Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

And I’ll be there in the Meadow waiting for you. It’s a promise. Okay?”

“But they hate all of us,” Wyatt counters. “They’re watching us kill each other for entertainment.” Plutarch waves this away. “They don’t see it that way. Supporting the Hunger Games is their patriotic duty.”

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!”

Yeah, it’s amazing we’re here at all. Given our natures.

“Thanks for all your help, Plutarch.” Gratified, he takes it. “Well, I’m despicable on many levels, but in this I’m on your side.”

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.

“Will you make sure my token gets home to my girl?” Effie nods and lays a hand over it solemnly. “I will do my absolute best.”

Charming . . . enticing . . . these words don’t do it justice. There’s something almost magical about it, as if once inside those leafy arms, nothing bad could ever befall you. This must be how insects feel in the nepenthes plant, right before they drown.

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.

Did one Career and one Newcomer die, thereby alerting the rest of their alliance to the poisonous nature of the arena? Reminds me of the canaries we take down to the coal mines in 12.

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

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

Home. He calls it their home. Is it because he misses his own so much? Twelve years old . . . barely five feet tall . . . his voice still hasn’t even changed. If I’m homesick, what must it be like for him?

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?

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

Somewhere, Beetee’s heart breaks into fragments so small it can never be repaired.

Who would’ve ever believed that coddled Maysilee Donner, of the nail polish and velvet bows, would come to this? And face it with such fortitude? Mamaw used to say you never really knew who’d swim in a flood.

“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.”

A sad look crosses her face. “I keep wondering, will Merrilee still be a twin, after I’m gone?” “Always,”

After the Games comes the fallout from the Games. Spreading out like ripples in a pond when you toss in a rock. Concentric circles of damage, washing over the dead tributes’ families, their friends, their neighbors, to the ends of the district. Those in closest get hit the worst. White liquor and depression, broken families and violence and suicide. We never really recover, just move on the best we can.

“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.”

“Make sure they don’t use our blood to paint their posters?”

Her emphasis on manners, her pretty picnics. And I remember her words that first day on the train. “Listen, Louella, if you let them treat you like an animal, they will. So don’t let them.”

I watch as she traces a spiderweb on a bush. “Look at the craftsmanship. Best weavers on the planet.” “Surprised to see you touching that.” “Oh, I love anything silk.”

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.’”

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.

She hasn’t begged or pleaded; she retained her fury and defiance.

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.

Lenore Dove’s warring songbird and snake.

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

Mags and I tried not to laugh, because Proserpina wasn’t born evil; she just had a lot of unlearning to do.

It’s okay to cry around Mags.

drop a handful of chocolate balls into the night. A startled sound. The sobs soften to sniffles. A candy wrapper crackles. Quiet. Not a bad poster, all in all.

It’s from Snow, this milky death. The fate I have been trying to defy ever since I saw that perverse birthday cake on the train has come home to roost like the raven in the poem, forever perched above my chamber door.

His puppet. His pawn. His plaything. It is his poster I am painting. His propaganda. I am trapped into doing his bidding in the Hunger Games, the best propaganda the Capitol has.

Without hesitation, she raises the ax and lets it fly. My knees, already on the verge of giving way, fold like wet cardboard and I collapse to the dirt as the ax whistles over my head into the canyon. That’s when I remember the force field.

I will not be allowed to die. I will be resurrected by the Capitol for their entertainment. Perhaps, I am even being broadcast live now. Perhaps, as a victor, I will never be off camera again. . . .

I have no idea how my efforts have been edited, blacked out, and card-stacked.

The television glows. On-screen, a girl in a rainbow of ruffles sings a familiar tune with unfamiliar words. It’s sooner than later that I’m six feet under. It’s sooner than later that you’ll be alone. So who will you turn to tomorrow, I wonder? For when the bell rings, lover, you’re on your own.

Still rattling my chains, I’m escorted beneath the stage and shoved into a chair, with four guards assigned to me. Effie, to her credit, stands by me.

“I know that,” she says. “I’ve known who you are ever since you helped with my makeup box. And I know your position could not have been easy.”

Finally, Mags arrives in a wheelchair while a still-mobile but distressed Wiress twitches her head about in a birdlike fashion, a steady stream of words spouting from her lips.

This is all the country saw anyway. You had to be there in person to know about the crashing chariots and me holding Snow accountable for Louella’s death.

Timelines are twisted. Connections misleading. It’s less flat-out lying than lying by omission.

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?

The camera pulls back slowly as they carry me away, for the first time revealing the arena as a whole. It looks like a giant eye.

Well, the symbolism has been lost on no one. 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.

I’m displayed in a giant golden birdcage that dangles from the main chandelier at about eye level. It’s supposed to be a joke, I guess; the guests sure seem to get a kick out of it.