[79th] The Reaping - District 12

riley lowrick.

It has been seven years of this shit. For seven years I have stood in the same spot, listened to the same speech, seen one boy and one girl rise from their seats and go on the train. With the exception of Stella, District Twelve’s newest victor, I haven’t seen any return. District Twelve had success with the games only two decades ago, winning three of the four games between the 54th and the 57th. The prime days for went on a drought for more than twenty years after that.

But this year, Twelve flew on new heights, for a gratitude for Stella Blakesley has risen up, and the plan to win and in turn feed the District is all anyone can pray for.. other than hoping they aren’t the one that has to go in and win.

Rows upon rows of women and men, tall and short, and in all arrangements of colors, flocked into the District Square, many for the final time before being released into the working world of District Twelve’s mines for the next decades of life, until you die a slow and nagging death.

I barely see my elder brother anymore, for he’s working to get every penny he possibly can in order to support our family. Soon, without a doubt, that’ll be me, mining coal in hopes that my work is enough to pay for the survival of my father, mother, and brother.

The man who would draw for the reaping finally spoke through the summer heat, “It is time to once again send two of our own children to the Capitol to compete in the Hunger Games. Let us begin the Reaping!"

There’s a general groan of dissatisfaction within the Square. I tried to build up the courage to blurt out “Just get on with it, already,” but the blank eyes of the Peacekeepers in their helmets keeps me from saying anything.

“Cassia Oretio!”

I don’t know the name, and so I don’t bother looking to see who the person is. She’s probably nervous enough without having thousands of eyes looking her way.

I wait for the boy’s name, with a tiny pit of pain growing in my stomach.

“Riley Lowrick!”

”Fuck.” I whisper as the faces of the people to my right and left start to turn.

”Excuse me,” I said, pushing through one of the boys on my left. However, one kid, probably younger than me, looks into my eyes.

He shakes his head.

”I volunteer!”

”Well then..” I position myself back to where I was, and let my heart slowly catch up to the adrenaline.

I am alive. I have survived the Hunger Games Reapings. But I have not survived the hell of District Twelve, not yet.

One day before the Reaping..

Constant reminders of his lack of an identifiable home mark themselves around every street corner. He lives on planet Earth, where the human race has dominated for thousands of years. He lives in Panem, where the elites are high up and the others practically dig their own grave waiting to be pushed. Gabriel lives in District Twelve, neglected unless manipulated when others want something from him. He lives with the Laws, who took him in after his first home sold him out to save a bit of money. And lastly, he lives in hell. But this hell is protected by bullet proof chambers that protect his heart. There is no such thing as home without a sense of hell and fire for him. Every place he wishes to call home burns away, feeling less and less like a home and more and more like a prison.. more and more like a place he does not belong.

The Laws, as much as he wished not to say it, were the only people that Gabriel Alexander had left to latch himself onto. Mr. Laws (he still referred to him as that, even after a lengthy time since he saved Gabriel’s life) was his rescuer in a time when the only time he managed to scrape up food was when he laid on a street, curled up to try to get heat to generate in the cooler nights. Even then, few people gave sparingly. District Twelve is a place where people starve for a living, so he was not disappointed but rather grateful. One would starve themselves a little more so Gabriel could starve a little less. (But either way, they were all still left starving.)

The eve of the Reaping was upon District Twelve, and around every marketplace lay stands with small amounts of food. It’d probably satisfy the people in the upper districts are the Capitol for a day, but in the streets of Twelve where rib cages are visible for many of the residents, it is meant to last much, much longer.

For the Laws, a group of many, many people, it’s necessary to come back more often. That’s his job for the day, get all the food (or as much as possible) from the list made out for him so hopefully there would be no casualties by starvation.

As he made his way down the list, the flimsy paper bag of food got to become filled to the brim. The heaviest of items, liked the few canned goods on the bottom, and the lightest and most delicate, the bread and eggs, balanced on the top.

To lift the bag fully, it had to reach nearly the height of his eyes, which made it difficult to tell where he was going. The loaf of bread on the top was particularly an issue, with half of the bread bouncing around with every step he took.

The lack of a field of vision left Gabriel agitated. Eventually he was going to trip over a curb or run into someone else perhap with the same issue. To his side, however, was an older woman, probably around age forty or fifty, against the wall of a run-down building. Just by seeing her from the corner of his eye, he could tell she was sickly. A sinking face and fearful countenance. The woman’s eyes shift from her hands to lock with Gabriel’s eyes, but almost on reflex he turned away. It wasn’t polite for people to stare at someone suffering.. and do nothing about it.

