𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀 | 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬

𝟎𝟏. 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐬 ...

— 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐱 —

━━━━━━ ☽【❖】☾ ━━━━━━

This was the year of the seventy-second hunger games. Can you believe that? Seventy-two years of this bullshit. Another year, another name, another death mourned throughout district nine.

Now, I wasn't usually one to voice my complaints, but there was something off about this year. The feeling had been bothering me all morning, like someone was sitting on my chest, pinning me in place.

Perhaps it was just the tension that a new gamekeeper had been selected and no one knew what to expect from him. But in my eyes, Seneca Crane was no different than the other cronies of the capitol. No, I think it was the fact that my father hadn't made an appearance yet.

Ever since the death of my mother, he'd been silent. Aside from the occasional grunt, I think it's been three years since I last heard his voice. And although the house may have been quiet, he usually had the courtesy to at least show his face. I didn't blame him though. This week was always difficult as it marked a sentence of death that seemed to repeat itself for my family.

I had a brother once. He was just a year younger than me and the sweetest kid I knew. Our harsh environment and hot days slaving away out in the sun did nothing to change his cheerful disposition. I'm not sure I'd ever seen him cry, at least not until the sixty-ninth hunger games.

I only allowed him to enter his name once. Just once. That was the year he was reaped. I was thirteen when I watched my brother die, an image I'll never be able to wipe from my mind. I can still see the single tear slipping down the side of his face as he uttered his final words. I'm sorry.

In his dying breaths, he apologized to me for breaking a promise we both knew he'd never be able to keep.

The grief was too much for my mother to bear, she passed soon afterward, dying from a broken heart. The doctors had no explanation, or at least I'm sure they wouldn't had we been able to afford one.

Then came the field accident. The one that left my father crippled. He needed my care and I didn't hesitate to provide, picking up more jobs or pushing the odds in my favor by simply giving away my name. So could I really be surprised when said name was inscribed on the scrap of paper chosen from the glass bowl?

"Juneaux Kirchoff!"

It was like a war cry, immediately followed by silence. After a deep breath to still the tremor in my hands and the hitch of my chest, I stepped forward and allowed the peacekeepers to guide me up onto the stage beside district nine's escort: Esmé Rosehart.

I thought I was nauseous in the moment my name was called, but the sickening grin on the escort's face as she greeted me while I stepped onto the stage... well I could feel bile rising to the back of my throat. I swallowed and slowly turned to face the crowd. There would be no tears. I wouldn't let the capitol steal even a glimpse of satisfaction, not after the way they'd torn my family apart.

I'm sure Esmé congratulated me with the claim that I was fulfilling a great honor or something of the sort. I can't say for certain though because I stopped listening. I was too busy focusing on my composure to care. I know my outer features were unmoving but I was trembling within. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears, pulsing throughout my head before spreading to the rest of my body.

"And our male tribute..." Esmé paused for dramatic effect, leaning closer to the microphone as she announced the next name. "Harlan Undergrove!"

The name was vaguely familiar, but not enough so for my blood to run cold, at least not until I saw him. The other tribute was a child: small and twig-like with a tussle of blond hair pushed back from his soft brown eyes.

My knees threatened to give out. The full effect of being reaped had finally clicked in my mind. I was going to have to kill to survive, I understood that. But the true meaning behind those words had failed to put themselves in an order I understood, that is until the kid stepped onto the platform.

If I blinked too quickly in the right lighting, I swore I could see my own brother in his young and vulnerable face. He did a fine job keeping a brave look, but I could see the fear in his eyes. I'd seen it in my brother's too.

Before either one of us could even introduce ourselves, Esmé encouraged us to briefly shake hands before we were ushered offstage toward the transition rooms. Kept under close watch by the peacekeepers, there was no running. I could only accept the hand that fate had dealt.

My eyes betrayed my steel mind the second that my father limped through the door. It was the first time that I'd seen him today and the tear stains on his cheeks made my eyes water. I collapsed into his arms, grasping his coarse jacket between my whitened knuckles with the silent prayer that he would protect me. He could protect me no more than he could protect my brother... or my mother.

His chest heaved as he silently sobbed with me before bursting into a fit of coughs. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and took back the role of support that I'd briefly given him. There wasn't much in the room, but there was a table, a chair, and a sink. I retrieved a cup of water and made him sit before I allowed him to speak. His hands trembled as he brought the cup to his lips, but after a minute of short sips, he'd caught his breath and stopped coughing.

"Don't leave me, Junebug." My father's voice was quiet. I had yet to face him as tears had started to stream down the sides of my face once more. One of us had to be strong, and even though I was the one dying, it would have to be me.

I caught my breath before I could hiccup and focused on the control I needed to face him. I allowed a soft, but false, smile to pull at the corners of my mouth before wiping his tears away. "You need to be strong for me, dad. You need to stay strong so I can come back home to you."

We both knew I was giving him false hope, but it was all I could offer him. We understood it was unlikely that I'd return home, especially when I had no training to defend myself with. So if leaving my father with false hope was my last request... I was willing to part on the bittersweet terms of a lie.

"I love you, Junebug." My father's voice was a whisper in my ear as he wrapped me tight in his arms and held me there as long as he could.

Before I could muster the words to reply, the peacekeepers returned into the room and removed my father from the premises, throwing him out onto the street without any sympathy toward his condition. I screamed and tried to fight against them for even just another moment of time with him, but the warrant of my death had been signed and it was time to ride for the gallows.

I was escorted onto the train, but chose to linger at the window and watch as the last seconds of my mortal life ended before we passed through the gates of Olympus where my afterlife would begin.