Chapter Text
“Ray? Ray, are you awake? I’m scared.”
Instinctively, Ray reaches out, fingertips bridging the gap between his bed and his brother’s. They meet only cool air and empty space. He stretches further, and in doing so fully rouses his tired brain. He opens his eyes.
There is no other bed in his room. Hasn’t been for half a decade. Only a cold, grey wall and, up above, a tiny window filtering in morning light.
You’re an only child, Ray reminds himself. And this is the only day of the year that that’s a good thing.
He gets himself up and creeps out into a dark hallway. The door to his mother’s bedroom is ajar and he peers inside. She’s sleeping, or at least pretending to. Today will probably be just as hard for her as it will be for Ray. Harder, maybe, as Ray is now eighteen. For him, this is his final reaping, one last obstacle standing between him and the mediocre life he’s destined for. For his mother, it’s a bitter reminder of her worst days.
Ray continues on into the kitchen, the only communal space in the apartment, where he had left his uniform airing the night before. He pulls the navy blue overalls on on top of his underwear and sleep shirt. Later he’ll have time to dress for the day. For now he wants to fly under the radar.
The stairwell, usually a cacophony of worker’s boots this time of the morning, is deathly silent. Ray clatters down four sets of stairs and out into the warm morning air without encountering a soul. Most mornings, if he’s heading to school and not to the factory, he’d be a khaki dot in a sea of navy, until he broke off to head into the town’s centre. Today he walks the majority of the workers’ route, diverting at the main factory. He weaves through silos, smaller factory buildings, and rusting, discarded machinery until he arrives at a squat, one-story hangar.
Technically it’s abandoned. The only reason it sits inside the fence as opposed to outside - and strictly out of bounds - is because it would have been too great an effort to move the fence. This is fortunate for the residents of District 8, who had taken over the place when the Soldiers had moved out and nicknamed it The Button Hole. It’s now a buzzing local hub for under the table trades and unofficial deals.
While all activity that goes on in The Button Hole can, and legally should, be punishable by death the soldiers are far too loyal customers to get the place shut down. District 8 is a sparse, brutal factory town and being stationed here is akin to a prison sentence. It’s in their best interest to allow a little entertainment to survive.
Ray’s mother has no idea he frequents The Button Hole. Not just frequents, but trades there even. It had been a haunt of his father’s, as many Button Hole patrons informed him, and surely his mother would have a conniption if she learned he’s now following in his footsteps.
It’s not like Ray can explain away his illegal activities here either. The vast majority of traders are simply selling everyday items without a license. Handmade clothes, dyed fabrics, baked goods, tools and trinkets. Ray trades things from outside the fence.
Not ostentatious things. He can’t hunt and his plant identification skills aren’t strong enough to prevent him from picking a poisonous mushroom. But he can pick fruit and berries and, after a particularly fruitful summer of trading when he was fourteen that earned him an axe, chop down trees for firewood.
It was never his intention to become a black market trader. In fact, crossing the fence had not originally been a rebellious act. He just wanted to survive.
But that feels like an age ago now. Like it or not, Ray knows he’s just one loose-lipped enemy away from a public execution.
Or, depending on how today goes, no enemy may work just as well.
Pushing through a loose sheet of rusted metal, Ray peers into the dimly lit hanger. It’s quieter today than usual, so he easily spots who he’s looking for. The only person in the District he really considers a friend: Jan.
A smile works its way onto his face as he walks over to her. Ray smiles a lot, he finds it makes navigating life much easier, but Jan says he smiles differently with her than he does with everyone else.
He taps her on the shoulder, but she doesn’t seem surprised. His heavy tread likely gave him away.
“Hey Ray.” She smiles, too, which is unusual for Jan and especially unusual on reaping day. “Look when I’ve got.” She holds up a small loaf of bread. Ray takes it from her, examining the delicate pattern carved into the top.
“This is real bakery bread,” he says, slightly in awe. Living with a single mother, Ray’s family is worse off than most. But even with both her parents alive and working Jan’s family are usually priced out of bakery bread. “It’s still warm.”
“Paid for it with real money. Got a good deal, though. Think everyone’s feeling sentimental today.”
Ray doesn’t roll his eyes, but only because it would be wasted on Jan, who shares his sentiments.
She takes a small container of berries from her pocket, berries Ray picked that she must have held back when trading. Ray learned early days that if his jaunts in the woods are to be any degree of successful he can’t do his own trading. He can talk, when he wants to, but he’s easily flustered and has a tendency to get tongue tied. This was only worse when he was younger. Thankfully, Jan was more than eager to step in.
Once he’d shown her his way past the fence she took to the woods like a duck to water. She’s out there far more often than he is, sometimes even skipping school. But if she wants the big ticket item - firewood - she needs Ray. This works out well for Ray, whose worries are soothed by the fact that he can still pull his weight in their partnership.
