Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

There was a moment, when Snow said he had a gift for me, that I thought he meant Lenore Dove. The way he was going on about the flint striker and the Covey. Glad it wasn’t, though. She’s much safer in that “ghastly wilderness” around 12.

At lunchtime, without another word, the four baby chicks from District 9 sit among us. Ampert has brought in 11 as well. We’re now eight districts strong. At the far end of the bleachers, the orange-clad District 5 has teamed up with the Careers. The lines are drawn. They’ve got more trained fighters, but we outnumber them two to one. Wyatt can barely contain himself as he calculates the odds.

On a scale of one to twelve, the Careers mostly land in the eight-to-eleven range. With the exception of District 11, who bring in similar numbers, the Newcomers generally manage between four and seven. We’re announced last. Maysilee and Wyatt each get a six, Lou Lou pulls a three. And me? I get a one.

“Now, Louella, what will the Newcomers do if they kill off all the Careers? What will happen with you kids then?” As if on cue, the snake hisses in a woman’s jewel-studded face and Lou Lou growls, “You’ll murder us. You’ll murder us.” If the sight of this strange little girl wrapped in a snake amused them, her attack on the Capitol does not. Gasps and sounds of disapproval rise from the audience, but she persists. “You’ll murder us! You’ll murder us!” Her pitch gets higher and higher and the effect is chilling. “You’ll murder us!” The facade of fun vanishes. She begins to crawl along the edge of the stage, singling out front-row ticket holders and shouting, “You! . . . You! . . . You! . . . You! . . .” Even Caesar’s famous cool is blown as he dances after her,

Oh. Now I get it. President Snow. I overdid it in the interview and I’m about to hear about my gory demise. And Plutarch, who likes to think of himself as a decent guy, is upset about throwing me to the wolves again. Figures. With trepidation, I lift the receiver to my ear, brace myself, and manage to get out a “Yeah?” “Haymitch? Is that really you?” The breathless voice, rough with recent tears, cuts right through to my heart. Lenore Dove.

But what I can’t bear is . . . what if we’re never together again?” “We will be together always,” I say with conviction. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know where, I don’t know anything, but I feel that in my heart. You and me, we will find each other, as many times as it takes.”

“Berms?” “It’s what our gardener calls those mounds of earth.” He points out through the window where hanging globes illuminate a little knoll covered in flowers. “She plants shrubs and flowers on them. And if the Gamemakers are planning to open them in the arena, then something’s either going in, coming out, or both.” Mutts. He’s trying to tell me the mutt portals are going to be concealed by berms of flowers. But I just say, “You have completely lost me, sir.” “Of course I have. One last thing. From the Capitol’s perspective, the Games are the best propaganda we have. You tributes, you’re our stars. You carry it out. But only if we control the narrative. Don’t let us.” Plutarch grasps my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “No more implicit submission for you, Haymitch Abernathy. Blow that water tank sky high. The entire country needs you to.”

“You should know that, despite appearances, a desire for freedom is not limited to the districts.”

Plutarch seems genuinely happy, saying he’s going to be able to edit the clips together into some fine propos. He sighs when he mentions the tools that were abolished and incapacitated in the past, ones deemed fated to destroy humanity because of their ability to replicate any scenario using any person. “And in mere seconds!” He snaps his fingers to emphasize their speed. “I guess it was the right thing to do, given our natures. We almost wiped ourselves out even without them, so you can imagine. But oh, the possibilities!”

All pretense is over. We are being propelled forward, faster and faster, to the inevitable moment when the gong sounds. All the tribute preparation — the costumes, the training, the interviews — was just a distraction from the real agenda. Today some of us will die.

Once we’re chained in, a woman in a white coat and carrying a set of syringes shoots something into each of our forearms. She doesn’t have to tell us it’s our tracker, an electronic device that allows the Gamemakers to find us in the arena. “What happens if we win? Do they take it out?” asks Wyatt. “We collect all of them from the tributes, dead or alive,” says the woman. “They’re reusable. Of course, this year we needed twenty-four extra.” Thanks for reminding us.

The intercom crackles to life. A voice greets me: “Welcome to your launch room.” At home we call it the Stockyard. The place where animals wait to be slaughtered.

The arena’s minutes away. I can’t remember what to do. I hear Wiress’s voice. . . . First avoid the slaughter, Get weapons, look for water.

