The Tributes of Twelve | Newt x Reader

1 | The Pebbled Stones

Warning: Mentions of suicide

The pebbled stones across the path dig deep into the bare soles of my feet. Usually, the sun shines upon the stones, sending a warm reassurance of comfort into my toes.

But not today.

Today is the day of the reaping.

Today, the stones are cold, and I pick one up and examine it, almost lazily, in the palm of my hand. It's smooth and a shade of pale grey, like the colour of the evening sky that settles over District Twelve as the sun sets every night. They say the sun used to set in a fantastic array of bright hues, pinks, and oranges, and even purples. Others say that's just a myth. If not, decades of coal dust and misery have faded the colours from the sky.

I still have a few hours until the reaping begins. It doesn't start until two o'clock, so I've decided to make use of my time beforehand by walking the streets of the market square, picking up abandoned blocks of coal from the streets. The streets are practically deserted, and the only sound I can hear is the sound of my own breathing, and the occasional footstep of someone else in the distance. Everyone else is sleeping in, lying under threadbare blankets to try and absorb the most amount of heat they can; it's been an unusually cold spring. Those living with others might be able to spare some warmth of another's body, but elderly people might not be so lucky. I share a small, wooden bed and a thin quilt made of wool with my younger brother, Chuck. My father sleeps in the room next to us. He's old, and frail, I'm worried for him. He might not survive the cold year ahead, and then where would Chuck and I be? Alone? On the streets? In the orphanage? Who knows. I don't know if I could support Chuck for too long without giving in to the terrible depression that took my mother when I was twelve, Chuck's current age. When she died and my father became sick, I became the head of the family when I was just thirteen. There wasn't much work in District Twelve for a thirteen year old girl, so I had to fend for myself and my family. First, I tried to sell old clothes of my mother's; she wouldn't miss them anymore. However, none of these sold in large enough quantities, so this only sustained us for a week; the rest of her clothes are stuffed away in a wooden box in the corner of our three-roomed house in the Seam, only drawn out for reapings and occasionally, funerals. Next, I begged for work on the streets. When it became apparent that no one would hire a thirteen year old girl with no experience, I took to the Meadow. 

There, I found refuge from my hungry seven year old brother and the pain in his broken eyes, and the broken frame of my father who could no longer work as a coal miner due to his age and body state. I found refuge from responsibility, but I found something I wasn't expecting. I found hope in the open, grassy field. It came in the form of a wild fennel plant and a clump of blackberries. I ran straight back home that night, almost crying tears of happiness. We were saved. The next day, I brought Chuck to the meadow with me, and we collected blackberries in small metal buckets to take home. So every weekend day and every night after school, Chuck and I escaped into the Meadow and feasted on berries, flowers and roots. However, I couldn't escape the feeling that the woods outside the district were calling me in. I knew that outside the district, I could gather more food, maybe even hunt for fresh kill. So I left Chuck at home one day, claiming to be back by seven o'clock for dinner. I snuck under a hole in the electric fence that was rarely ablaze with electricity like it was supposed to be, armed with one of the knives my mother used for cooking. That day, I was unsuccessful in hunting anything, but I tried for weeks to kill a rabbit, a squirrel, anything I could get my hands on. Three weeks exactly after I delved into the woods for the first time, I killed my first animal. It was a small rabbit that I stabbed in the leg with a blunt knife, but still, it was meat. That night, I went into the Hob, and traded some of the greens for sharper knives. From then on, the knife became my only weapon. For five years, I've learnt to throw with deadly accuracy, and I have hunted for my family ever since.