitting in this holding cell, all the while being closely monitored by Peacekeepers was unnerving for Vanya. She sat there, staring off into the distance when someone shouted.

“You peacekeepers are cowards!” came the voice. “What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?”

Vanya heard other shouting- other voices yelling things out, some of which she could make out and others that she couldn't. She'd always been a pacifist, yes, but she'd always been vocal, too. She would normally shy away from a physical fights, but verbal altercations weren't off limits.

She rose to her feet and stared at the Peacekeeper standing on the other side of the bars for a moment. He smirked at her, and she snapped, raising her voice.

"Fuck you Peacekeepers! You think you can do whatever you want, but you're not in control of us!" she yelled. She started to pace as much as she could while remaining in her tiny holding cell. Although, it wasn't like she had a choice as to whether or not to stay in her cell. They'd put her here, and there was no decision on her part.

Vanya wanted to yell more but the Peacekeeper outside her cell had his hand on his weapon, keeping his gaze locked on her, and although she knew he wasn't allowed to kill her, there was still fear buried deep inside her. She wasn't a fighter.

Table by Ryan

[rook]

I run my palms down the cold stone. Coarse and rough against my dry skin, I feel the weight of these walls and all they've seen, I press against them and they press back and say to me: yes, you are stuck here. This is your fate.

A monolithic structure is built all around me, and I feel so small at it's centre, locked away in a dark little hole with barely enough light to see my hands in front of my face at night. Moonlight draws the edges of the rocks against the night's sky in white chalk, and the faces and domes of the Peacekeeper patrols are caught - they drift like silverfish in a dark pond.

And I try to move, but I can't.

I keep thinking that maybe there is a way out, some solution to all of this, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe the cell is unlocked, maybe the hinges are loose, or I dig my way out? I begin to wonder how thick these walls really are? Part of my brain is even considering to feign collapse so that someone will open my cell to check on me.

I don't entertain my fantasies. I accept that deep down that I'm nothing more than a rat caught in a trap, with no way out except through everyone else.

My heart knows that it's on borrowed time, and every b-dm, b-dm, b-dm b-dm pumping blood around my arteries is not mine. They own what little time I have left. They get to decide how this all ends for me. I lean forwards against the bars, white knuckles wrapped around an iron gate. Twenty three other lost souls about to descend into the abyss with me. I've tried to suppress all my feelings, and now I'm numb and hollow, but below it all is a cold layer of fear and dread lying on my chest.

Is it normal to feel so afraid at the end? Is everyone like this when they come face to face with death; so desperate to continue living that you find yourself crying at the thought of losing this precious thing that you've barely experienced. Life is so fast, like a flicker on a reel of film, flashing across your eyes before it burns up, and then that's it, you're gone - forever.

It hardly seems fair at all.

I try to find words to calm my frenzied mind. I try to centre myself. It all gets caught up inside my brain, a muddle of adrenaline, fears, and panic. I'm lost. I breathe. Just breathe.

I let the voices guide me. They start as a few lonely shouts sailing on the wind. I stand and listen as they gather pace, building, feeding off one another. What was first one voice is now several, and growing still. I press my forehead against the metal bars and try to catch a glimpse of what's going on. More Peacekeepers arrive, alert and armed with batons and guns.

There is a deep voice shouting in the distance, and the noise of metal on metal. Voices rise up in unity, and I stand there, staring into the abyss.

And I try to move, but I can't.

"I'm from District Thirteen."

I hear and my ears prickle in the cold enclosed vacuum of my cell. Across from me a girl starts repeating the same phrase over and over again, like saying it enough times gives it power.

"I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen. I'm from District Thirteen."

Thirteen. The place they wiped off the map? My father had told me what happened. The same thing that always happens. She is a survivor. A refugee?

The noise rises as more join in, like animals in a zoo their caged cries echo off the stone catacombs we already find ourselves buried in. I try to look for Nieve, but there are far too many cells, and from this angle I can only see a handful. I hope she is not as afraid as I am.

And I try to move, but I can't.

This powerlessness that I feel, weighing down my arms and pinning me to the back of this prison cell, I feel it lifting as the noise grows, and I want to grow with it. I am terrified, but this rally against our captors feels like the only normal thing to have happened in the last week.

This is our rapture. May as well go down fighting, right? Just like our ancestors.

A Peacekeeper walks past, white helmet tucked under his arm. His features are weary, war-torn and leathery. His eyes are cold and harsh, and he scans each cell systematically as more white pawns run past him to quell the uproar in cells further to my right.

