Heart of Darkness: the Forty-Fourth Hunger Games

Chapter 6

I couldn't find the Five girl... which does not mean she wasn't sent, since I probably just misplaced her. Anyway, here's Six.

Aran Cooper- 16

Reality is overrated in Panem. I can accept most of it, like my family and my job. It's the things none of us want to think about that get me. Things like Avoxes and Hunger Games and the things they do to people the Capitol doesn't like. I couldn't live in a world with things like that. I do live in this world, so I must be wrong about things like that. They can't really be real.

Everyone's afraid at the Reaping. They were all afraid they were going to die, but that couldn't be real. Panem was built on fear and power. They didn't really have to kill anyone. The Games were just for show, or they wouldn't televise them. They picked the winner beforehand. Usually it was a Career, to show that loyalty would be rewarded, but sometimes they let the little guy win so we wouldn't lose hope. The ones they didn't pick pretended to die so there would be drama and spectacle, and then they took them off and made them into Avoxes deep in the Capitol where no one from the Districts would recognize them. It wasn't as bad as people thought.

I was still scared when the escort picked a name from the bowl. Even if the Games weren't real, bad things still happened in Panem. It would hurt to be made into an Avox. I wondered what it was like to never talk again, and to never be able to see my family again.

"Aran Cooper!"

People looked at me like I was a corpse as I walked by them. I wished they wouldn't stare at me with such terrified, ghastly expressions. Every one of them thought I was going to die. If so many people thought something crazy, it didn't seem crazy anymore. It was hard to convince myself it wasn't real as I went up to the stage.

I'd had nightmares about the Games before. Real and unreal didn't have any meaning in dreams. In the dreams, the Games were just what they seemed, and I never won. I'd died a thousand ways in the night- stabbed by Careers, torn by mutts, ravaged by sickness or starvation or heat or cold. They were just dreams, and I always woke up. I couldn't wake up from reality.

It's not real, I told myself. It's just a show. It'll be bad and it will probably hurt, but it's not really real. Not all the way. But it sure felt real on that stage.

Kirsta Thales- 16

All the angels and good Samaritans of Six wanted to help the morphlings. They talked about the poor, neglected street children shoving their bodies full of poison and wished something could be done about the little dears. I shouldn't have been so harsh on them. They wanted to help. Some of them devoted their lives to helping. I wished they would give up on me.

There was something they didn't understand. Nobody did morphling because it was fun. The ones who took morphling were the ones that couldn't bear life without it. Sometimes I thought we were the only ones that saw life clearly. If the angels and Samaritans saw the same world we did, they'd be shoving needles into themselves just like us. Panem was a hopeless, dark wasteland. There were no happy ending here and nothing to look forward to. The only thing that could hide that from us was morphling.

My mother had already made breakfast when I got up. She didn't like me to be in the kitchen alone. Addicts had been known to eat spoonfuls of nutmeg or try to smoke banana peels. I was supposed to be off the hard stuff, and my parents were more vigilant than I was. I wanted to be a good person and a good daughter, but it was hard to keep it up here. It didn't seem like anyone cared in the long run.

"Thanks, Mom," I said. She wasn't really my mother, but she loved me more than the woman who donated womb space for nine months. I wasn't usually so polite, and my mother was surprised when I thanked her. She almost didn't mention what she'd found in my backpack.

"What's this doing here?" she asked, holding up an empty can. I hadn't wanted to disappoint her, and I wished I'd left the can in the store. I only drank it to get rid of some of the troubles and cares weighing me down. I only really felt like me when I was drunk or high.

"Oh, that? It must have been in there a long time," I said.

"Then why is it damp?" my mother asked, turning the can over so a drop fell out. I wished she didn't look like she wanted to cry.

"I only had one. It didn't even do anything. It just helped me calm down," I said. I knew my excuses didn't mean anything. I just wanted to make it less bad than it was.

"We can talk about this later. When you get back," my mother said. Her voice cracked on the last word, and not because she was angry.

I was angry as I walked to the Reaping- angry and scared. Angry at myself for giving in to temptation and scared for the Reaping and for my parents. I kept saying I should be a better person, but I never did it. Someday they'd stop asking, and it would be too late. Or it might be too late today.

Aran is 5'9, with short brown curly hair, medium skin, and brown eyes. He is thin, but has a tiny bit of muscle from working as a mechanic. He is missing the top half of his middle finger from an accident while working.

Kirsta is pale from lack of sun with long, flowing, chocolate brown hair. She has icy blue eyes, with bags under them. She is around 5'8 and 115 pounds. She has a large scar on her right thigh and long eyelashes.