cain halt | district twelve | fin

I go by Cain. Just Cain. It doesn't really do anything ultimately, but I strongly maintain that as long as I pretend that I am just a normal resident of District Twelve, I am. It always blows up in my face eventually, when they ask if I have siblings or ask about my family, because I can't lie to them. Yes, my brother was Brendon. Yes, my uncle is Arbor. Yes, for fuck's sake, my last name is Halt.

People don't ever get it, though, that Arbor's success-- if that is what you want to call his life after the games-- has nothing to do with my own life. I see him on occasion when Dad decides he needs to check up on him, see if he's drank himself to death or forgotten to feed Cedar, but it isn't like I spend my life with him in the Victor's Village, taking shots and reminiscing on stupid things I did when I was younger and he was, if he ever was, sober enough to remember them.

I don't get special treatment. My name is still in the reaping. My brother's name was still in the reaping as well until he, you know, died.

Imagine this: It was my first reaping year. For months, Dad had been assuring Brendon and I that there was nothing to worry about, that we were both too young to be reaped. So I pictured myself standing with the other twelve-year-olds telling myself: "Pfft, I feel sorry for whichever older kids are chosen," Because that is what I was led to believe, that older kids would be reaped and then my family and I would be back home and living our lives in less than two hours after they were sent off to die.

Then the quell twist was announced, and suddenly Brendon was the oldest possible age.

Then they called his name. Brendon's name. My big brother's name. Now, don't get me wrong: we fought like cats and dogs fight, which usually ended with him kicking my ass because he was a year older and I have always been a scrawny, lanky excuse for a boy. He liked to go off and play with his friends and cause trouble and I was usually more comfortable at home sneaking into the book collection Mom had that Dad never got rid of. We argued over anything and everything, but mostly the attention of our Dad and which of us made Mom leave. Basically, we were the ideal set of brothers in their childhood. Which means even though I acted like it, I didn't hate him. And he didn't hate me either. At the end of the day we were still best friends no matter what.

So, of course I had this fit of immature shrieking when I saw him climbing the stage and then I cried all the way home. It was so bad that my chest had started doing that heaving thing toddlers do when they throw temper tantrums. You know, where they suck in air in those quick, shallow breaths while attempting to calm down but also still squalling? Yeah, that was me.

Also, like an idiot, I thought maybe he had a chance. After all, Uncle Arbor won when he was only a year older than Brendon, so why not? Plus, Brendon had Arbor in the Capitol pining for sponsors and doing his best to save his life and it was all very promising and hopeful and then, unfortunately, it didn't happen. I watched him die. As did the entire District. As did the entire fucking country.

There I was, a hopeless little tween with big brown eyes and a mess of black hair on my head, crying crocodile tears while my Dad planned a funeral he couldn't afford, trying to figure out how he was going to live his life with only me, with only one son, when he had always had two. And that wasn't all that sucked. Arbor had just started coming around more. He wasn't spending as much time in the Capitol and his breath didn't smell quite as strongly as it had before of spirits. Things had been making a turn around for him and for all of us. Then, after Brendon's death, it seems like I never saw him much. I think he blames himself. I think his guilt is what keeps him away from us and maybe I am supposed to hate him for Brendon not living but how can I? It isn't like Arbor sponsored the weapon that killed him.

But time has helped me get over it, so why hasn't he?

I'm sixteen years old now. I have survived more reapings than both of them ever did. I can't lie-- there is a sort of guilt that, wow, I am actually a teenager whose world is at least partially in-tact. Or, as in-tact as it can be with a dead brother, a famous uncle, a magician for a mother, (you should see her disappearing act-- phenomenal,) and living in a hell-hole like District Twelve. But there is also a sort of relief for the very same reasons. I have seen the worlds come tumbling down countless times before. I don't want to be one of those people. So even though I feel guilty about it, I'm glad my childhood hasn't sucked as much as Arbor's or Brendon's.

I have actually considered doing the things people assume I have already done: leaving my Dad and living with Arbor and Cedar, bleeding him for his money instead of going off to work in the mines right away. It would certainly improve my life-span. Honestly, the miners are given a death sentence of their own, the only difference is that it is extended over years of suffering. Side-effects include coughing up dust as black as tar, having a gross hunchback, calloused hands, chipped fingernails, hollow eyes, losing the sensation of taste, little money, and a bunch of other shit I am in no rush to get to. Honestly, as harsh and insensitive as it may sound, I am sort of shocked Dad hasn't bit it yet.

Mostly people live to be about forty-something here. By that point, they are more corpse than person anyway so it never comes as a great shock when the officials come knocking at your door and saying "Hey, it finally happened." I have to admit, Dad looks pretty damn healthy. Well, not healthy, but definitely in better shape than he should be. Like me, his frame is slight and he is tall and has bags under his eyes, but I don't smell death on him yet. Which is sort of awesome because if he dies then I am stuck living with my cousins, probably, unless Arbor wants to take me in. (Wishful thinking.)

I have realized that I'm not exactly the first choice for people due to my less-than-interested-in-your-bullshit attitude. I have been called sarcastic, rude, snobby, basically any insult you can think of that doesn't have a sweet, endearing hidden meaning. I'm also stubborn and detached, whoops. But I am sort of smart in that I finish my work while everyone else forgets because their lives at home are so close to walking into torture chambers. I'm also very well-read and politically aware. (Or, as aware as I can be in a District, since the Capitol is sort of filled with exclusive assholes.)

My point is that, sure I'm a bit of an asshole, but I'm not through-and-through an asshole. Sometimes I actually leave the house and mingle with society. Sometimes when people smile at me I don't fuck my head down and scamper off to do whatever mundane activity I am probably doing. I'm hard to love, but I like to think I'm not impossible to love.