#actreaping55

I sighed and turned onto my side. Cale was still sleepin beside me, wrapped up in his blanket, his chest risin up and down gently. I think I stirred him, because soon enough his own eyes opened.

“Mornin’, Cale” I said softly.

“Mornin’ Halo.” He answered, rubbed his face and sat up. I wondered if he liked sayin my name as much as I liked sayin his. I sat beside him wishing I could sit there forever. I had looked up to him for so long, watchin lead such a pure and wholesome life; I prepared myself to watch him leave us, leave me, and die for a greater purpose. But here he was lookin at me in the way I used to look at him. But he was preparin to watch me leave and die.

Why God found me more pure than Cale was beyond me. It was impossible to me, not even light itself could possess a more potent energy than the one in Cale. The one you could see in his hazel eyes. But Father Lyle has always said when it comes down to it, the Child of the Testment chosen can be chosen for other reasons other than purity. It could be God’s plan, somethin he was always workin towards. Or it could be somethin unique and powerful that God could only see in you and that’s the reason he sends for you

“I should go.” He said. But he didn’t move, he just kept there, breathin, that smile of respect on his face. I nodded my head slowly, my own half smile pullin at my left cheek in the silence.

I don’t know when I got the courage to get up and leave him but I did. I walked to my mirror and looked at the grey smock I was wearin.

“... How on earth am I goin to wear white?” I said, covering my mouth. Havin worn only black for as long as I can remember, the contrast was unsettlin. “I can let alone fathom the lightness of this..”

Cale laughed. “It is weird. Think I got used to mine though.” He looked at the fabric of his own grey smock. “Think about the rest of us - we get to wear color after this.”

“I think red will suit you. Bring out your skin.” I said as I pulled my dress from the wardrobe. “Will you wear red for me?” I turned around and looked at him.

“.. Sure” He smiled. He slipped himself off the bed and gathered his blankets. 

“Go on and get ready. We’ll be downstairs.”

“Of course.”

He started for the door and as he pulled it closed I stopped him.

“Cale?” I asked, crossin my arms over my stomach. He peered his head in once more.

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”  

He half smiled at me and closed the door. And I was alone.

When I was ready, I almost didn’t recognize myself. I was right. Wearin white is unsettlin. It made me glow, bring out the darkness in my hair and the green in my eyes. I didn’t know if it was okay seein myself in that kind of way. I let down my hair like Father Lyle suggested and went downstairs.

Bein so far from center of the District as we were, we had to leave early. The bus ride was more of the same it had been for the past two days. Somber, full of nostalgia. Except there was more eagerness directed towards me. Everyone from the Testament who passed me regarded me with a bow of the head and a smile. And my brothers and sisters stayed so close to me.

My brothers and sisters and I, along with the other two coteries of the Testament, long decided against for Benefaction, submerged ourselves into the line with the other children. Each of our names were still in the drawin and each of us would still have to stand with the others. It is the permission that we seek from God. It is what he granted me the moment yesterday became yesterday.

“... Again?” The man in the white suit asked me as my turn reached and he prepared a needle.

“..What?” I asked, more focused on the fear of this yearly pain than what he was asking.

“I remember something like this, maybe two or three decades ago. Group of people in black, a boy in white who’s just like em but not wearin black. That’s you, isn’t it? What’s up with you people?”

I opened my mouth to answer. “Save yourself kid, don’t do it. Didn’t end well for him.”

“Ow!” I said loudly, my eyes filling with tears. He pricked my finger with the needle not even a single warning. My nerves escalated and I was growing hot.

“Don’t listen to him,” Cale said, turning around and nodding me along. “He has no idea what you’ve worked for.”

I looked between the peacekeeper and Cale and went where my heart told me to go.

“We love you so much, Halo.” Audrey said. She, Raine and I stood together in our own group inside the eighteen year old section. Raine nodded and smiled. I wished I could hug them. I craved touch so desperately in that moment but I couldn’t have it. I remembered how I always thought of what Cale would be sacrificin in order to do this, it never dawned on me I’d be feelin all of it, that I’d be one doing the sacrificin. I guess I never thought me pure enough.

