[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve

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gm bourgeois decadence [aya]
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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Sept 30, 2016 23:28:23 GMT -5

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Post by gm bourgeois decadence [aya] on Sept 30, 2016 23:28:23 GMT -5

"It is time," he said as he stood over the impatient people of the District, "To once again send two of our own children to the Capitol to compete in the Hunger Games. Let us begin the Reaping!"

He did not look to see the reaction of his district before reaching into the glass ball that held the names of the female children. "Ladies first," he announced, pulling out a slip of paper. He unfolded it and read out to the crowd, "Hyacinth Mortuus!" He then reached into the other ball. "Mitchell Laws!"

OOC- RPing is allowed. If you wish to volunteer, let the tribute post first either accepting or stepping down from their place for volunteers, and then post. If the tribute doesn't reply by Tuesday, October 4th, a staff member will post saying that volunteering is open. Please do not post until you see this staff message. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE.

Tributes, please do not make your acceptance or denial of your spot in character; instead, please leave an ooc note at the end of your post stating whether they accept or are stepping down for volunteers.

Also, and this is really important: If you have been selected as a tribute and plan on going into the arena, we HIGHLY SUGGEST you take some RP Tutoring lessons ASAP. It doesn't matter what level RPer you are; everyone can use a little help. RPing a tribute is a privilege; if you're not going to put the time and effort into making your posts the best they can be then you can count yourself among the dead.. It's not a requirement, but please please please just consider the lessons. They'll help even the most advanced RPer.

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stranded in "beach" "city"
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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 1, 2016 16:08:54 GMT -5

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Post by Tom on Oct 1, 2016 16:08:54 GMT -5

Writing Thinks "Says" "Hears"

Thieves weren’t meant for greatness.

They weren’t meant to be anything other than the low lives who scavenge to live or for riches. Mitchell was the latter. Scavenging for valuable items that could sell well within the market of District Twelve, but every time he stole something, he stole a piece of that person. A ring from an older woman, whose daughter’s initials engraved upon the band, a symbol of her lost. Mitchell sold it for a good profit. A locket with gold and a photo of a younger male and female, stolen off of a dead body that died from starvation, a symbol of young lovers. Sold for a high price. Then the watch from the store that held the attractive boy, he didn’t sell that one. His heart told him not to, as it was a memory of the man named Jasper. And yet he rubs the shiny metal like it’s the last piece he has of a good memory. Thieves weren’t meant to love.

As he stands before his siblings and parents, he can feel their tension. Carter’s arms wraps around his chest, a smile upon his innocent face. Mitchell could remember the years of protecting Carter from the horrors of the real world, never taking Carter with him to steal something. Carter’s words of the games always rang through his ears, "Mitch, I won’t let them reap you. They won’t take you away from me." Mitchell just laughs at his younger brother as he lets go of his form. If it ended up being his own name, Mitchell would be going in, no matter what Jack or Carter said. Mitchell was the oldest. The oldest always makes the biggest of sacrifices. Just like the lashing he got for Jack getting caught. That was Mitchell’s sacrifice to take. No one would take his spot if he were chosen by the hand that reaches in the bowl. Thieves accepted their fates head on with no spite or hatred.

As Jack appears, dressed in the ugly black shirt that Mitchell had tried forcing him to get rid of for years, the look on Jack’s face tells him not to. A sign that Mitchell had gotten used to. Upset. Jack never truly fit into their family well, all he knew was that Jack was one of them. Nothing would change that, even if Mitchell secretly wanted him not to be. Nothing would ever change the day he got whipped for Jack’s mistakes. A sigh and a hand grabs his shoulder, the voice deep with pride in their son, "Mitchell, it’s you last reaping. In a few weeks, you’ll be nineteen." A sigh filled with stress of the day catches in the air. A smile, faker than the valuables his mother wears, fills his face. Thieves weren’t made to show emotions.

