98th Reaping [District Five]

In his dream, Amias was still in District One. Well, he thought he was. There was really no way of knowing- the trees around him were just trees, the sky above was as blue as one might expect. But it felt like One. There was too much dangerous energy everywhere for him to be back home. He felt alone, so he wasn't in District Five. Simple.

Except he wasn't alone, was he?

Amias held a bow, its string drawn taut against his fingertips, and he aimed, with held breath, an arrow with a sharpened tip. Any moment, something was going to round the trunk of that tree. Amias didn't know what, or why, but he knew he was afraid, and he knew what he was supposed to do when the time came. A twig snapped. The birds singing above fell silent as they watched the show unfold. Amias saw  shadows dance around the roots of the old oak, almost as if whatever was on the other side knew it was being hunted and was waiting for the right time to pop out. Amias held his aim. Any second now.

The moment he saw movement, the arrow flew forward. As it made contact, the scream which exploded from the shadow merged with the long squeal of a train's whistling engine. It grew louder and louder until it was all he could hear. And then he woke up.

His forehead was covered in a sheen of sweat, his breathing labored.

"We have arrived at our final destination,"said a robotic voice on the intercom above, "Thank you for choosing Panem Express! We hope you enjoyed your time with us. Welcome to District Five!" Amias peered out to the heat miser of a district waiting for him outside. This hadn't exactly been a part of the plan. He was supposed to have arrived two days ago, which would've given him and Ambrose plenty of time to catch each other up to speed. But his original train had gotten overbooked and despite his best efforts, the best that could be done was this: him arriving the morning of the Reaping, only a few hours shy of being arrested for attempted desertion.

He didn't even have time to go home first. His parents walked with him straight from the train station to the Square, which thankfully wasn't that long. Ambrose and Finch were already signed in and waiting for him, but he smiled and held his arms out for a hug when they caught sight of him. Seeing them felt like confirmation that the world was still as he'd left it. He'd been worried that he'd get back and things would be... different. He worried Ambrose would've learned how to live without him, his friends would've replaced his spot at the lunch table, and everyone would've basically forgotten his existence. But the Square looked just as it always had. His brother was smiling as he approached, wearing the same shirt he had last year. Part of him was deeply relived at the familiarity and comfort of it all. Part of him knew that's exactly why he'd always yearned to leave in the first place.

"Nice haircut," he told Finch as he pulled Amias in for a hug, "Sorry I'm late!"


It proved difficult to try and catch up with everyone standing so close-by. A few people saw that he was back and waved, Finch made a joke about his new shoes looking nicer than anything in his closet back home, and he tried to talk about life in District One where he could. More than once, he made eyes at Ambrose, a different conversation happening all the while between the two in silence. There was so much he needed to tell him before they switched. So much he'd been saving. His training, and Pandora, and the facilities, and his new friends- things he couldn't talk about in public and certainly not in front of Finch. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe only twenty minutes later, Mayor Nox began the reaping.

"Jeeze, he looks like shit," Amias noted. Despite still being quite a young man, the mayor's tired expression made him look years older. His face was disheveled as if he hadn't slept. People back in District One were always going on and on about how much of a fluke it was that District Five had the highest average placement in recent games history according to all the leading statisticians, and seeing their leader look as if he was coming unraveled in real time was making Amias start to believe they were maybe right.

Finch was in the middle of quietly explaining that Mayor Nox's wife was on trial for murder when the sad-looking man handed things off to the Games escort, a snake-turned-human named Salazar, who promptly slithered his way onto the stage. He glanced over the crowd like he was deciding which of them would be his meal, and then-

"Ambrose Jumeaux!"

Instinctively, mirrored expressions locked onto one another. Amias no longer had to wonder what it would look like for one of their names to be called at a Reaping- he saw every ounce of fear and confusion he felt reflected back at him in his brother's eyes. He heard every stammered question, every panicked worry in that moment. "I- I'm sorry."

Amias reached forward for his brother, hands clasped around his arms at the elbow. Not an option.

Whereas Ambrose looked almost ready to flee, Amias felt a different instinct kick in and for the first time, he saw proof that his time in District One was changing him. As the escort carried on with a second name Amias didn't catch, he grew confident in his reserve. He wanted to fight. In that moment he told himself whatever he needed to hear in order to make it make sense. This was District Five. The Capitol likely sent all the strongest peacekeepers to the career districts, or the most rebellious. Five was in great standing and typically sucked at actually winning the Games- there was no imminent threat here, which meant that someone like Amias, who had trained in combat for only four short months, could feel just emboldened enough to think he might actually have a shot at-

"I volunteer!"

For a moment, he thought the words may have come from his own mouth. But then the peacekeepers who'd been making their way over to the brothers stopped, and turned a different way. Amias looked back to his brother, confusion running rampant. "Does that mean-?"

In the end, two boys stood on stage, neither a Jumeaux. Some dude-bro buddy pact, from the looks of it. He looked down to see that he was still clutching Ambrose's arms, his fingers trembling with the effort. He didn't want to let go yet, but he made himself. Amias stepped to the side, allowed Finch to fawn and the crowd to support. This was a tragedy, even if it was stopped before it was too late. Because now, in just a few days, his brother was going to be on a train across the country to a place he'd never been, and he would be forced to pretend what just happened to him had happened to someone else. And Amias... Amias was going to have to act as if this was about him, somehow, as if his brother's tragedy were his own.

Maybe they should stop all this now. Maybe they should come clean to everyone, or just at least vow to cease it and never speak of it again. Ambrose would be Ambrose, Amias would be Amias, and there would be no more switching and lies. But he knew they couldn't. They'd come too far now, already started building the double-life they both always wanted to have. To come clean now would mean to risk taking all of it away. Amias was a lot of things, but being selfless hadn't ever been an option. There were two of him, after all.