He continued walking, but five seconds later, his feet started to change direction. Instead of toward home, he went to the woman.

Surely Mr. Laws would not mind starving a little so others could starve a little less. Surely he could see why Gabriel did it if he had to reveal the truth.

The whole loaf of bread was removed from the bag and placed in the hands of the woman in the streets.

{“Thank you,”} the woman said, breaking off a tiny piece to nibble on.

“Don’t thank me, ma’am. I just know what it’s like to sit on these streets with a starving stomach. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

The woman let out a chuckle and Gabriel nodded. “Eat sparingly,” he muttered, before carrying the slightly lighter paper bag, homeward bound.

The field of view when the bread was released from the bag wasn’t much better than prior to. Perhaps the burden of cheating Mr. Laws out of his money left Gabriel a little more guilty than when he first went out on the errand. His shoulders raised to lift the bag and his eyes became less of a guide and more of a passenger for the walk home. He heard the mutters of people slowly moving out of his way, and then he would struggle to dodge others who were a bit less mindful of where they were going.

On the brick road he minded each step he took, watching his feet to avoid any bumps or holes. The only thing that could go wrong was a bu-

Seconds later he watched his foot get trampled by a man’s black and shiny shoes. The bag of cans and eggs and fruits flew to the ground, along with his face.

{“Kid, watch where you’re going,”} the man said.

Gabriel landed on the bricks chin first, but the other man, and a woman as well, remained on their feet.

“Sorry, I- the bag was really heavy,” Gabriel began picking up the bag and grabbing the cans and placing them bag in the paper bag. The woman went down onto her knees and helped him by picking up one of the now-dented cans.

{“Here you, go, swe-“} her voice stopped, but Gabriel continued cleaning up his mess. The eggs were almost certainly cracked. Moments later, her voice caught wind again. {“Gabriel?”}

For a moment he didn’t care to process how she knew his name. Once the last can was picked up and put back into it’s respect spot, he smiled at the woman, grateful for her assistance.

Slowly, the smile evolved from gratitude, to surprise, to shock, to fear.

His birth parents, still the same as ever, were both looking down on him as if they found a lost piece of their lives.

{“Gabriel! Boy, where have you been? We haven’t seen you in months,”}

Years, Gabriel mentally corrected his father. He’d ran away years ago.

”I-“

{“Honey, who do you think he looks like more? Me or you?”}

Nether, he responded in his head once more.

{“Neither,”} his father agreed, {“Definitely didn’t get either of our genes.”}

He stood up to his feet, scraping off the sediments that spread across his shirt from the fall.

His father put a hand on his shoulder, but in knee-jerk reaction he pushed it away.

{“Let’s go home, Gabriel. The family is back together again,”} a hand tugged at Gabriel’s but he pulled back.

”No,” he whispered. His father questioned the refusal, and Gabriel went on. ”You are not my father. You are not my mother. Your home is not my home. You two dragged me through thirteen years of hell and ignorance, and now you want me to come back?”

{“You’re our son, Gabriel. We technically own you.”}

”You don’t own me, nobody owns me. You two cared more about fucking each other in our living room than helping me when I was helpless. I can’t go back to that, I won’t, and never will.”

He pushed between the pair’s locked hands and went past them, not looking back.

A heartbeat with the speed of a running feline in the wild was not good for the body as he walked home, as fast as he could. Approaching his own household, he saw the faces of his two parents ‘round every corner. Surely it wasn’t them.. surely it was just his excessive worrying. Surely. Surely.

Hastefully he walked through the door of the Laws home, placed the bag of goods on the table and dashed off to his room, where all he could hear was his breath, the occasional playful scream of a child from the window, and the words from his father. We own you.

————————————————————————

With closed eyes and folded hands, he leaned his head and body against his bed frame. Gabriel continued thinking about his mother and father. They do not own me.. they do not own me.

His surname by birth was Alexander, and when he ran away and was taken in my Jaime Laws and the rest, he strongly contemplated whether or not to change his surname to Laws. He was not an Alexander anymore, nor was he ever. But he merged the two together. Both were a part of his history after all, and although his distaste for his birth parents was real, they were as much part of his story as the Laws were. But now that they made an unexpected appearance back into his path of life, Gabriel wanted to erase them, he did not want to identify as an Alexander.. not anymore.

He heard the door squeak open, and Mr. Laws edged his way inside the room.

{“Gabriel, is everything okay?”} (Carter definitely ratted him out.)

He stuttered on his words, “Yeah. Well, no. Not really, I don’t know, Mr. Laws.” He couldn’t build up the courage to call him a fatherly sobriquet, even after years of being taken care of by him.