The walk to the square was rough, a silence stuck in the Laws boys’ throats. Broken inside as the horrors of the games come into their minds. Mitchell stands before them strong and tall, but inside he’s been broken. Beaten to a pulp by the horrors of his siblings even touching an inch of the games. They all had seen the District Twelve’s deaths. Chloe Angor. Celia Mortuus. There were so many names that had come from the district and yet, no one had won since the fifty seventh, Heron Kimberling. The sun’s blaze hits his forehead with an afternoon heat that he never truly want to feel. The blaze’s glow gives light to the land of the dead. Starving and underweight people stand in the square like the coal miners waiting to be taken below. Mitchell joins the crowd like everyone else, blending in like the rest of the kids who want the reaping over and to head home. Thieves don’t take the spotlight.

In the land of the dead, he can see his brothers, lined up with the others. Carter’s hands move nervously, like Mitchell had learned to be his reaction to fright. Jack on the other hand, stoic in the way he stands, watches forward like the good boy he hid behind. A mask that was put up in front of them all, but Mitchell had seen behind it. The night of the fire, the wounds that he cleaned up on Jack’s body, years ago that he had last seen the true Jack that had cracked under glass, just like Mitchell was cracking under his own form. Clay shaped to be used to everyone’s own advantage. His father had told him what to do days before. "If their names are called Mitchell. You must volunteer for them. You have to. You’re the oldest, it’s your duty to." It’s his duty, but if Jack got reaped, he wouldn’t fulfill it. Thieves don’t trust.

As the escort’s hand reaches in the bowl, the hand swirls the names for the girls. Nothing he truly cared about, as most of his family was males. As the hand of fate pulls out a name, the escort reads it out loud to the children in front. "Hyacinth Mortuus!" Mortuus were meant for death. That was the answer to the fate of the Mortuus Family. As he watches the Asian girl make it to the stage. All he can do is frown. Celia Mortuus was different that Hyacinth. Celia was violent, while Hyacinth seemed more innocent to him, or from what he could see by first glance. The world would watch a Mortuus fight again. Whoever was stuck with her would burn or be the underdog of District Twelve. Thieves don’t care about others.

"Mitchell Laws!"

Air seems to disappear from his lungs, the air pulls at his body like it’s trying to tear him apart. His emotions are like glass, they shatter before him like the vase that had fallen from the shelf. His brother’s scream echoes, but he stands tall. Broken and shattered everywhere. His voice loud and directed at Carter, "No. I accept." Carter stands frozen. An animal stuck in the middle of a hunting group. Scared and frightened, but unable to move. His mother and father would soon know. Their son’s fate would be taken into the games, only to be faced with a Mortuus at his side. Mitchell had expected any other name to be called, but his own. He was crushed internally, but he outside he stood tall, eyes hiding his real fear of it all. Strength was with him, he could only rely on himself.

Thieves weren’t meant for greatness. Thieves weren’t meant for the spotlight. Thieves weren’t meant to live. Thieves were meant to die. Just like Mitchell would die in the games. All that he could do was stand upon the stage, rugged and tall. Dressed like the boy his mother wanted him to be, but it was all a show. Mitchell Laws was not the nice and kind boy that she thought he was. She would soon learn of him. As he stands on the stage, the only that he can muster up in his mind is, So much for making it to nineteen.

Carter Laws was made an innocent.

Jack Corradi-Laws was made to be fake.

Mitchell Laws was made to die.

(Mitchell Laws accepts his spot as D12M)

Last Edit: Oct 1, 2016 16:09:49 GMT -5 by Tom

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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 1, 2016 21:25:43 GMT -5

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Post by Python on Oct 1, 2016 21:25:43 GMT -5

H Y A C I N T H

M O R T U U S ;

The devil himself traced the scars across her back, fingertips like sandpaper. He breathed fire against her neck and whispered sweet nothings into his pillowcase, reminding her that evil men could wear white and call themselves angels. His voice was grating and she refused to listen, focusing instead on the void of white in front of her. His bedroom walls were as “safe” as the uniform he donned every morning, stained with blood by sunset. While the sky bled orange, his victims bled onto the concrete, and their screams poured into the ears of every citizen in Twelve.

”I hit you pretty hard, didn’t I?”