A scowl contracts my face as suspicion sets in. It’s just too attractive to be good. The smooth green meadow stretching for miles in either direction. The array of colorful songbirds overhead that match the tufts of cheerful flowers underfoot that match the outfits on the tributes’ backs. Sky so blue it hurts your eyes, clouds so fluffy you want to bounce on them. And the smell! Like they bottled the best day of spring and uncorked it just for us.

It’s only moments before the screams begin, but I force myself to stay on course, knowing that seeing a District 12 tribute or any Newcomer at death’s door could pull me into the fray. Was that Lou Lou’s shriek? It was a girl’s, a young one’s certainly. Don’t look back, I tell myself. Don’t you dare look back.

The cannon shots begin, letting me know the bloodbath at the Cornucopia has ended. Normally, they fire to confirm any death, but those come on so thick and fast at the beginning that the Gamemakers wait until the initial killing spree has ended. The booms keep coming, resonating in my backbone, until I count eighteen of us dead. I won’t know who until tonight when they show the faces of the fallen tributes in the sky.

If the contents of my backpack are clues, what are they revealing? Why would all of my food and drink be easy pickings in the arena, unless . . . I take in the rabbit carcass across the stream . . . unless they aren’t. Unless every mouthful is precious, because their counterparts are poisonous. The minute I conceive of this possibility, I know it’s true. That the luscious apples on the boughs over my head are as deadly as the crystal water. And if that is true, what other food and drink in here will kill you? Everything, probably. It isn’t safe to sample anything that didn’t come from the Cornucopia.

All I want is to be home in my bed in 12, with Ma there to take care of me. To spoon me sips of chicken back broth and pile every quilt on my shaking body and put a goose feather pillow under my head. The thought of Ma watching, unable to get her hands on me, makes me try to look less pathetic. I force myself to sit up and dry my dripping face on my handkerchief.

The Careers are all through by District 5. That means that the other sixteen deaths today are all Newcomers. I watch as they unspool. A second dove, Velo from 6. Both boys from 7. All four kids from 8. All four from 9. Both girls from 10. Tile, the boy from 11. The pinkie on my left hand remains lifted. One tribute left. Is it another kid from 11 or one of my own? Wyatt. Wyatt Callow whose luck just ran out. I can’t believe how hard it hits me, how much it hurts. A few days ago, I didn’t even want him for an ally. But he wasn’t a bad guy, really. He just came from a rotten family. District 12’s sympathy will be in short supply.

My first sponsor’s gift. I untangle it, set it on my lap, take a deep breath — right now it could hold anything! — and then open it. A dozen white rolls still warm from the oven, a block of orange cheese, and what looks like a bottle of wine, complete with its own long-stemmed glass goblet.

“Could I rest here a bit, do you think?” I look at his puffy eyes. “Sure. I don’t really have any plans this afternoon.” I make him a bed out of my hammock and he tosses a bit, then drifts off to sleep. Looking at him, I can’t help thinking that all the little ones seem to end up with me. Louella. Lou Lou. Ampert. I can’t keep a one of them safe. Why do they flock to me?

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.

One hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three . . . I track the time in my head as my feet pound down the concrete. The ladder comes into view and I fling my branch aside, as it’s slowing me down and I trust that Ampert will be waiting at the top with a second torch. I know it might be wiser to embrace my death now, but there’s something in a person that wants to live. Even if it’s only for a few more hours.

I prepare myself for their attack, for the inevitable tearing of my flesh, but nothing happens. The moment one’s knocked free of the mound, it dives back in. These are programmed for Ampert, and Ampert alone. His look, his smell, his taste.

Ampert’s been swallowed up by the Capitol, and his coffin will hold only these pearly white bones. A cannon fires. Somewhere, Beetee’s heart breaks into fragments so small it can never be repaired. Mine pounds like a drum as a wave of rage surges into it. My head drops back and I emit a howl that bounces off the fake sky and echoes around the arena. I want to kill them all, Snow, the Gamemakers, every person in the Capitol who has been party to this atrocity. But they are safely out of reach, so I drop my spear, grab the ax, and begin to chop away at the arena, determined to take it apart, piece by piece — the trees, the berry bushes, the birds’ nests — as inhuman sounds roar out of me.

An apple tree has transformed into a fountain of blue sparks, and clouds of steam rise from a nearby stream. Everything’s taken on an eerie, dreamlike quality. Either the arena’s malfunctioning or I’ve been licking toads.