Taking a pocket knife from her coat, Jan begins sawing the bread in half, her long hair falling to obscure her face. She could be his sister. At least, some people who don’t know them well think she’s his sister. She’s almost as tall as he is and they have the same straight nose and round face. With her strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, and muscular build, however, Ray has always thought she looks more like his brother. Looked.
Jan passes him his half of the bread. “Happy Hunger Games,” she says with dull affect.
“Luck to you,” he returns, with an equally rigid military tone.
Ray hops up onto the unoccupied stall table beside Jan and for a moment they eat in silence.
“We could do it, you know,” Jan says quietly.
Ray knows exactly when she means. “Leave the District? Live in the woods?” While he tries to avoid it a hint of sarcasm still manages to creep into his tone.
“Yeah. If we didn’t have so many kids.”
This had always been the stopping point, since day one. For Ray, at least. They’d been twelve when they first started sneaking out of the fence together. It had only taken a week for Jan to propose they just… never go back. But, at the time, Ray had had a ten year old brother to look out for, and he was unwilling to drag him into the unknown. Plus, Jan had two younger sisters of her own. Has.
“I never want kids,” Ray says.
“I might,” Jan shrugs. “If I didn’t live here.”
But you do live here, Ray wants to bite back. And you always will. But he holds his tongue. It isn’t Jan’s fault he’s weird about relationships. It isn’t Jan’s fault he’s weird about kids.
The people who don’t assume they’re siblings assume they’re dating. Jan’s beautiful, and Ray would be lying if he said he hadn’t harboured some feelings for her when they were kids, but it wasn’t love, or at least isn’t now. To hear them tell it, Jan could have her pick of the boys at school. To hear her tell it, he could have his pick of the girls. He just isn’t interested.
They haven’t brought anything to trade - it wasn’t worth a trip to the woods with this heavy a military presence in the District - so they wander around The Button Hole and leave empty handed. Jan lives in the same area as Ray, a cluster of cement apartment blocks twenty minutes walk from the edge of the District, but she diverts them towards the town centre on their way home.
Halftracks crawl through the streets, dropping soldiers like litter. The townhall and all surrounding buildings drip with propaganda posters. Huge screens have been set up along side streets, to make sure everyone can catch a glimpse of the reaping.
Jan walks them around the back of the town hall, to the mayor’s house. “One final trade,” she says, flashing a burlap sack of berries in her pocket. Worry gnaws at the pit of Ray’s stomach, they can’t be more than ten metres from the nearest soldier, but they’re all preoccupied with their preparation tasks.
The mayor’s son, Jimmy, opens the door wearing a fine suit. As soon as he lays eyes on them he ducks wordlessly back into the house and reappears with a coin. He hands it to Jan, who in turn hands him the burlap.
“Nice suit,” Ray says. He means it genuinely, but it comes out a little bitter. Everything he’s said to Jimmy since their fight has come out a little bitter.
“Well, if I end up going to the Capitol I want to look nice, don’t I?” He shoots back.
“You won’t be going to the Capitol,” Jan interjects. “You’ve got, what? Seven entries, and it’s your final year. I had ten when I was thirteen.”
“That’s not his fault,” Ray says. “Just the way it is.”
Jimmy’s face has become closed off. He murmurs a, “Good luck,” to them both and starts to shut the door.
“You too,” Ray manages to get in before it closes.
Before Jan, before the woods, before their shitty apartment Ray shares with just his mother, he and Jimmy had been friends. Really good friends. But, at nine, Ray hadn’t been ready to have such a good friend, so he’d decided the only thing he could do about it was punch Jimmy in the face. Which, of course, led to a full blown fight.
Ray feels bad about it, especially bad since they never regained any semblance of closeness, but he doesn’t know what he can do about it now. An apology would be a decade too late.
He doesn’t talk with Jan on the walk home. Part of him feels she’d take a dig at him, too, if given the chance. His name will be in the reaping bowl twenty three times today. Hers will be in forty two.
Technically, the rules are the same for everyone across the country. At twelve, your name is entered into the reaping once. At thirteen, twice. And so on until you have seven entries at the age of eighteen.
But that would be far too fair. If you’re poor, as most people in the Districts are, you can enter your name an additional time in exchange for tesserae: a (so called) year’s supply of grain and oil. You can do this for every member of your family. So, from ages twelve to thirteen Ray had his name entered four times. From fourteen until now, thrice. Jan, for both her parents, her two sisters, and herself had her name entered six times each year.
So it’s easy to see why a boy from a stable, well to do family like Jimmy’s gets her riled up.
Still though, there’s another layer to it. Jan is certain Ray won’t be picked.
“It’s just too unlikely,” she would always say. “Too much bad luck.”
“And you don’t think my family’s a magnet for that?” He’d respond.
“Exactly. You’ve already had more than your fair share of the stuff. You’d have to be so crazy unlucky for them to call your name that it’s statistically impossible. It won’t happen.”