The woman from the Capitol does her yearly duties and shows us the video explainin Panem’s history. This is the sin I was payin for. The lives lost on both sides ages ago, the wrong done, along with the evil ingrained in our beings. I marveled at the woman for a moment midst watchin the clip. She was very different from us in Nine. Even more different than us from the Testament.

And then her hands reached into the female bowl. I felt my heart drop and my throat go dry. This was it.

“Halo..” Raine whispered behind me. I glanced at her and followed to where she was pointing.

“Oh, what’s this?..” The Capitol women asked over the microphone. She sounded desperately intrigued.

Behind the ropes set aside for the families, the entire community doned in their black smocks lined up in seven or so rows. Row by row they kneeled down and bowed their heads down together. They raised their arms above their heads with their palms turned up to the heavens. I covered my smile with my hand, watching the prayer take place. My vision went watery and I couldn’t pay attention to what I was suppose to be doing.

Audrey brought me back my senses. “.. I love you guys too.”

My heart was running a marathon in my chest, my eyes pouring a storm.

The capitol woman called out a name and all the faces turned this way and that searchin for the girl.

“I volunteer!” I said, Raine and Audrey breathing out loudly beside me. The Capitol woman dropped the paper and smiled eagerly.

“Come! Come darling!” The people in white suits came to me, usherin me out of the section and parading me to the stage.

“Hallelujah!” I heard a chorus of voices speak out. “Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”

“.. Goodness... What’s your name, sweetheart?” The woman asked me.

“Halo...” I mumbled, I looked over all of my people from the Testament, many still deep prayer in  my eyes searching for my brothers and sisters.

“Lovely, name...”

 I found the each of them smiling a mix of love and sadness except for Cale. I didn’t see him at all.  And then a head rises, gettin up from his knees. Around him the kids looked equally confused and amused. I disregard it because his watery eyes meet mine and I smile at him. His fingers touched his lips and gestured towards me and my heart dropped for the thousandth time that day.

Surprisinly, the boy chosen from the bowl was replaced by a volunteer as well. When he came on stage my heart fell again - he looked kinda like Keaton. Same length of hair, same face structure but Keaton was ways a lot bigger than him and he looked more sickly. The woman shows us off to the district once more.

Hand in hand Ximena and Jorge walked to the square in the centre of Twelve. Their shop was only a few blocks away and the square was still fairly empty as they arrived. A few of the kids who were gathered snickered at the sight of someone Ximena’s age holding her father’s hand but she didn’t even notice. 

“Your mother would be crying over how beautiful you look Mija.” Jorge whispered as he kissed the top of Ximena’s head.

 Her mother had stopped attending the reapings after her stroke. Some days even speaking seemed to take too much out of her so standing for an extended period of time was out of the question. 

The two lingered just outside of the gate all the children had to pass through. “Papa? What do I do if I’m reaped?” Ximena’s voice wavered just a little.

The question seemed to catch him off guard even though Ximena had been asking the same question every year since she’d become eligible. “Well Ximena my darling girl, you do what you must. We all have our parts to play and what’s going to happen is going to happen whether we like it or not.”

Something about his answered had always comforted her. He knew very well she was smarter than to believe his sugar coating. Jorge made sure to hug his daughter extra tight before allowing her to slip in the stream of children.

“Without further ado, let’s draw out the first name.” This year’s escort, a handsome young man wearing a simple grey suit announces without the usual verve of an escort.

He seemed nice, Ximena thought. And he didn’t look like the old escort who was always done up in extravagant outfits and an ever changing skin tone. This one looked almost, normal. If that was possible for someone from the Capitol. Before him she didn’t know people from the Capitol could look normal. On the TV they always seemed just like the old escort. Crazy hair and tattoos and-

“Ximena Delgado?” Yancey said it more like a question than an announcement. 

As seemed custom in Twelve, everyone around the person reaped seemed to react before they did, in this case the girls around her parted, leaving a gap to identify the doomed girl. 

