60th Reaping [D12]

The crowd was buzzing around him, voices coming from every direction. The air was so thick that it felt he could slice it down the middle and rip open a void into which he could climb into and escape from the most awful day that he could imagine. It was reaping day and his eighteenth year. There had been tessarae and there had been tears, though he'd tried to hide them from anybody who had been close enough to potentially see them. His father was, as usual, drunk, and Bethany had gotten their mother through the morning, propping her up in bed. Since she couldn't come out, she wouldn't be there, but he expected that his father, drunk or not, was going to be in the crowd. Smokey himself had gotten Bethany dressed in the reaping outfit that their mother had painstakingly sewn and he'd fed her that morning so that he could take her out to the district square where two children from their district would be chosen to die for their country.

Smokey didn't have any illusions about the fact that the games were, in fact, a death sentence. In face, all of them had been contemned before they even made it to the age of twelve, weren't they? They would either starve, or die in the mines, or go into the Games, all the time being expected to produce more tributes for the Capitol and its people who fed on the blood of the innocent children who fell in the arena in order to provide entertainment for those rich, fat oafs who sat around in their fancy chaises and ate like kings while the people in the districts starved. Still, he couldn't hate them, no matter how bad the imagery was. There was nothing he could do to make himself hate those poor, simple, stupid people who enjoyed watching the blood of youngsters spread across the earth, the snow, into the water and out of the people whose life it had been. Within weeks, two more tributes from District Twelve would be dead. And he'd be forced to watch them on the television screen as a punishment for crimes committed long before he was born. It had never made sense to him, and he'd always fought his discomfort with humor, cracking jokes, making inappropriate comments at inappropriate times, and generally causing chaos. But that only hid the things that went on inside his mind.

The world slowed down around him. Everything seemed to move at a snail's pace as all faces turned toward the platform as the escort for District Twelve. It was the same one as last year, or at least Smokey thought that it was, but he didn't introduce himself and he had the falsest facade that Smokey thought he'd seen in at least a year. Right. Because he's the same one from last year. Of course he looks just the same. Somewhere to his left there was a "thud" and several people skittered out of the way of a potential who had collapsed, either under the weight of the day's strain or due to lack of nutrition. He bent to reach for the boy, wanting to help to scoop him up to his feet so that he could listen to the reaping, but when he bent, his head butted against that of another potential. He stood, rubbing at the sore spot on his head, staring at the younger boy whose eyes were so much like his own that they could very well have been related by blood. He reached a hand out to steady his companion, then reached down to pull the fallen boy to his feet, propping him up. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of the escort's voice, like a squeaky wheel, high pitched and out of tune with the world around it. Sorry, he mouthed to the other boy as he turned to listen to the reading of the name.

The treaty of treason was easy enough to tune out. He'd heard it year after year for the past five years and that didn't include what he heard in school on a day to day basis. But when he heard the name, he was at attention, raising his head to listen to what was called out. "Aisely Carter!" The escort didn't sound like he was enjoying sending two children to their deaths, but that didn't stop the burning bitterness of bile that rose up in Smokey's throat. He didn't know the girl. He'd never met her. But that didn't mean that he didn't feel a sadness rise in his chest. It could have been Bethany, and the sadness was only second to the relief that it wasn't his younger sister. She was safe for one more year with only three more to get through. He'd see that she was safe until she was eighteen, and then he wouldn't have to worry about anything any more, provided that he wasn't stupid enough to have children of his own.

The relief was still swelling within him as the world began to return to normal, everything coming back into focus and returning to the normal speed of things. The breath whooshed out of his lungs as he waited for the thundering of his heart to slow down so that he could go back to living his life. The reaping would end soon and he'd get back to Bethany so that he could take her on home and they could have their post-reaping meal. There was always something special for reaping day, and he'd put some things aside as special treats for his sister, things he'd had to keep out of his father's grasp. It would be a good night, and they would spend time together and go to bed to wake up the next day. No fears, nothing for them to worry about until next year, when he'd get her through another reaping. He wasn't even listening for the boy's name. He was eighteen, and no matter how many times his name was in that reaping ball, he was out of the woods. He had to be. It was his last year and then he was in the clear to keep Beth safe. Everything was going to be fine. They were survivors, no matter how much life had thrown at them, they had gotten away and they'd made it. "Smokey Saber!"