She closed her eyes and remembered. Sweet Olive with bruised knees and red ribbons wrapped around his torso like he was a present to leave on death’s doorstep. The man who stood over him was the same man sharing her bed tonight, a snake who hissed ”Courtesy of Little Miss Celia,” into their ears. For crimes against the Capitol. A crime equivalent to ten lashes. They sentenced her to weeks of bandages peeling from her skin and shoved Olive into a wakeup call he didn’t deserve. And for what?

For Celia.

Every connection led back to Celia. Her twin had died two years ago, yet Hyacinth continued to suffer consequences. Death was not enough to erase the damage she had left. There were scars to account for her foolishness, evidence that meant nothing to the broken family now. Hyacinth rotted away like a corpse upon their couch, watching her twin die by Ezero’s hand, knowing that she had always been worthless to her. Bandages had bled through but the pain was no worse than denial, the word scribbled over and over again in a tattered notebook. Celia hates you. And she denied it for years.

It was enough to fuel her own self-deprecation. She had mounted the devil’s horn tonight and there were many more shameful nights to come. When a family was stained by the black market, there was no cutting corners and bullshitting through politics. Their safety depended upon the satisfaction of her customers. The word no was not an option. So when the man responsible for her suffering found her in the evening shadows, sending her heart into a cold spiral, she regarded him with a defiant nod. Fear did not taste sweet, nor did it flatter her soft features. ”I’ve heard about you,” he had said knowingly. She knew what he meant. Every Peacekeeper in Twelve should know her body by now.

Disgust crept between her bones, but she warded it off the way she always did; apathy. Olive would probably hate her if he found out, but it was in her best interest to ignore the idea or pretend to. After all, nothing would compare to Celia’s venom. Every Reaping she heard the same echo:

Don’t wake up
Don’t wake up
Don’t wake up
Don’t wake up

It constantly haunted her; Celia's wish for her to die. She heard it before she slept, she heard it in her dreams, and she heard it when men whispered into her ears. Nothing would ever feel worse. Olive could despise her and she would be okay with it, because she deserved it this time. Share a bed with the devil and someone is bound to get burned. Let it be me.

Silence was delicate, and a man like this would do everything in his power to break it. ”Maybe we could bring that to the bedroom?”

Her disgust made a comeback. She rolled her eyes and sat up, rubbing the kink out of her neck. His pillow was a lumpy bag of bricks, and she wanted to suggest a better investment. ”No,” she retorted, ice dripping from her teeth. The gnarled skin on her back was already making her customers squirm. She was determined not to ruin the only worthwhile piece of herself.

”I was joking,” he said in his defense.

She stood up and threw on her nightgown. It was satin - a symbol of her family’s wealth. Wealth built upon lies, deceit, and blood, but that was survival of the fittest in Twelve. Most people didn’t see it that way; they saw the Mortuus family sitting atop a throne of money, but never stuck around to smell the putrid air. Beyond the illusion, they sat upon a throne of corpses. People were products, not patients. Death meant profit and organs were their property. A Mortuus was as much of a grim reaper as Capitol escorts, picking names out of bowls to announce a death sentence. The young ones – Ridley, Olive, Annabelle, and Avery – were only devils by association, but one day the business would consume them.

Trench coat wrapped around her, she escaped into the night. The stars wore shrouds of leftover thunder and lost their twinkle, leaving her with a sense of dread about tomorrow’s main event. Her heart was cursed to either worry or feel nothing at all, encased in eternally melting ice that tormented the core of her soul. Tonight’s wind was a whisper ruffling her coat, but she didn’t care about a winter’s chill. She cared about kissing the foreheads of her little brother and sisters before sending them off to the Reaping. She cared about how they were no longer innocent children because she could not hide the world’s horrors from them. She once crept through her window to hide her evening escapades, but another horror would just plant itself on their doorstep. There was no point in lying anymore. If they asked, she would answer honestly.

If they were disgusted, so be it.

Her bedroom felt like the darkest void. There were no breaths to soothe her but her own. Celia’s bed remained empty, but the walls were alive with her memories. Terrible memories, but ones she could cherish. A naïve fool’s nostalgia. The only physical piece of Celia remaining was on her nightstand; the hyoid bone, delicate and undamaged since it was removed. The bone that supported her twin’s hateful tongue. Even without it, she was not silenced.