With feet like a ton of bricks Ximena inched her way to the stage. Dust began to collect on her beautiful new dress and she could feel a sting in her eyes. It wasn’t long before the first tear slid it’s way down her cheek. Yancey offered her a hand and what seemed like a sympathetic smile before he had to leave her to draw the name of her partner.

“Oliver Dodd?” Ximena didn’t hear a name. She wasn’t focused on anything other than her father’s eyes with tears to match her own, and the shape of his lips mouthing the words be strong Mija.

I wake, shaking. Gasping, scratching, panicked. My skin feels tight around my body as I wrestle against the sheets and blankets that imprison me. I scratch at my flesh and claw at the linens. My teeth meet each other in an unrelenting embrace. I struggle to force the air in and out of my body until my head jets into the light.

I scramble from the sheets and collide into the wall. “Stop!” I shout to the voice, my jaw jerking from side to side as my chest rises and falls in rapid successions. I collect myself as I realize that i'm alone in the room, alone in the house. Alone…

“Get dressed! it's reaping day, we have to go quickly, Quentin.”

“I know… I know…. Give me a minute.”

“Okay hurry, and don't dress like the rest of these tragedies. I have a feeling about something...trust me, you'll want to look your best.” the voice instructs.

I shrug and look through my collection of items, my eyes jetting back and forth quickly as my crooked fingers grasp and toss shit about the floor.

The reaping remains as dull as ever. Children draped in their best grey clothing. simultaneous feelings of paranoia and indifference swims together within me. Scared for my own life, while also being docile at the thought of hearing my name spoken across the district. Across the country. The people around me hold no significance in my life, their lives mean less than nothing. The way I see it, they are meathods my my escape. However, the games do not scare me.

“They don’t?”

I jump, my head jerking to my right. “No.” I whisper.

“Are you sure, Quentin?”

I jerk my head to the left, “Yes!” I yell in a hushed tone.

“Then take the stage.”

“What?” I announce as my name rings in my ears once more.

My body erupts in swift jerking motions, I push against children around me, knocking them to the floor until I shoot into the center aisle.

“Wait”

My head twists to the right.

“No, wait.”

To the left.

“Fuck!”

To the right.

I begin to pant heavily, my chest rising and falling, and then all at once, I stop.

My body remains still in the dirt path, the peacekeepers release their grips on me, confused. Taking a step back from me. I clear my throat and brush off my coat and my shirt, I bend down to fix my laces and take a single deep breath.

“Take the stage.”

Among the crowd he breathed easily for once, free from his family’s presence.  The Mensah clan had been erased from existence, leaving a blank canvas on which Kehinde was to thrive.  Like a fray string freed from a tapestry, he felt light and airy, able to flow with the whim of the wind and unbound to his supposed home.  All that he needed was to avoid this last drawing of names and he could travel Panem, etching into him the inspiration the nation had to offer.

“Kehinde Mensah”

His name echoed out like an orchestra, but it wasn’t exactly music to Kehinde’s ears.  He began screaming immediately.  Not of fear but of tribal fury.  In the blink of an eye he turned and ran, leaping over a pair of peacekeepers to their surprise.  The rest of his district was in a stunned silence, pausing over the relief of their loved one being spared from the reaping, but ultimately still in a state of shock that hindered them from reacting as Kehinde’s constant screaming and departure began.  He tackled a peacekeeper, shattering his visor as the guard flailed blindly.  Kehinde stole the guard’s keys and hopped into an armored vehicle, piloting it away from the crowd.  Though the boy was very well-learned and educated, driving was not one of his talents.  Having no idea how to pilot the machine, Kehinde drove the vehicle in circles around the district square, mowing over the other tributes in the crowd.

Families started bawling, having thought their children would be spared from the games but found them dead far before they could even imagine.  But soon they would join them as Kehinde’s vehicle swerved out of control into the onlooking crowd.  Bullets fired at the vehicle, ricocheting off and killing more people but the Capitol-grade technology was far too bulletproof.  Kehinde hadn’t stopped screaming all the while, but managed to figure out how the vehicle worked.  He piloted it through another set of peacekeepers before driving back down the road he knew so well, back to his makeshift home in the museum.  