"Hey!"

He turns to me, and I spit in his eyes.

[lionel estrada d5 ᥫ᭡ kiah]

dustin carter.

The sounds of his feet are the only thing he can hear as he paces his cell, hands balled into tight fists, nails biting into flesh as he her name being called, echoing around the district square, bounces through his memory. This eyes that he had meet, the way they seemed to be broken, then shattered as the next name called belonged to himself.

How could this be happening?

Hadn't he already lost enough?

How many times could the strings of a beating heart he ripped at before they snapped, forever putting to rest Dustin Carter?

Yells from down the dark corridor drift into his cell, they are filled with fury and pain and anger and defiance and he felt the emotions dance along his skin, warming up his blood.

“You peacekeepers are cowards!”

Hands grab at bars, face pressed against to try and see where the disturbance was coming from.

“What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?”

"FUCK YEAH!"

Another yells bouncing off the walls, echoing around him. He could feel the pace of his heart begin to race, holding his breath. They were cowards, keeping them locked up, segregated from each other as they were left to stew in their own thoughts about the nightmare that they were living- a nightmare which would soon turn into a fiery stroll though hell as they were cheered to rip each other to shreds.

His mind travels to Nan- was she joining in, her voice mingling with the yells of those around him? No. Nan was not the type to provoke unwanted aggression. The thought of her curled up on the cold ground of a dark cell set his blood on fire, his hands grasping the bars tighter as the urge to see her, hear her, consumes him. He had to know that she was okay, he had to hear her voice, to comfort her and tell her that everything would be okay-

But that would be lying.

He would not lie to her.

"Nan! Nan!" He yells through the bars, into the darkness, desperate for his voice to reach her. "Nan, stay strong!" He yells, a familiar burn at the back of his throat. "Pl-"

He is cut off, peacekeepers marching towards him, hands on weapons, faces as cold as ice, as hard as iron as his cell is unlocked.

He could tell this was about to hurt.

elegant

[charade]

nanette
emsworth

There is a saying in district eleven.

They thought they buried us, but we were seeds.

It’s supposed to mean that a person grows in spite of the adversity heaped upon them. That it strengthens them until they push through it and back into the sunlight. It’s a good saying, but it is irrelevant here.

I am not buried in dirt.

I am crushed by stone.

“Dustin? Dusty? Where are you?” I call out, alone and cold and afraid. There are voices, but they sound angry. I need to see his face. Hold his hand. Feel those comforting arms wrapped around my body.

He is the only remnant of my old life, of the girl I used to be before my name was called. The only thing keeping me grounded is knowing that I will see his face again before I blow away like dandelion fluff on the breeze.

Someone calls the peacekeepers cowards. I cringe. Nothing good ever came from antagonizing those in power.

People antagonizing those in power without the strength to win is the reason we are here in the first place. More voices rise. Cursing. Howling. Screaming. How quickly they are all reduced to animals in this place. It accomplishes nothing. They are spitting into the wind as it blows back into their faces.

“This is a mistake,” I cry to a passing peacekeeper. “I’m not supposed to be here; my parents are good citizens. They follow the law!” I clutch at the bars as though I had the strength to bend them. I do not.

I barely have the strength to keep breathing.“Please,” I need to make them understand. “The produce on our farm went to the war effort.” I grab ahold of a peacekeeper’s arm as he passes, my voice trembling.

“Please, sir—“He turns, and I can see my own frightened, tear streaked face reflected in the cold opaqueness of his visor. Does he have a daughter, I wonder? Did he lose anyone in the war?

For a moment, I dare to hope. I open my mouth to beg but he is already drawing his baton. It snaps open and he brings it down hard on the arm that is clutching to him like a lifeboat.

There is a crack and a pop as my wrist breaks. As what is left of my heart shatters. As my final hope for redemption is cruelly cast aside. Pain shoots up my arm and there are stars dancing in the edges of my vision.

I snatch my hand back and hold it to my chest with a strangled cry as I sink to the ground. I can hear him, my knight in shining armor, calling my name, pleading for me to stay safe.

To stay strong.

Keep your hands inside the bars, tribute.

“Dusty!” I shriek. “Oh God, he broke my wrist, Dusty—“The tears flow freely. My shoulders shake. “It hurts—he broke my wrist.” I sob, and I know this is only the beginning. I was thirteen when the first hunger games was broadcast.

I never thought that I would be on this side of it. There is no sunlight down here. No room to grow. Surrounded by stone I know that I am in a tomb.