She twirled it between her fingers the next morning. A plagued mind meant little sleep, but deprivation was the key to a smooth Reaping. Her heart could settle from fatigue within her chest, even as she watched her siblings join the huddle. Last year she had stood here without the other half of her, and this year she would do it again with her chin up. She didn’t need Celia. A disease was something to eradicate, not embrace. Yet why do I feel sick just thinking about her?

She thought of them instead, the ones in immediate danger. They were still here, still breathing, and still threatened. Ridley, Olive, Crimson, Emeli, Eirlys, Avery, Annabelle. Too many hearts to steal.

”Hyacinth Mortuus!”

Only one that didn’t matter.

She had forgotten to consider herself through all the chaos. There was nothing worse than Celia’s Reaping – until Celia’s hatred manifested. There was nothing worse than Celia’s death – except the idea of the little Mortuuses being summoned to the stage.

She didn’t know if this was better or worse.

Her weary heart seized back to life, breaking through the ice to crawl into her throat. She had never been prepared for this. Twins either died in the Games together, or remained separated for life. One did not follow the other. What were the chances?

What the hell are we going to do?

By leaving the District, she was putting the family in jeopardy. She lived to appease the law so they could continue breaking it. Without her, they would crumble.

She had one option: survive. But as she stepped onto the stage and stared into the ocean of bodies – their sunken eyes and pursed lips and spite-filled glares at the rich Mortuus girl who would carry her twin’s gruesome legacy – she knew she was going to die.

That was justice.

ooc; accepts

Last Edit: Oct 2, 2016 3:26:05 GMT -5 by Python

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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 2, 2016 16:30:33 GMT -5

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Post by ᴥ on Oct 2, 2016 16:30:33 GMT -5

The scars upon my skin are twisted. They are ugly and gruesome and every boy who has ever torn away the armor 'neath which it hides have greeted me with disgust. Celia turned me into a monster. Leather ate into flesh, right down to my bones and I remember how much it fucking hurt. I remember how small I felt in the middle of the district, eyes trained upon the blood soaked dirt. I remember Hyacinth beside me and how selfish I must have been not to ask her if she was okay.

For years I bought into every lie my mother fed me with a silver spoon, we were murderers but only to those who deserved the pain. We were reapers to those who had been deemed unworthy. Little did I know that every other person in this damn district was beneath us, in her eyes.

Death used to mean nothing to me. It was blood upon my sisters’ hands and a stench that turned my stomach inside out, but it was nothing more than an inconvenience. A reality that I was neither affected by nor that I particularly cared about. Human lives were of no worth to me until I lost my sister.

And, oh, it still hurts. Every morning is like waking upon a bed of broken glass and the cracking of a whip across my skin is like the booming of her canon across that damned arena. I'm tired. I haven't been able to sleep with the monsters looming over my body, waiting for it to begin to decay and for their feast to finally be ready. The weakest link should have been the first to die.

But it didn't work out that way.

It never works out the way I want it to.

Last reaping I cried. Death sat above me, my strings upon her bone fingers and I held so tightly onto Annabelle's hand that she must have gone numb. My sisters are my world. They are everything I have ever wanted to be and two years later I can still feel the gap left by her. By Celia.

We might not all like each other but there are some bonds so strong that hatred becomes irrelevant.

This reaping I am surprisingly calm. It's as though I have descended into the eye of some brutal storm and I watch the world turn to ash around me without feeling a damn thing. When I wake it is alone, in a bed that does not feel like my own but perhaps it is this body that I have grown weary of. I stare at his hands for a long moment, press my face into his knees and wonder if I were to be sentenced to death today whether I would mind it all that much.

I don't think I would.

I'm not looking to die but to live is to suffer and I am so tired.

In the mirror stands a stranger. Scars wrap around his stomach where the whip hugged his skin, patches of the scarred flesh still stained an angry pink- even two years later. Sometimes I think Celia died before even setting foot in the arena. Sometimes I wonder if I was too busy running from monsters encased in shadow to see those right in front of me.