Driving up the marble stairs, Kehinde’s car crashed through the front doors and ran over centuries of priceless artifacts and artwork before crashing into a large ornate sculpture.  He was flung out of the windshield and skidded across the linoleum flooring, leaving a streak of blood as he slowly got to his knees.  Finally, he stopped screaming just as more peacekeepers flooded in after him.  With their guns trained on him, Kehinde raised his hands to the sky and shouted.  “PERFORMANCE ART!”

Sasha surveys himself in the reflection cast in a puddle on the floor of the square with a vague interest. It feels odd for him to see his own body. Often he forgets he has a physical form, and that he’s not just an idea, a series of movements, a pale hand waving through the air and painful toes in pointe shoes.

There is a new Escort, a man, but Sasha doesn’t care about him. He just wants to get this all over and done with. His feet ache to dance, ache to get out of his heavy black work boots.

Two more years, just two more years, and it will be over and he will be safe.

The Escort, Maximus, seems unsure of himself. In a high voice he stumbles over his words, blushes, and starts again, all the while his eyes darting to where the mayor, mentor and other people sit. Eventually he manages to get the words out, but they’re still half-swallowed like pills.

“Um… ladies first…”

A trembling hand, decorated with an ornate wedding ring, dives into the glass bowl. There is silence, a communal intake of breath. Maximus unfolds the paper, clumsily, turns it the other way up.

“E-Ed… Edison Mills?

Sasha doesn’t recognise the name, so he doesn’t care. That is, until he sees her, and shock and even a little rage pierce his ragdoll form.

She cannot be older than thirteen. She is a child. Sasha feels young, second youngest (now middle) of the Toille pack, but the girl whose name has been called is barely older than Hattie. Hattie, the baby, who still giggles wildly at flashes of light on the walls and at tickling and at immature jokes.

This child is being sent away to the slaughter.

It feels wrong, wrong, wrong, but he has little time to think of it. The Escort shuffles to the male bowl. As he breathes in shakily, his hand hovers over the names. Sasha has been through this many times before, so he just zones out, as normal, gazing at the smoke as it dissolves into the air from the factory chimneys.

Sasha Toille.

“Hm?”

He looks down, looks down to see hundreds of pairs of eyes, all fixed on him. There are a few whispers, but mostly silence. Sasha is not popular. He is not at school, an average worker, and far from talkative. He is only known for his dancing, and it’s a novelty - nobody is that desperate to keep it.

“Oh.”

He walks slowly, silently, raised on the balls of his feet, movements feline as he makes his way through the crowd and up, up, to the podium. They’re careful steps, as though he is doing his best not to wake someone up. Perhaps it’s force of habit of living with siblings and sneaking out to dance - but he lives life as he walks, as though it were someone else’s and he was only living it by mistake. He must be careful not to break it. It is a precious, borrowed thing. Habitually quiet, habitually cautious, he is trying his best to be brave like Callie, but the balance of the two traits feels odd on his shoulders. Hattie is crying somewhere in the audience, but he doesn’t turn. He doesn’t stop. He walks up to the podium, and mounts the steps.

Up on the stage, he smiles at the young girl in front of him, but it does not reach his eyes. He has no flame behind his eyes but for when he’s dancing, and when he smiles it is a purely cosmetic procedure. He is not unhappy. He feels nothing.

He feels grey upon grey upon grey.

And then the familiar burning sensation begins in his chest, and he casts a look out to the audience. It’s almost a look of terror. He doesn’t want them to see him like this. But there’s no suppressing the red. It’s a fire, and his skinny body is made of kindling.

He whips out his handkerchief (grey, formerly white), and presses it to his lips, when the coughs start. Even the Escort is silent, shocked by the loudness, the relentlessness. He holds the handkerchief down, politely, attempting to suppress the painful movements, but even Sasha’s calm face is contorted. His smooth skin is flushed red.

It takes a minute, perhaps two, for the coughing to subside, but it feels like longer. Tears fork off into country roads down his cheeks. He wheezes, removes the handkerchief from his mouth, slides it back into his pocket, and stands steadfast.