I am a rose cut from the bush too soon, my petals ground into the mud below by an uncaring boot.

I am already dead. I just haven’t stopped breathing yet.

[knuckles]

Nocte Jay

Some would say being reaped is unfair, and Nocte would agree despite it being done by random draw. Not everyone is lucky in life, and right now he can't complain. The districts did rebel against the Capitol, and they tried having their own say in things, but the Capitol is all powerful. Anyone who breaks the rules have to be punished, but why like this? Yet he knows fighting wouldn't ever get him anywhere. Keeping his head low, and making sure nobody tries plowing through him is important. Maybe it'll help keep him alive.

Right now his only thought is getting back to his brother. Making sure that he's okay. Making sure that he's well taken care of, but at what cost? Why fight in a horrible game where only one can win? It's a question without an answer since the only other option is death. Trying to survive, to live, it's all so important, and right now Nocte wants to do the best he can.

But when he hears a commotion breaking out around him, he leans against the back of the holding cell knowing it won't do any good. The peacekeepers are stronger, they're capable of slaughtering the tributes without blinking an eye, but wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the hunger games? The tributes are to kill each other, so testing the peacekeepers wouldn't really do any damage other than maybe make them weaker before stepping foot inside whatever hellhole awaiting them.

Every word ringing through the air is true, and for a moment Nocte wants to join in, to swear at the peacekeepers, to tell them just how foolish they truly are, but why? What's the purpose? Again, he doesn't know.

He doesn't understand. The worst thing that can happen is death, and they're standing right before them, and all it would take is a simple shot of a gun to bring everyone back down. But at what cost? His life is more important than this. Going into the games with a chance of success means more to him than anything, and right now Nocte doesn't want to draw any attention to himself because soon they'll be fighting.

Of course, he agrees with all the words. The peacekeepers do suck. They are cowards. They don't give a shit about anyone. They are brainwashed by the Capitol to do as they're told. They don't care about anyone else. Just one small toe across the line results in punishment, and why aren't they acting here? Why are they struggling to simply keep people at ease?

If they want to die, that's on them.

Because Nocte wants to live, and keeping to himself is the only way he might possibly have a chance to survive. Silence is key whether he agrees or disagrees doesn't matter. It's up for him to decide, and nobody else can make that choice for him.

Sinking back into the shadows, he tries to not draw attention to himself, and in the back of his mind, Nocte prays they don't notice him or try to bring him into the ruckus. At least, that's all he yearns for.

District 9 | 4th Hunger Games

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[Tom]

I am caged in with bars made of steel and stagnant air.

Keepers leading us around to our cells where they hold us in with wicked smiles along their lips, sealed in by their helmets. We were their property in a sense, settling into the places where they'd wait for us to kill one another, create blood for their entertainment. Mother would have refused, fought the squad of Keepers in the square and call them by the power hungry creatures that they knew they were. I slide my hand along the bars, letting the chill soothe the fire in my mind, burning with the anger of why we were picked to fight.

All of us were kids, born into a world that was against us since the day we were born. Forced to fight or survive alongside a war that wasn't our own, but we are the ones to suffer the consequences of the loss of human life. Anger courses through my veins, but I can't take it out on any of them. We were just kids put into a games meant to be the sacrifice of the people lower than the capitol. Silently, I lean against the wall to my right, letting the stone walls and the cold bars keep me up, ignoring the sounds of those talking to one another.

Back home, I can see the orphanage where my Nana would be cooking dinner. Analise and Amira would be helping with careful hands as none of them speak about what happened. I don't know if they'll ever be the same, but I meant the world to some of them. I knew that. I knew that they loved me more than my own parents at times. My fist hits the wall silently, painful in the way the coarse stone strikes, but it's enough to ease my own frustrations.

"You peacekeepers are cowards!"

Cowards. The word rings against my skull, leaving a chill echoing through my body until I lean forward staring out of the bars, into the cells of others. "What do we have to lose? You can’t shoot us, because we’re supposed to kill us! So why lock us in a cage, are you that afraid?" Nothing is what you want to shout. Nothing to lose, but their lives which were already on the line. For a moment, my lips almost say the words I want to say, but instead a chorus of voices rise above.

Echoes along the walls with returned fires that are burning into one. The boy from my own district screaming in return, almost with the same fire of my own chest. Another boy shouting at the keepers, without fear and something in the way he speaks makes me feel less alone than before. I wrap my fingers around the bars, focusing on the scene before me. Others stand in silence, knowing there's no use, but my own hands grasp at the bars tighter. A girl's voice reaches the air, speaking of thirteen as if thirteen were still around. Rumors of its destruction had reached eight within the first few weeks after the end of the war. Others speak up even louder, my eyes watch as spit flies into the face of a Keeper as I blankly stare with surprise.