She was trying to comfort him, but it doesn’t help. Ray knows he can be that unlucky.
They part ways and Ray returns to his apartment. His mother has laid out one of his father’s old shirts for him. Too big for him still, but maybe this is the closest it will ever come to fitting.
He takes a cold shower, the only type of shower he’s been able to take for the past eleven years, then takes his time combing his hair. He’s not trying to avoid seeing his mother, he tells himself, but that will only make today harder. If his luck is horrible then hers can only be worse.
Eventually he emerges into the kitchen, tucking the excess fabric of his shirt into his trousers. His mother almost cries just looking at him.
“You look just like–” She starts.
“Don’t,” he says. “That’s not a compliment.”
His mother is dressed smartly too. Not that she’ll be on display, but it’s almost an unspoken rule of reaping day. Everyone is expected to look their best.
At eight thirty they head back to the town square. They walk together, but don’t talk. Every so often Ray’s mother dabs her eyes with a handkerchief.
Already the square has begun to fill up. Camera crews have joined the soldiers, perching on top of tanks and on rooftops. Ray hugs his mother once, tightly, then splits off to sign up. His mother will go to sign in elsewhere, mandatory to keep tabs on the population but not a part of the reaping ritual.
Ray gives his full name and address to a soldier, then he’s shuffled into a tent for a brief physical. They take his height and weight - thinks the Capitol citizens will want to know if he’s reaped - and record his finger prints and blood type. As if a transfusion would ever be on the table.
A couple of kids he knows from school are in the tent with him. They nod politely to each other, but don’t talk. Ray has been withdrawn from his peers for the better part of a decade, now isn’t the time to start making friends.
Once they’re finished with their physical, everyone files out into the square. They’re directed into areas that are cordoned by age - eighteen at the front, twelve at the back. Ray finds himself less than a metre from the stage they’ve set up. Less than a metre from the reaping bowl.
Around the outskirts of the square are loved ones of those in the reaping, strategically placed so that the cameras can capture their reactions should one of their children get reaped. He can’t spot his mother, though.
Further back are those who have no ties to anyone in the reaping. People who will likely slink through the crowds taking and placing bets. The reaping is great for the economy, they always say. Billions are bet. But billion as a number doesn’t really mean anything to Ray.
The space becomes more claustrophobic as it draws closer to nine. Ray catches sight of Jimmy, who gives him a polite nod, and Jan, who offers an encouraging smile. She’s still thinking his name won’t be drawn.
On the stage is the reaping ball, of course, containing names of every child he was currently penned in with. A microphone. Three chairs, two of them currently filled by the mayor - Jimmy’s mom - and a faceless, nameless soldier who would be conducting events. The third remains empty. Good.
At nine sharp the mayor rises and begins to recite the ceremonial spiel. It’s the same, word for word, each year. It tells the history of North America, one of the only survivors of The World War (once known as World War Two, but after over a century of fighting that name no longer seemed apt). She references a few particularly bloody battles, losses of land, and military restrictions placed on the country to keep us strong. The only reason we survived, they claim, was due to strict militarisation. The result? Remaining land divided into Districts and remaining populations rounded up into them. You can’t leave, unless it’s to serve in the military. You can’t do anything but be a productive member of society. Otherwise, you can wave goodbye to society altogether. The centre of this “new country” is the Capitol, the ultimate military state in which high ranking military officials get to live in semi-normalcy. They make the laws, dispense the armies, and, apparently, defend the country from any further foreign conflict.
But there has to be a price to pay. In order to prevent complacency, and to remind the population that the war only dragged on so long due to disengagement of the general population, the lack of desire to serve one's country, they now hold The Hunger Games. Each year, each district must offer up two children to participate. These twenty four tributes are rounded up, taken to the Capitol, and forced to fight to the death in an outdoor arena. This is the military’s way of reminding people they’re totally at their mercy. How little chance they’d have at survival without the Capitol preventing another war.
To add insult to injury, the Capitol treats The Hunger Games as some big holiday. The usually stoic, militaristic state rolls out the red carpets for the poor, usually starving District children and treats them like celebrities until their untimely deaths. Because it’s honourable to die for your country.
The last tribute alive receives a life of luxury back in their District. A house in the Victor’s Village and enough money to last several lifetimes. Plus, for a year their District will be showered with gifts of food. Ray remembers thinking, once he was old enough to know exactly what winning the Games meant, that it wasn’t worth it, but he’d kept that thought to himself. Now, living in his apartment and barely scraping by on one and half incomes, he understands a little better.
To wrap everything up, the mayor reads a list of the District’s previous winners. District 8 has four, but only one is still alive. And he still hasn’t shown his face at the reaping.
Ray prepares himself, knowing a camera will surely find its way to his face as they read out the name of District 8’s latest winner. The only current occupant of the Victor’s Village. A stocky, middle-aged alcoholic Ray can’t help but hate.
William Garraty.