A little girl and a chronically ill dancer.

There is much to do. Much to consider. Because on this very day, I am both an avox and a child.

The absence of the tongue within my mouth, the presence of that very stub inside of me, grants me no salvation from what is called The Reaping. This life of mine does not harbor me a refuge from being garnered a tribute. Hazel Dubois is a prospective tribute.

It happens quite rarely, almost as rarely as I am able to cling to silence, but it happens nonetheless. I am the proof, the flesh and blood, the offspring, of an avox herself. One part a slave, one part a master. There is an intermingling of opposing blood that pulses in my veins.

No, it is on rare occasion that a woman condemned to a life of servitude as an avox bears a child. I find that there is a plethora of reasons supporting this. Though one stands out amongst the rest.

Who would dare fuck a tongueless traitor? Who would be so intimate with someone who is utterly freedomless?

I do know a man who would do such a thing. I know a man who has done such a thing.

That is why I am here.

I used the aforementioned word of freedomless to describe avoxes as a whole, but I do retract this descriptor. It is not completely factual at all times.

For there is an exception.

And I am the exception.

It was once decreed that a second generation avox could acquire freedom by one means in particular, this means relying on the compassion of said avox’s master. If a master was to see it fit that a certain avox deserved to move up in society, and if this avox in question was born second generation, then this avox could in fact be released from a life of servitude, and made privy to what untold horrors of society must remain. Of course, caveats do exist, likely involving owing something to the former master, but I’ve never found it very effective to research this topic. There is no point.

I will not be released. I will grow old like my mother does. My joints will crack with resounding echoes as each day passes. There is no escape from this.

Nonetheless, with the possibility of a second generation avox gaining citizenship, it was also decided that when these avoxes were between the ages of twelve and eighteen, they were eligible of being reaped. It is only fair that with the slim chance of freedom, there is another equally slim chance of even further loss of it.

That is why I have attended the reapings alongside the dirty commoners of District Eleven for the past few years of my life. That is the very reason, the sole contributing factor, as to why I must look my very best today. I am not to be mocked. I am not to be ridiculed. I am to be respected.

The mayor has departed from the manor already. He must be present at this gathering so as to deliver a speech with that foul mouth of his. That unclean mouth which people worship.

I do not need to meet the eyes of the men and women who watch me as I move towards the center of the district. They recognize me, they see me for what I am, and yet I am still a statue. They look at me as such. Something to be examined with the eyes, not approached, not touched.

They speak of me and my heart swells. I feel real, I feel human. Silence resumes and I turn to stone again.

I am stone as I look down, as I stand in this crowd. These girls are too wrapped up inside of themselves to know who they are standing next to, to know that they’re jostling me, to know that there is no dirt underneath my fingernails, which is a quality that they all seem to possess. I desire that they notice me, that they think me an affluent young girl. But they will not.

Stone, marble, crystal. It does not matter which. I am a blend, a collection, muddled by life, tarnished by ignorance.

And then I am flesh. Warm, throbbing, pulsing flesh. The flesh that is torn apart, that is shredded, that is bled out. There is a pink hue in my face, a fullness in my cheeks, no hollowness within me. I feel my chest thunder with each rising breath, I see the vessels in my arms quiver with each motion.

I have been brought to life, my surface chipped away at. I feel the breath in my lungs.

Because my name has been spoken. I have not been commanded, though. My true name has been breathed from the lips of another entity, it has reverberated in the open air.

I do find myself urging those around me to entirely remove themselves from my path with simply a glance. I will not struggle to present myself. I am above such things.

I have never felt so human as I do now. This sensation of civilized existence has never been so satisfying. I raise my eyes now, because I am not to be punished any longer. My life may not be regulated as it once was. I look out over those in the crowd, but I do not see respect.

I see young boys laughing blatantly, little girls pointing mercilessly, older generations with their mouths agape.

“What a twist!” I hear the escort speak. But her words are inconsequential to me.

They still see me for what I am. An avox.