The voices of two others who knew each other echo along, Keepers are running around, starting to get violent like they always have been. Breaking wrists and attacking tributes. My heart races as I stare back at them, a girl cries for her friend and all I want to do is reach out and hug this girl, tell her the world was a cruel place, but the cruel wouldn't survive. Echoes of pain reach the air and as soon as I glance back to the Keepers, a man approaches with anger in his eyes. Fear is what they want. Fear is what they want to bring to them and if there's one thing I am not, it's afraid of men like them.

"Keepers only want fear."

The keeper pushes closer to me, pulling forth the baton, ready to strike my hands, but I've been here before. I've stood up to more keepers than I can count. Standing before them with their open palms and fists, taking the brunt of strikes in order to protect innocent children in the orphanage. Fear is what they want to spread, but I am not afraid. I will never be afraid of weak men and women who dare to instill hatred in Panem. The keeper strikes forward, but I wanted that. Deep down, I wanted to be attacked. The Keepers would get what's coming to them.

"You don't scare me, asshole."

The strike is hard, almost hearing the sound of something breaking in one of my fingers, but I knew it was coming. Grasping on tight to the baton, I pull with all of my might, pulling the Keeper closer to the bars, knowing he's expecting me to strike, but I will not be pulled to their level not before I get the chance to speak. I will not let them twist my actions to their own narrative. I am stronger than the keepers who dare to push their power onto others.

"You won't forget our faces, our blood will be on your hands for eternity, coward."

I swing for all the times I never got to. I swing for the children lost because of the keepers who dared to rip them screaming and crying from our home in the dead of the night. I swing for the bullet holes in my parents' heads. I swing for the 33 lives that have already been forced to fight in a game to the death. I swing for my Nana who's lost the last piece of her family in Eight. I swing for the days where I was so frustrated because the world was always against me for who I am.

The crunch makes me feel free for once.

Isn't that sad?

[Malachor Erso D2 (Cato)]

Andromache Audacia

It's a shame, really, that we're being thrown into this stupid game for the sake of someone else, but it doesn't matter to me. I've been through enough to life to understand everything that's coming my way. Help nobody, but myself. That's all I can do anymore anyway because nobody else cares. And even as I sit quietly in the holding cell waiting for the games to begin, my thoughts only rest on me and how I can survive. Getting out of here alive is important to me so I can spit in the face of those who told me I'd never stand a chance. People stole from me, they took my kindness for granted, and that will never happen again.
My only complaint is it's hard to get comfortable in here, but it's not something that's too much to bother with right now. After all, this will change soon, and the quietness will drift into complete chaos when the morning comes. I close my eyes preparing to drift off into a slumber when I hear people shouting. People are calling the peacekeepers cowards. They're shouting obscenities. They're simply causing an uproar for the sake of causing an uproar, and I don't understand why? Yet I just stay to myself refusing to step into the light to ask any questions.

None of this benefits me. It doesn't make a difference, and why should I help anyone out? These tributes want to cause a movement? Well, they're going to have to go at it alone. I can hear the shouts growing louder and louder as more join in. I can see the peacekeepers standing their ground as much as they can, but like people are saying, they can't kill us here. We are supposed to kill each other. We're supposed to slice people to bits with whatever weapon they give us.

I slowly move to the edge of my cell where I stand leaning against the bars for only a moment, but I guess it's too long because a peacekeepers comes marching over to me with his baton drawn. It takes all I have to not say a word to him. I wasn't fighting. I wasn't swearing. I wasn't doing anything other than trying to see what's going on, and yet he has the audacity to challenge me? They are a bunch of cowards if they're going to take this from unarmed kids. Just goes to show who is in control of running this place. I look at him in the eye daring him to say anything to me. Daring him to challenge me because I know I am more than capable of winning.

A smile spreads across my face as he backs away, and that is when I take it upon myself to back away too. To step back into the shadows of the holding cell. All I want is a chance to sleep, a chance to make sure I'm rested before diving into the world of the hunger games, but I don't think that is going to happen. The shouting and sounds of batons swinging through the night air doesn't stop. Even as I curl in on myself, I find myself growing angry that they don't care what happens. We're all going to face a death in the morning. At least let someone get the beauty sleep they deserve since it's the last chance, but these tributes are just too dumb to even care.

District Two

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