Survivor: The Forty-Seventh Hunger Games

Chapter 13

Here's Twelve! Aliara is still the same.

Nash Forger, 12 (D12M)

I'd never been outside Twelve in my life, but I loved to imagine what the other Districts must be like. I had detailed maps in my room that I drew between classes (or sometimes during, if it was language arts). The only good part about the Games was being able to see people from all over the country. Usually they looked pretty much like me, but the two from Eleven were almost always dark, which looked very cool and different.

In District One, I imagined, everyone was rich. They ate nothing but fruit and drank nothing but fizzy soda. They all wore jewelry every day and most of them had a ton of piercings, even in their eyes. They had pink and blue hair and they were all super happy since no one ever had to go to the Games if they didn't want to. Someday I was going to visit every District, and I was definitely looking forward to One.

District Two was a lot scarier. The people there wore dark clothing and instead of math tests every year, they had fistfights in order to graduate. They were all either Peacekeepers or volunteers, so it was hard to commit a crime there. I didn't plan to spend much time there.

Three was like science fiction. The people had robots to do all the hard work, so they had time to invent crazy things. They had bionic eyes and self-washing clothes and cool neon lights everywhere. I was going to look like a caveman there, but they would be super cool.

Four had the ocean, so that was super neat. When I went out there, I'd go fishing in one of their big boats. The fish here didn't get much longer than my arm, but in Four, I might catch something as long as me.

Five was probably very bright and they had a lot of giant buildings. The people there wouldn't even know what wide open spaces and lots of trees were like. Everything would be very close together, and they would have those cool underground roads.

Six didn't sound very exciting. I imagined it like a big city with lots of roads. I'd go anyway though.

We had forests in Twelve, but I imagined the forests in Seven were much more foresty. It would be cool to watch people cut down the giant trees and turn them into normal wood. They must have nice, clean air, too, since they didn't have coal mines.

The people in Eight would wear lots of bright clothes made of weird material I'd never seen. They were probably super friendly, since they had to work together all day. I imagined them like a lot of grandmothers, since my grandmother was the only person I knew who sewed every day.

I'd never seen a grain field before. I always wondered if they grew all the grain together or separated it. It would be more convenient to grow it together if they wanted to grow mixed grain. The only thing I was worried about was ticks. I'd gotten a lot of ticks in tall grass.

Ten was one of the most exciting Districts to me. I wanted to see cows and horses and sheep. We had a few goats here, but no one had a cow. They looked very big and scary in the pictures, but the people in Ten rode on them. They were super brave.

Eleven was our sister District, but I knew almost nothing about it. It must have been nice to have all that fruit to eat. They must have been very happy people. When I went there, I wanted to try weird new plants I'd never eaten before.

There was a lot of Panem out there for me to see. I knew I'd get there somehow. I hatched a new plan almost every day. One of them was going to work.

Aliara Bavier, 18 (D12F)

On Reaping Day, my life was even weirder than normal. It was already weird for a Twelve girl to wake up in the squalid apartment she shared with her girlfriend. It was even weirder when the girlfriend used to be her maid. I didn't think of Zelena that way anymore, of course, but she still ended up doing more housework than me. She said I did it all wrong and I was spoiled. Who does she think she is, calling a girl with a maid spoiled?

"We should get up," I said to Zelena, who was pretending to still be asleep.

"Do we really have to go?" she asked.

"It's gone fine so far," I said. "Just one more year. And what are you worried about? You're old. You're an old maid," I said. Zelena was twenty. Halfway to the grave. But maybe not as close as I was.

"What do you think?" I asked, holding two dresses I'd grabbed before we snuck away to start a romantic new life away from our families. "Romantic" looked a lot like cockroaches in the walls and mold on the ceiling.

"You look sexy in that one. In the other one... you look sexy," Zelena said. Then her face fell, and I jumped in to cheer her up.

"Don't worry. Nothing can happen to me. They only kill one girl a year, right?" I asked.

"Yeah?" Zelena asked, needing clarification.

"If they pick me, that would be two people, since you'd die without me," I said. Jokes aside, I knew for sure I would die if they picked her.

"Besides, if I die, there will be no one here to make messes. What would you do all day?"

"Eat bonbons and watch soap operas," she said, even though we only got one channel on our tiny television: the Games channel. And it only worked about three weeks a year.

"Look at all these people," I said when we got outside. "That's more than I could count even if I was smart. People, people, people. They'd never pick me."

It was easier to pretend I wasn't scared if I pretended Zelena was super scared. I wasn't sure how scared she really was, but she probably wasn't as scared as I was. Maybe two years ago, when her name was in the bowl, but not now. Most people, no matter how much they said they cared about someone else, cared about their own lives most of all. Most people weren't like me.

I was shaking when we got to the processing line, but I played it off like I was just fidgety. Once I got in line, Zelena wouldn't be allowed to go with me any farther. Before I got in, we shared one last kiss. I grabbed her hand and didn't let go until the line swept me forward so far my outstretched arm couldn't hold on any longer. That had been the worst part of the Reaping since Zelena aged out. We could get through anything together, but being alone was my worst nightmare.

Nash dreams of seeing the nation, but he didn't volunteer. He was Reaped.