Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

Angels, Lenore Dove told me, are humans with wings, who live in a place called heaven. Some people believe, she said, it’s a possible destination after death. A good world for good people to go to. But Lenore Dove is the winged being on my mind at the moment. If there is anything after the life I’m about to lose, will I be with her again? Like the guy in her song, I’d sure like to know. But the Raven isn’t giving the answer either of us wants to hear.

Wiress gives us last-minute pointers and then seems to shut down. Mags hugs each of us and says that whatever happens, we have been remarkable. She knows at least three of us won’t be back. What else can she say?

Wyatt. Wyatt Callow whose luck just ran out.

Fire is catching, she’d say, but if this one burns down the arena, I say good riddance.

There is nothing I can do but watch, helpless again. Just as I was to save Louella.

“Enough!” I scream. “She is not your plaything!”

My fingers find the pump hidden under her shirt and lock around it. With one powerful yank, I free her.

I lean down and whisper into her bad ear. A personal message to the Gamemakers. “You did this to her. This is who you are.” And then for Lou Lou, I say the thing she no longer can. “Murderers.”

Either way, mine will be the last touch of someone who cares about you.

I raise it in a toast and say, “Thank you, my fellow rascals from the Capitol!”

I remember how Mamaw always said, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” But from where I’m sitting, hope seems a lot like white liquor. It can fool you in the short run, but like as not, you’ll end up paying for it twice.

I try not to be scared. I tell myself that everybody has to die sometime, and my number’s up. In a way, it’s a comfort that a bunch of people I know have gone before me.

“Hey, buddy, let’s beat those odds.”

I promised Beetee I would not let him suffer.

I am losing, I am losing the fight, I am losing him. I know this, but there’s nothing to do but keep swinging.

Then I turn back to what I am meant to witness. A small white skeleton, stripped clean to the bone. No flesh or clothing remains, only an ax at its right side, my knife at its left.

Ampert’s been swallowed up by the Capitol, and his coffin will hold only these pearly white bones.

This is my poster. Right here. I give a wild victory cry and spin around shouting, “Did you all want a party? I’ll give you a party!”

Far in the distance, beyond the meadow, the mountain erupts in a fountain of lethal gold, and I have my answer. For me, the party is over.

Oh, Lenore Dove, how did it all come to this?

Nameless here in this world. Dead and gone as I am about to be. Will I be her lost one for evermore? Will she be haunted by me for the rest of her life?

What I see instead is the surprise that transforms his face as the dart pierces his throat.

“We’d live longer with two of us,” she says.

It doesn’t seem real. Nothing here is real.

She lifts the lid, and a cloud of bean and ham hock soup steam dampens my face. Mags. Trying to reach us, to let us know we are not alone in our pain, to give us strength to go on.

“Well, you know I like my pretty with a purpose.”

You remember what Ampert said when you made his token?” There’s a long pause before she says, “Sure. I’ll be your sister.” Our hands reach out at the same time, clasp, and then release. “’Night, Sis.”

We sit smack down in the clump of katniss, side by side, completely done in.

I can barely hear her whisper. “One of us has to win this thing.”

“One of us has to be the worst victor in history. Tear up their scripts, tear down their celebrations, set fire to the Victor’s Village. Refuse to play their game.”

“Exactly. We’ll paint our own posters. And I know just where we can get the paint.” In a gesture I remember from the schoolyard long ago, she extends her pinkie. “Swear it.”

This morning’s poster says, We’re civilized. We appreciate beautiful things. We’re as good as you.

“Oh, ladybug, it will be,” I promise.

I can’t say I’m not a killer anymore.

I always hoped I’d look like her one day. Never going to see myself grow old, I guess.”

“She used to say, if I was afraid, ‘It’s okay, Maysilee, nothing they can take from you was ever worth keeping.’”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “This is the end of the road.”

If the Gamemakers want me dead, they will have to follow me out here into the real world, which would be a victory of a sort.

I just stare into those burning blue eyes, letting her know she’s not dying alone. She’s with family. She’s with me.

Looking, I think, for a final confirmation of the promise we made to each other. I nod so she knows I understand and that I will try my best to bring the Capitol down, although I have never felt so powerless in my entire life.

And then she’s gone to wherever people go when they die.

Maysilee leaves the world the way she wanted, wounded but not bowed.

I think about cleaning her up, but this is her final poster, and I won’t tidy it up to make it easier for those monsters in the Capitol to sleep tonight.

Good-bye, Maysilee Donner, who I loathed, then grudgingly respected, then loved. Not as a sweetheart or even a friend. A sister, I’d said.

A sister is someone you fight with and fight for. Tooth and nail.

I pick up the spoon and take a bite. Tears come, and I let them fall, unchecked, while I empty the basin. It’s okay to cry around Mags.

She’d be a far better, far smarter, far more convincing victor to represent district rights than a cocky, selfish rascal, even if he had a chance of surviving, which he doesn’t.

the last trio of human heartbeats in the arena. Sad, desperate, but also a rare moment of district unity in the Games.

Not a bad poster, all in all.

Leave it smoldering and defaced in the center of their pretty little meadow. A twisted and ugly reminder of the history of the Hunger Games. A horn of plenty for the few. Desperation for many. Destruction for all.