The Tributes of Twelve | Newt x Reader

2 | The Reaping

An hour and a half later, I'm standing outside the door again, dressed in one of my mother's smaller dresses. It's made from a pale grey material that reaches my knees, with a bronze sash around the middle. I'm wearing Mother's old bronze shoes and my hair is tied into a bun with a ribbon of the same colour. Father tells me how much like Mother I look, which does nothing but make the three of us even sadder. Chuck wears a white shirt and his cleanest pair of black pants. Father is allowed to walk with us to the square, but then we must be separated, Father to the outside of the square, and Chuck and me into our separate age groups. As we walk into the square, I lean down so I'm at Chuck's height, my hands on Chuck's shoulders.

"Chuck," I tell him seriously. "I took the tesserae for you. Your name is in there once. It's your first reaping. They're not going to choose you. Okay, buddy?"

"Okay," Chuck confirms.

"Good," I tell him, straightening up.

"But y/n," he says seriously, "what if it's you?"

I pull my brother into a hug. "Chuck, it's not going to be me. My name's only in there twenty times, okay?"

"Y/n, twenty times is a lot."

"But there's thousands of slips, buddy. It's not going to be me."

"You promise?"

"I promise it won't be me, Chuck."

"Okay, y/n," Chuck nods as we break apart into our separate age groups. "I trust you."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" I hear a voice from the front call. It's Ava Paige, the woman that has been running the reapings in District Twelve for years. It's my cue to tune out as the mayor goes through the speech about the Dark Days and how the Hunger Games began, and sigh as the one victor of the Hunger Games from District Twelve takes a seat on the stage. Minho. The sarcastic seventeen year old won his Games at fifteen, just two years ago. He outsmarted the other tributes and won with his virus that took out the rest of the tributes after he poisoned one of them. His body somehow had immunity to the deadly disease, but the other tributes weren't so lucky.

"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" Ava Paige calls. "Ladies first!"

Her painted hand reaches inside the massive glass ball that holds thousands of slips. Twenty of them say, 'y/n y/l/n'. I'm thinking about the promise I made to Chuck just ten minutes ago. It's not going to be me. Ava Paige's hand is removed from the massive jar, and her pink nails hold a single slip of paper. And she calls out the name.

"Y/n y/l/n."

Time freezes for a little while and my heart stops. I'm going into the arena. To kill or be killed. And Chuck, Chuck, I broke my promise to my beautiful brother. He'll be heartbroken, but there's no point being upset. I'm already dead.

The town square is silent, and the only person in District Twelve that's moving right now is me, as I walk up to the stage. Come on, I tell myself, be strong. So I hold my head high. In the crowd, I see my father's face first. He looks broken inside, and his face is a mask of pain. I see Chuck's next. Worse than crying, he's emotionless, as if it's all a dream. He's too heartbroken to feel. And lastly, my gaze falls upon Newt. He looks broken too, as bad as Chuck, but his eyes meet mine as they send a message to me. Be bloody strong. For me, for your father, for Chuck. Be bloody strong, he seems to say. I break the gaze as I walk up to the stage. I'll never be able to tell him how I feel, I think as I walk up the steps.

"Y/n y/l/n," Ava Paige calls as she raises my hand up in the air. "Our female tribute from District Twelve!" She pauses as if waiting for applause, but, as is standard for our district, the only sound is the whistling of the wind. Shaking it off, Ava Paige grins, her pink lipstick stained all over her white teeth. I feel disgust, but also sorrow for this woman. She's as broken as me, but in a different way.