Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

At least the Trinkets aren’t mean, just clueless,

From this point on, the Games evolved from pure punishment to unapologetic entertainment.

Districts 1 and 2 seem to realize they’re in danger of being classified as stupid beasts, too, so they make an effort to play up their prowess with weapons and the benefits of the Career pack. But Panache has done some damage, and any attempt to boast about muscle comes with a comic side-eye from Caesar that tickles the audience. I remember my pa saying, if you can get people to laugh at someone, it makes them look weak. He meant the heavies in the Capitol, but it seems to be true here as well.

Maybe we’ll lose, but we’re sure making a lot of people proud back home.

Effie touches up our makeup and even adds a flower to my lapel from an arrangement in a replica of the golden staircase.

She doesn’t have to tell me which songs. “The Goose and the Common.” “The Capitol Store.” “The Hanging Tree.” All the ones she’s forbidden to play in public.

Sometimes the hurt’s too bad to bear alone.”

So it wasn’t just her, playing her heart out in front of the Justice Building. A crowd had gathered. Sung the forbidden songs.

You stay alive, play your songs, love your people, live the best life you can. And I’ll be there in the Meadow waiting for you. It’s a promise.

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

Was he suggesting that he, with all his wealth and privilege and power, lacks freedom?

“Exactly. There’s been a lot of concern in the Capitol lately that district citizens are aspiring to break in here. It’s not entirely unfounded, particularly with people from One and Two who work closely with us. Luxury and military, you know. There are Capitol-born folks assigned out there who’ve got mixed families they want to bring here now.

Once in a blue moon a Seam girl falls for a Peacekeeper and ends up with a baby, resulting in plenty of social disapproval in 12 as well. But there’s never any talk of the kid going to the Capitol. Most are simply disowned by the father, who’s then shipped off to another district.

I should be planning my strategy in the arena, but I just keep thinking about Lenore Dove, and how much I love her, and wondering if she’s home by now and how she’s doing. And Ma. And Sid. Burdock and Blair. Hattie. Before I know it, we’re descending.

but a gentle breeze caresses my face, and the birdsong distracts me with thoughts of Lenore Dove. There are woods here, too, like our woods in 12, far off to my left. To my right, a small mountain with a crown of snow.

And could I possibly kill a creature that brings to mind my girl?

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

Lenore Dove said there’s no guarantee the sun will rise, and I wish today proved her right. Nothing good awaits me.

Mamaw used to say you never really knew who’d swim in a flood.

But I’m long over being seduced by the arena’s beauty.

“Maybe you should be the victor, Haymitch. That would give you some time to grow a backbone.”

I just stare into those burning blue eyes, letting her know she’s not dying alone. She’s with family. She’s with me. In the last moments, she releases her grip enough to lock her pinkie around mine. 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.

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

The arena leaves no time to properly grieve anyone

Blinded by my desire to paint my poster, I left the real treasure unattended.

Please send the snake and end this.

I’ve killed multiple times and preserved no life but my own.

Does no one remember? Do they just not care? Or during the Games, did they show the audience a different sky? Or none at all? And did they intentionally save Maritte’s death to increase tension at the end? The Gamemakers must have been scrambling like crazy to control the narrative by this point. Whatever the case, the audience here in the auditorium has embraced this version, cheering and jeering on cue. Their lack of discernment transforms the recap, validating it as truth. I hope those in the districts can still see it as the piece of propaganda it is, but no telling what they’ve been fed.

Even the little kids in the Seam know the Capitol powers are watching us. I wonder if they ever consider that we’re watching them, too.

“Who’s the fifth for?” I hear Burdock ask. “Jethro Callow,” a woman answers, not bothering to lower her voice. “Hung himself yesterday when his boy returned. Couldn’t bear the shame.” A Booker Boy’s death.

You’re headed for heaven, The sweet old hereafter, And I’ve got one foot in the door. But before I can fly up, I’ve loose ends to tie up, Right here in The old therebefore.

When I’m pure like a dove, When I’ve learned how to love, Right here in The old therebefore, When nothing Is left anymore.

This was arson, carried out in such a way that my family could not even make it to a window to escape. Ordered by Snow. For my homecoming. The shards of my heart shift and drive into my lungs, making breathing an agony. “My fault,” I say for the second time this morning.

“See that?” she says hoarsely. I turn my head and see the sun, just peeking over the horizon. “What? The sun?” “Don’t you . . . let it . . . rise . . .” she gets out.

I would welcome death, if it wasn’t for my promise to Lenore Dove that I would somehow keep the sun from rising on the reaping. The impossibility of it adds to my despair. I drain the bottles of sleep syrup to escape reality, only to feed her gumdrops in my dreams.

Some nights I find the oblivion I seek, others I wander through the dark.

Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild.

Effie does her best to keep me sober, but the train’s loaded with booze.

“I have nothing to live for.” I say this without even a note of self-pity. I am simply stating a fact. “Then you have nothing to lose. That puts you in a position of power.”

Forty-nine kids died for it, but you gave it the old Heavensbee spin and, in that propo, you’re some kind of hero.” Plutarch takes a moment to answer. “I’m nobody’s idea of a hero, Haymitch. But at least I’m still in the game.”

I am so desperate to forget. To escape the grief, the aching loneliness, the loss of those I love. There are no mementos of them; all are burned or buried. I work on forgetting their voices, their faces, their laughs. Even in my head, my language becomes dull and flat, stripped of the color and music of yesterday.

But I can’t say I have no future, because I know that every year for my birthday, I will get a new pair of tributes, one girl and one boy, to mentor to their deaths. Another sunrise on the reaping.

She’s not an easy person; she’s like me, Peeta always says. But she was smarter than me, or luckier. She’s the one who finally kept that sun from rising.

I know one thing, though: The Capitol can never take Lenore Dove from me again. They never really did in the first place. Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping, and she is the most precious thing I’ve ever known.