I stand among a sea of strangers- even before I am shoved into a pen with the other sixteen year old boys.

Her name is the first to be called. Hyacinth Mortuus.

And just like that the storm takes me.

I tear through the crowd with more courage than I have ever possessed, ducking under arms and through the bodies of men whose fingers catch upon the fabric of my shirt. "No!" Their arms are around me again, white like the snow and so strong that I can feel myself shatter beneath their hold. Just like the night when they stormed our house, when they gutted the beast and hung my sister and I upon meat hooks.

But I strain against them, searching for my sister's eyes. If I could get to the stage I could save her. I could do something.

If I could get to the stage.

I have to get to the stage.

They're hurting me again. Forcing my chin into the dirt and tying my arms behind my back. They're hurting me again and this time Hyacinth is not beside me. "Don't go." And I try to scream but the words are weak, shaking like the coward from which they came. "Hyacinth you can't do this to me, please."

It was easy to bear this monster's pelt when I was not alone.

[ dab ]

Last Edit: Oct 2, 2016 16:36:17 GMT -5 by ᴥ

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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 2, 2016 19:56:00 GMT -5

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Post by arx on Oct 2, 2016 19:56:00 GMT -5

crimson mortuus

"What the fuck is this?"

I sift through the bag, my fingers dancing over the edges of the worn and tattered bills. (Hundred, two hundred, three, four, five...) It's not nearly enough. And though my buyer has already turned away, I don't plan on letting them leave—"Hey!"—without paying the price. I throw the bag of money at him to halt his movement. He flinches and whips around to glare at me, but I've already closed the distance and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

"Where's the rest?"

He swats my hand away and glares at me, towering over me with a single threat in his eyes: I'll hurt them. But white uniform or not, I'm not leaving without my fucking money's worth. I'm not about to let six gallons of crimson gold go to waste, even if it means my siblings have to pay for it later. Hyacinth can sleep it off I'm sure. I pick up the stolen surgical bag in my hand and wave it in his face.

"It took me weeks to get this!" I hiss, moving to hurl the bag at him only to halt and growl mid-motion. I scoop up the bag of money and shove a wad of bills in his face.

"Six gallons of blood plus plasma separation and you think this is enough?"

He grips my wrist in his hand, squeezing until I can feel his pulse beating through his fingertips. "You'll take what I give you," he growls, sneering when I make an attempt to wriggle my wrist free. "Besides, you don't have the time to fight me."

He grins and drops my wrist, picking up the project I've slaved over in the hopes that there would be a big payoff. All that beautiful, wonderful blood—gone.

"It's Reaping day."

I distinctly remember how it felt two years ago. I remember the way my heart twisted and ached for a sister who didn't give a shit about me. Celia was a bitch to the greatest degree and I regret ever feeling anything for her at all. Maybe Olive could still miss that cunt, but I stopped caring the day I came home to the smell of rotting flesh and sound of a broken oath.

Celia didn't care what happened to us. Just as long as she was enjoying her stay at the Capitol.

"I'll kill him," I muttered, only to be hushed moments later. "No. I'll take care of it." I couldn't slam my door hard enough to express my distaste for the way Hyacinth 'fixes' things. Tipping the man upside down and jamming a needle in his neck—watching the blood slowly drain from his body, his skin grow pale, his eyes glazing over—sounded like a much more thorough way of taking care of the problem than letting his hands dance over her skin for free.

I heave a sigh and cross my arms, waiting for this wretched thing to start and end so that I could break the news to my sisters that the deal went sideways. Not only did I make a piss poor amount of money, but we owe a certain Peacekeeper some hush-the-hell-up sex. I blame Celia for this shit, too; I've never been any good at negotiations.

I suppose that's why I don't know what to do when I hear her name.

("Hyacinth Mortuus!")

Do I let myself hurt the way that I had for Celia? Or do I feel nothing so that I don't regret caring later?

Do I tell her I'll miss her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek or do I stand with crossed arms and remind her that she's the only reason we can get away with anything that we do?

Do I say goodbye or good riddance?