Half afraid to hope, I slowly raise my eyes upward to see the night sky, which cuts in and out like bad television reception. A burst of static dazzles, then suddenly, I’m looking straight up at the real sky.

It worked! We have done it! Me and Ampert and Beetee and District 9 and a slew of people I’ve never heard of — we have drowned ...

I have failed. The arena has been damaged, but not incapacitated. The Games continue.

In District 12, we learn about mountains but predominantly the ones that cover the seams of coal that will provide our livelihood. Volcanoes barely get a mention. I know just enough to connect the name to the dazzling bursts of lava, the glowing streams, the cloud of ash flowing down the mountainside,

enveloping everything in its path. I picture the tributes . . . Wellie . . . Hull . . . Maysilee . . . gasping for air . . . suffocating . . . and drop the binoculars. I can’t see them, but...

It isn’t a real volcano, but how closely did the Gamemakers try to replicate one? Could the lava set everything on fire? What if that ginormous water tank was built so they could quench the aftermath of the volcano? In bombing the tank, I may have destroyed any hope for those who survived the eruption.

The full force of my failure hits me. Who do I think I am? Why did I think I could change anything?

Me, a sixteen-year-old kid from the trashiest district in Panem with little schooling and no outstanding skills. I’ve got nothing but a big mouth and an inflated sense of my own self-importance. All foam, no beer, that’s me. Near beer.

Tear-soaked, blood-soaked, misery-soaked, I lay on my side and curl myself around the base of the tree trunk.

Lenore Dove said there’s no guarantee the sun will rise, and I wish today proved her right. Nothing good awaits me. I’d rather hide in the dark. But eventually a faint daylight shows through my shirt. I don’t want to come out, so I don’t. Why am I even still alive? What cruel jokes are the Gamemakers playing on me now?

Multiple cannons must have fired after the volcano, but I didn’t hear them with everything going on. I haven’t been declared the victor, though, so someone else is alive. I won’t have a clue who until nightfall.

The cannon fires three times, shutting me up. I take in the dead bodies around us, for the first time recognizing that I’ve killed someone. Two someones. Brutally. It was self-defense, no question, but I know I can never go back to five minutes ago. Having taken their lives . . . in that way . . . it’s undoable.

“Well, if it comes to that, I’m on borrowed time anyway. Don’t think twice about using those darts.” “You think I couldn’t?” I look her straight in the eye. I remember all the years of meanness, but I also factor in how she’s transformed since the reaping. Defending Louella, helping Ampert, looking out for the Newcomers. “I think you couldn’t.” For just a second, a look crosses her face. Young and vulnerable.

“I hope it’s food.” 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. Tears fill my eyes, forcing me to admit my presence in the only world I know. Not an imaginary one. The one where I am in the Hunger Games for real.

“Like when my grandmother died,” says Maysilee. “Mine, too.” I don’t list all my dead. It’s not a competition.

What do you say to the meanest girl in town who’s become your friend? No, more than a friend, really. A Newcomer. Being tributes and not killing each other . . . looking out for each other with no questions asked . . . that’s family, I guess.

“I know but . . . what I’m thinking . . . you and me . . . 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.” I roll over and let sleep take me.

A sad look crosses her face. “I keep wondering, will Merrilee still be a twin, after I’m gone?” “Always,” I say without hesitation, imagining Sid watching us.

The absurdity of it all, the Games, the two failed arena plots, life in general, overwhelms me.

A bird swoops down at a sharp angle, driving its beak through her throat. As it withdraws, I decapitate it, slicing through the skinny neck. I realize Maysilee’s beyond recovery when the flock clears out. Falling to my knees beside her, I reach for her sound hand, which grasps mine like a vise.

If something attacked me right now, I’d let it take me. I know, I know, I just made a deathbed promise to Maysilee to carry on the fight, but I can’t seem to rally.

I’ve got my own jewelry collection now, what with District 9’s sunflower, Wyatt’s scrip coin, and Lenore Dove’s warring songbird and snake. Why, I’m almost as decorated as Miss Donner herself.

I could stage a showdown with Silka at the Cornucopia. Try and take out her and the Cornucopia in the same explosion. If we were directly beside it, how could they not show it? And then, if I survive, Snow will have the Gamemakers kill me, and Wellie will get the crown.

I freeze in horror at what awaits. Silka stands like a statue, her snot-green outfit splattered in bright red. In her right hand, her ax. Her left holds Wellie’s head, eyes still open, mouth agape.