{“What happened?”} his tone, even if it wasn’t by blood or to Gabriel’s liking, was still that of a true father.

“You promise not to tell, not to Carter or anyone?” If Carter was willing to get Jaime Laws to talk to him, surely he was going to want to know what happened. Gabriel had no intentions of telling anyone but Mr. Laws, however, for the sole reason that he doesn’t like the pity parties and tragic stories that spread about other people, he didn’t want to become one of those people.

{"I won't tell a soul, bud. Even we keep secrets from our own children. Whatever it is, I won't tell anyone unless you want me to."}

“Okay.. I was getting the groceries, like you asked. I got it all, but it was heavy and I couldn’t see where I was going. I ran into these two people. They were mad at first but then they started talking to me like they knew me. Mr. Laws, it was my dad and my mom.”

Mr. Laws dove in for an embrace, and Gabriel accepted it as the tears of trauma and pain and hurt circulated in his eyelids. {“They didn’t hurt you, did they?”} He shook his head as they hugged, sniffling only once. With Mr. Laws, he felt protected and safe. {“You’re always welcome here.”}

“Thank you, Mr. Laws, I just never thought I’d see them again. They acted like I was just gone for a weekend and that I was theirs again. They aren’t my parents anymore, right? They don’t own me?” Legally, Gabriel didn’t know where he belonged. He didn’t know if he was a Laws or an Alexander, or both, or neither.

{"They are whatever you want them to be. You are not their son if you don’t want to be. If you want them to be out of your life, then I'll make sure they don't bother you. If you want them to be, I'll be here to support you."} It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but perhaps it would do enough. Mr. Laws knew how to handle issues with children and teenagers, especially after helping them for however many years.

“Thank you, again. I’m sorry about the groceries, by the way. Some of them didn’t make it home in one piece.”

{"It's okay. It's not the end of the world. I am just happy you're alright."}

Another embrace and smile came from Gabriel. He was protected here, he had a place here, but the voices of his birth parents still rang like wind chimes in his head.

————————————————————————

Reaping Day-

Gabriel never walked with any of the other Laws kids during the Reaping, he knew the emotional struggle from Mitchell Laws. For those that knew him when he was alive, he thought it was best to let them be. After all, during Reaping day, tensions already spike.

As he walked through the cobblestone streets of Twelve, a man laid his hand upon Gabriel’s shoulder.

{“Gabriel, after today, please come back.”} his father’s voice whispered in his ear.

Gabriel bit his lower lip and kept walking.

{“You’re our son, and you always will be.”}

His tongue now took part in the biting, and he pushed his birth father off of his bruised shoulder.

{“Your mother and I won’t stop until we have you back, Gabriel. We’ll keep following you and begging you.”}

”No,” it was all he said before he returned back to his group of Laws walking together. Surely his father wouldn’t try anything around others.

Gabriel looked behind and saw his father, standing in the middle of the crowded Reaping-Day streets, as if his own lover had walked away from him. Or, in a more logical case for him, as if his wife said no to sex for the first time in seventeen years.

They do not own you. They do not own you.

As the Reaping speech raged on, Gabriel felt the summer heat more than usual. The sun pelted fire toward his bones and the heat put him in a near chokehold. But the temperature couldn’t have been much warmer than the typical summers. It was the nervousness and anxiety that contributed to the melting sensation, and his parents’ words that put a heavy burden on his back only added to the feeling.

He listened for the name of District Twelve’s female, hoping that the surname ‘Laws’ did not appear. Most of the people who live in the Laws residence changed their last name to Laws, so he could only hope it wasn’t called.

”Cassia Oretio!”

He didn’t know the name.

He looked around at all the other boys as they waited to hear if the one-in-a-several-thousands odds chance that they get reaped was actually going to come true. All the way to his right were some of the older people, the parents of many standing in the reaping square.

Two people had their eyes locked on him as they adjusted their greying dark brown hair. Gabriel knew who they were.

{”I won’t stop until I have you back.”}

”Riley Lowrick!”

{“We own you.”}

The boy who was reaped was no more than two or three boys to the right of him. His face painted fear.

Gabriel’s thoughts went back to the sickly woman who he handed a loaf of bread.

Suffer more so others suffer less.

Live simply so others may simply live.

they don’t own me.

He did not need to go back to his birth parents. He did not need Mr. Laws to protect him. Gabriel shook his head at the boy reaped, and he moved instead. He knew how to escape this trap, he knew how to escape this hell.

“I volunteer!”