I watch as they shove Olive's face into the dirt, as I hear someone begin to scream. I hear feet and struggling. Fucking hell where is Eirlys? It's her job to keep shit from hitting the fan. I should probably step up now, be a big sister or something. But I can't move.

All I can do is think about blood. Pumping, spilling, splattering, draining, pooling—fuck, fuck, fuck.

Who is supposed to fix everything now?

"I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights."

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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 3, 2016 19:54:56 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2016 19:54:56 GMT -5

My body's nineteen.

I whisper it into the mirror; cold air circulating around my naked body and -- I'm nineteen. I'm ninteenI'mnineteenI'm nineteen I'm. I'm safe -- I should be. An adult, safe and whole and nineteen, and I draw the numbers in the early morning fog, in the word's ghosts in the mirror. "I'm safe," I say, because I don't want to forget it.

I'm safe.

Then why does it feel so shitty.

I walk out of the house early, nothing but a fur coat around me as the morning wind kisses and bites into any open skin it can find. There's a solemn thing in the air, a faint whisper and a cough of a ghost: I shouldn't of lived. I shouldn't be alive, I shouldn't be here I shouldn't of made it to nineteen -- I fucked up. Keep them safe, it was all I was supposed to do and I felt nothing burying Celia. Digging her back up, carefully peeling skin back and selling her organs. Splitting her position between Crimson and Maryse -- splitting her remains in two and letting siblings receive any memento of her they wanted before selling the rest.

Keep them safe -- I let Celia die, watched her body fall and watched myself dismember her. To burn the parts of her we couldn't sell and keep the ashes; I held Ridley as she cried, stoic.

She shouldn't of died, I shouldn't of lived; I shouldn't care.

So I don't.

---

I wake up in the seam; in the patches of district twelve. My skin stained by the air itself -- a butcher wakes me up, shaking my sleeve at six a.m.; tall and lean and Mortuus, asleep on a seam bench, god what the hell happened to me. He smells inbred, like bacon and fat.

"Don't touch me."

Two hours, clocked.

That's enough sleep for a day; I burrow my neck into the coat, the rough rocks of the seam digging into my barefeet: what a nice day trip. There's drool on my chin, my eyelashes crusted my sleeping with wet eyes -- keep them safe. I swallow spit as I walk away from the butcher's shop, the separation of a pig's body sounding behind me.

It's reaping day. Two kids die, I get paid.

Why not enjoy it.

---

The door clicks behind me, the morning sun kiss on my neck broken by the wood of the hospital's entrance. Softly, like inserting a needle into a vein -- no point in slamming doors while others are sleeping. A cold walk, leaving the fur coat at the foot of my bed; bathwater hits my skin, lightly at first. I wrap my fingers around my knees, pulling them to my chest and sitting, waiting.

Watching.

The wall, the crack in one tile, the way water drains off my skin in rivers. In pathways, the same blood runs down a knife -- my hands shake. I bite my lip, Celia's hands grey and blue and red and I squeeze tightly, pressing my thumb nail nearly too hard into her palm. Her hair, beautiful face, harsh tongue, I ask Ridley for a cloth. I watch old blood sink from the smooth cut, removing a kidney. A liver.

A heart.

I see her in every goddamn reflection: the mirror, the water, my own fucking eyes. I let her die, let her know I knew she would die. I cut her up and sold organs and burned her dead body, placing the ashes like a centerpiece in the hospital. Still, I feel her heart in my hands; I never sold it. It's in the basement, like a whisper.

Like a sermon, waiting for me.

To kill me everyday that I live.

---

The coat hugs my sides, kisses at my neck and I walk besides my siblings. Slipping through the seam, the rocks eating at the heel of my shoe -- the sound of slaughter echoes in my cerebellum. A butcher's knife digging through carcass, like a sister's hand ending the memory of another. Draining the body of blood, of meaning.

Of existence.

Why not enjoy it.

My heart sinks a little further -- I swallow spit.

We split; Olive in the left side with the boys, the others on the right. Myself, behind them all. Watching behind a glass, Celia's reflection staring me in the eyes -- I'm fine with it. Keep them safe, I'm fine with it. I feel her heart in my hand, I'm fine with it; I burned her body and watch the last of her die ever.

