hesper hart | nine ; fin

I guess most things these days are told through a lens of before and after. That is, before and after the war, of course. Before, father was born in peace times, a humble man who'd grown up working as a huntsman. His own father, my grandfather, was a retired peacekeeper and a proud patriot of Panem. Why he chose Nine of all places to settle in, I never knew, but I didn't get the chance to ask because he died before I was born.

My mother was the only daughter of a butcher, and inherited the business when she was quite young after her parents passed from sickness. She met my father back when they were in their twenties. My father started taking his hunted game there to be processed and sold, and eventually started finding more excuses to end up there with her. Mom got pregnant with my older sister, the rest is history.

During the war, it became my dad's job to raise and train hounds to track rebel soldiers. He already had the hunting dogs, and had become quite the reputable hunter within District Nine by that point. Combine that with the patriotic belief system his father instilled in him, and it was an honor he couldn't refuse. I still remember being a little girl, staring at the wicked creatures through slats in the fence. I knew they were dangerous; I'd been told a thousand times never to go inside the kennel. Yet still, a youthful morbid curiosity always brought my tiny little feet back to the fences, where I would watch them for hours. Sleeping, or scratching fleas, or eagerly waiting for their daily feeding. They growled and barked at the slightest of movements, trained to hunt and kill anything that wasn't in charge, so I learned to be quite still and quiet my breathing. I kept thinking that if I went out there enough times, let them catch my scent, let them see those glimpses of me through the slats, that they'd grow fond of me. I'd stand there trying to brave myself enough to stick my fingers through to let the dogs sniff, or once I even almost tried feeding one of them a piece of bacon. (I didn't. Someone saw me acting shifty and ran me off, unfortunately.)

My father was so good at teaching dogs how to hunt that the Capitol grew more and more reliant on him. Scientists put their resources and their advancements to use and created new creatures, like bloodhounds but bigger and scarier and generally more nightmarish. They called them hellhounds.

When they first arrived they were kept with the other normal hunting dogs. That first day the Capitol brought them in was also the first day I walked up to the fence and none of the hounds growled at me. I remembered thinking, 'This is it! They finally see me as a friend!' as I teetered onto the tips of my toes to peer inside. My eyes widened in horror at the sight: blood splattered on walls, matted piles of fur lying lifeless in the hay. A dozen dogs, dead. Those bigger, scarier hellhounds were all gathered in one corner, piled up next to each other and unmoving except to pant with blood-laced tongues hanging from their toothy maws, a dozen sets of glowing red eyes staring right back at me as if proud of their work.

That day, I stopped going out to the kennel. It taught me the truth of the world: that a hound is a hound is a hound. It will only ever know to hunt.

After the war, the hounds became a... stain. They were too cruel and too dangerous to let loose, even for regular hunts. The Capitol never came to get them, as they already had a patent to create more should the need arise, but that meant they continued to be our responsibility. We couldn't afford to raise more regular hounds separately from the mutts, and any time we tried introducing them it ended in brutality. The kennel became a box of evil, filled with evil things, unable to be touched or moved. But we continued to care for them as instructed, because it seemed to be keeping us safe.

But last winter after Daddy died, any sense of security died with him. The hellhounds were loyal to blood. They were engineered specifically to recognize my father's scent and spare him the horrors they would've otherwise enacted. It'd always been his responsibility to go out and feed them. But now that he's gone, and now that Saber has moved out and married the Irvine boy she fell for in grade 10, it's just Momma and I left in the house. That means it's become my job, lugging buckets of meat scraps out back and pouring them through spouts because no one has been brave enough to go inside since Daddy's passing. The noises are the worst of them these days. Things are so quiet now, you can hear them out there at night, yipping and howling, sparring. As time wears on, they grow more angry that their master has not returned, and I continue to be the only thing they know to hate in the meantime. The last few times I've tried to feed them, I've watched as the terrifying creatures shove their snouts into the pour spouts, trying to snatch my fingers and pull me in with them.

This morning, I almost let them. But I don't. I just stare at the gnashing teeth, unblinking. So many things have already gone wrong over the past few months that simply lying down at this point seems... unfair. What would be the point of anything, then? Daddy died seven months ago. We got our last check from the Capitol six months ago. And today is the first reaping that has come since his passing. Usually, he would've distracted everyone all morning by telling us his father's stories of traveling Panem as a peacekeeper, back when things were still peaceful. But this time, the walk to the Square is silent. We meet up with Saber and her new husband when we get to the bustling center of the district. She hugs me and wishes me luck, and then I alone march further in than the sidelines having no idea that as bad as things have already been, they're about to get even worse.