[74th] The Reaping - District Seven

In Reese LaChance’s experience, history had a way of repeating itself. Happy people got to go on being happy, got to build their castles and live in their fantasy worlds, and Reese got to watch from within the confines of the Abadeer Institute for Lost Boys.

He had always thought himself a prince stuck with a beggar’s bones. The slightest provocation was enough to snap his frail skeleton and leave his skin purple. He was always sore, always in some varying degree of pain. It happened so often that pain was the norm for him. And families didn't want little sick boys with hearts made of gold. They wanted the boys with strong, capable arms and handsome faces. They wanted princes for their little kingdoms; Reese was not a prince.

History repeated itself, day after day. Every day he would stand in a line with all the other homeless soldiers, and every day he would watch his friends march out of the gates never to return.

He had gotten good at being invisible. It was better that way. He didn't get his hopes up, then--and the sun would rise anew, and eventually his fate was sealed. His home would be in the sick ward, with IV’s and casts and that was okay. He was okay. Well, he would be okay.

He stood in the reaping square for one last time, smiling at strangers who had things to live for, nodding to those who were like him. Nico stood next to him like a bodyguard. He was the only one who had ever kept his word and come back to the institute after he was adopted. He was the type of boy parents wanted to keep.

“One last time and we’re free.” he said, staring at the stage in front of him. He folded his arms across his chest. Nico might have won if he were ever reaped.

Reese smiled, even though Nico couldn't have seen it.

“Free.”

It was both a cruel joke and the sweetest of dreams, because no one could be free. Especially not the boy with the fragile bones. But he loved the idea.


Jacquelyn’s heels gave away her approach long before her curly brown hair appeared as she mounted the stage. Her slender frame was decorated in the colors of fall and orange eyeshadow was smeared all the way to her temples. Her deep, willowy voice was haunting in his ears.

What if it was Nico?

What if it was?

“What if it’s you, Nico?”

He nudged Reese’s shoulder with his own.

“What if it’s you?”

Reese scoffed. “I’m serious--” Before he could finish, he heard Jacquelyn clear her throat and he knew it was time.

“Blair Tate.” She said, her tone low and dramatic.

He didn't know her, but she looked like she could take care of herself. Good. Reese thought. At least District Seven would have a chance.

There was a moment of silence, and then history repeated itself for the thousandth time:

“Reese LaChance.”

He moved in slow motion, but everything still happened too quickly. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was on the stage, broken and bruised, but standing where all the people could see him for the first time in his life.

History had not repeated itself after all. Reese still was not a prince, but he was not a beggar: now, he was supposed to be a knight. Now, he was expected to slay monsters and win a crown, and he knew it wouldn't happen.

A cruel joke and the sweetest of dreams.

He would never be free, but he loved the idea.

{zoe}

Not all of us are gone.

(It feels like it, sometimes.)

The house has become more quiet now, an eerie, ominous calm. The shadow of Daniel's death hangs over us still, even a year after it happened. He was my brother, and now he's gone and I —

sometimes, that fact keeps me up at night.

I watch the clock from my bed, knowing that it is time to get up and get dressed for Reaping Day. Last year, I wore a green blouse and a nice pair of jeans and did my hair all pretty, and I had been an unsuspecting victim of the events that unfolded.

“I volunteer,” and my heart just stopped, because Daniel was my brother and he loved me, loved us — he wasn’t supposed to do that. I never got to ask him, and he owed me a reason. He owed all of us a reason.

And we were met with only silence and a million possibilities why, why why.

I decide, the moment I open my eyes this morning, that I don’t care, that I won’t dress pretty for the Reaping. It shouldn’t matter. None of it should.

So when I do get up, breaking away from of the stones pressed against my body, I just put on simple, everyday clothes and comb through my ruffled hair with my fingers and nothing more. But I still feel heavy as I put on my jeans and shrug on a brown leather jacket over my blue top, like there is a weight in my chest holding me down.

I know why, but fuck it. I’m tired of grief and I’m tired of moping around wishing that Daniel hadn’t volunteered to die.

And yet, it still follows me.

Daniel trails behind me when I walk with my family to the Square. I never talk about it with Blair or Marz, or anyone really. These are private things that I like the keep to myself, despite the fact that my sisters must be going through the same thing.

I guess I've just got too much pride to admit that I'm still bleeding inside.

With every step, I feel it more, and when we finally do reach the District Square, it feels as if I am hanging from a slowly fraying thread, threatening to finally break and drop me into an abyss at any moment.

Heart pulsing one hundred times a minute, blood on fire, mind whirling, fists white and balled into pairs of fists —

"Blair Tate!"

They call her death sentence, and everything falls apart, from the cloudless sky to the concrete ground.

No is my first thought, and my head snaps to my sister beside me, and just as the panic seizes me and I reach out to hold her back from walking up to that stage, — I should have tried with Daniel — a girl emerges from the crowd, and I hear it.

"I volunteer!" she says, shielding Blair with her shadow, and I watch in disbelief as she saunters up to the stage, taking my sister's place.

I could never wish death on someone else, but I can't deny that I'm grateful someone saved my sister. I would ask the girl why, why she chose to save Blair and sacrifice herself, but I'm still hanging from my frayed thread and tremors still tear through my body.

My eyes flicker to Blair and back again, and I open my mouth to say something, but the prior events have left me breathless. So I say nothing at all, just hold my ground and watch the girl — Ryan Summit, it is announced — take her place on the stage.

It's a miracle.