"Hyacinth Mortuus!"

And I'm fine with it, on my own with my hands in my coat. Olive screams, like the child he's always been. The others follow with chants, with anger, with tears; I hold my own next to the butcher behind them all.

I'll watch Hyacinth die -- I'll burn her body and sell her organs like she sold her body. I'll watch myself live, watch the blood bubble out of their skin as I dismember my own blood.

There's nothing more that I can do.

So I'll be fine with it.

[ s k e l e t o n ]

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[74th] The Reaping - District Twelve Oct 4, 2016 20:18:42 GMT -5

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Post by я𝑜𝓈𝑒 on Oct 4, 2016 20:18:42 GMT -5

A N N A B E L L E
M O R T U U S

We didn't leave her body to rot.

They cut it apart, harvested her organs and bones — some of my siblings even kept them as souvenirs, as keepsakes of Celia. I have never feared the sight of blood, but I didn't look when they sliced her open with a scalpel; I didn't want any of her bones to haunt me in my room.

It's been a year and it's okay somehow. The hospital isn't any less quiet, not with all ten of us running around. There will always be that hole, that space where Celia should be, but sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's numb, like we're all floating on painkillers.

I know what today is the moment my eyes open. They squint against the garish light pouring in from the window, and it hits me like a train — it's Reaping Day. But I only sigh and shake the sleep out of my head. I don't feel that weight on my shoulders, the one I felt last reaping. If they were going to take more of my family, wouldn't they have done it already?

We're safe, I smile to myself, to Hyacinth when I see her in the morning. We're safe.

By the time I'm all dressed and ready to leave, my family is waiting for me at the door. They, like myself, are dressed in their nicer clothes today, slacks or skirts and dress jackets. Reaping Day is one of the few times a year we're not wearing hospital clothes — they look funny dressed all formal, I think to myself.

"Ready?" Mom asks, and I nod.

"Ready."

. . .

The cold air bites my skin. I hate standing here in the icy wind, shivering and crossing my arms over my chest, trying to conserve warmth. I don't want to be here, I want to go home —

and that stupid escort's makeup is ugly, I think as she walks across the stage, her heels sounding like gunshots as they pound into the floor. Bang, bang, bang, and she is standing at the microphone, her hands twitching. She has claws at the ends of her fingers, painted a color that I can't see from where I stand. The way her face is painted reminds me of a clown, and instead of focusing on her introduction (it's the same every year, anyway), I think of how she painted all that onto her skin. Her face is cakey and white, decorated with sparkly lips and dark purple blush and eyeshadow to match. And her hair is the funniest part — it's all poofy and stands up on her head like a purple afro.

She's an elegant clown, I decide.

"Hyacinth Mortuus!"

The name steals the air from my lungs.

"What?" I call out in confusion. It doesn't set in, it doesn't hit me, until Hyacinth is walking through the crowd to the stage. "Wait, no, there has to be a mistake —" I try to break from the ranks of my family, but a steel grip closes around my arm and yanks me back. My head whips around, and I find myself looking into my mother's stern eyes.

"No, Annabelle," she says.

My lip begins to tremble as tears well up in my eyes. ("No, Annabelle.") They blur my vision so that when I turn back to Hyacinth, I can barely see her figure walking to the stage, to her fate.

"Stop!" I cry out again, a sob breaking through my chest. "But Hyacinth — no, no it was supposed to be okay it was supposed to be okay!" And the cries turn to wails — I don't even try to stop myself. It's too far gone already.

Something within me shatters — perhaps what little tolerance I have left for pain.

"Mom, Mom let me go!" I wail, but she pulls me back even farther.

"Annabelle, hush!" And when I don't, she snaps, "Annabelle, shut up or so help me —"

So I just bury my head in her chest, wetting her shirt with my tears, and let her hold me steady. Mom isn't usually loving or sentimental, but it must be hard to feel nothing for your sobbing child.

Hyacinth is walking away, and she's not coming back.

(And I don't want to see her bones on Maryse's shelf.)

And it's not okay anymore.