Chapter 1- Two Days Until The Reaping
POV Kaiber Crystal
I slowly woke up, sunlight was streaming through the dust coated windows. I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Two days. Two days until the reaping, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten, I should be hungry but I just felt sick. I groaned as I dragged myself out of bed, My muscles ached from my days in the coal mine and I dreaded going back there in two hours. The coal mine was hot and stuffy, the air was thick and smelt like death which made it hard to breathe. I tossed my woollen quilt onto the dusty wooden floor. I should clean, but I couldn’t face it, not now.
I slowly trotted down the creaky staircase and into the kitchen. My father glared at me but I ignored him. He hasn’t forgiven me for my mother's death one year ago.
We were walking to the black market, we needed food and we couldn’t risk another name in for the reaping. We were laughing, I couldn’t even remember why. We had managed to sneak past the first set of peacekeepers and was some more one hundred meters away. Mother directed me down a narrow alley way, I hadn’t been paying attention, I tripped over a set of boxes into a trash can. The sound was like a gunshot, we heard shouting in the distance, the peacekeepers would see us, they would kill us. “Hide” my mum hissed at me, I ran as fast as my leg would let me and hid behind a massive dumpster. My mum wasn’t so lucky, she wasn’t fast enough. The Peacekeepers caught her, I saw them hold her down and blow her brains out. I cried until the tears ran dry and feel no need to cry anymore as nothing could ever be as terrible, I had no one else to lose.
I walked out the house without a sound. The meadow behind my house was peaceful, there was the old oak tree and buttercups littered the grassy plain. I sat by the stream watching the slow current. I watched the fish along the stream. They were free. I wanted to leave the haunting coal mines. I wanted to leave the father that hated the sight of me. I wanted to leave district 12. Why couldn’t I just jump over the fence that was never electrified and never look back? They would catch me. ‘Who cares?’ I thought to myself. My Mother. She had given me life, sacrificed her’s for my own, the least I could do is be bothered to carry on living.
I walked over to the old oak tree, There was a hollow opening inside where my bow and arrow was, as well as a small box containing the pendant my mother brought me. Onyx. She told me it was to protect me from negativity, “Whatever hell life throws at you, this will keep you strong”, I put it around my neck and hid it under my mining uniform. I immediately felt stronger, like she was there, standing next to me.
I opened up my wings and started to fly out of the glade and to the coal mine. I glanced at my green coat, it was so filthy, I didn’t care, I don’t talk to anypony there. Nopony to impress.
The thousands of miners snaked through to District Twelve. Some miners hadn’t even got their cutie mark. So many skinny colt just trying to feed their family. It made me feel sick when i thought of how many of them must of died in the dark, hot mines, choking of the fumes and succumbing to the dangerous environment.
My work colleges nodded at my arrival, I nodded stiffly back, that is all the interaction we would have all day. I was well aware that many stallions gossiped like old fishermen's wives down in the coal mines. I prefered to work by myself. I was contented with my own thoughts for company and my brain as my only friend. I didn’t need anypony else they just got in the way.
After ten hours of the coal mine, I crashed into my room. It was dark outside the window and I could see the stars, I was surprised to see they were so bright. 50 years ago, my grandma told me, the stars were like a work of art in the sky. Princess Celestia would bring light and life to the land with her sun, and Princess Luna would spend hours making the night so beautiful it inspires millions to write tales about it. The Princess of the light and the Princess of dark. It sounded so perfect. But that all changed King Sombra broke free from his prison of shadow. No one expected it and the kingdom fell. Luna was the first to fall and after that Celestia almost gave up. She didn’t want to continue living if it meant her sister was gone forever. Sombra took Equestria under an Iron Hoof and crushed all our spirits with it. Every year for his own sick amusement he pits 24 teenagers together in a battle to the deaths. Some like those from District One train their entire lives to win and other like ones from District Twelve shudder in fear that one day they may be given the death sentence at the reaping.
I prayed to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, if they were up there, to answer my prayers. I begged with every ounce of me to not be picked at the reaping. I hoped, just once, life would go my way, even though I knew it never did.
I blew out the lantern, crawled into my bed and wrapped my quilt around myself. I stared into the inky darkness and though I tired of other things, the other thing I could think about was the reaping. I imagined the Major searching through the paper and picking a random piece of paper, she opened it up and read in her high pitched tone “Kaiber Crystal”. I shook myself out of my thought that would happen, It just couldn’t.
POV Cameo
I woke up. I didn’t move, I looked up into the trees. After a while I made my way down from the tree branch, three meters from forest floor. I untied the rope from around my waist that was keeping me tethered to the tree. I landed on my hooves and I grabbed my pack with my mouth and slung it over my back, containing all my belongings, from inside a hollow tree. The Forest is my home, It has been ever since my parents died in a logging shipment. Equestria isn’t a very charitable place, not anymore, and as I result I had to live a life of solitude.
This was my last year I could be in the Hunger Games, if the odds were in my favour I would never have to face them, but this year my name was in 60 times, I had needed it to survive on my own. In a cruel sense of irony in a desperate attempt to avoid death, I could be sealing my own fate to a much more violent death.
I walked around to forest to find food, I wasn’t the best the hunter so I depended on my ability to find and collect edible plants. I spotted many wild flowers, and trees of all varieties. It was all beautiful, it really was, but none of it was edible. I was starving and I couldn’t work when I was hungry. I spotted a nearby stream, one where edible plants often grew around. I sat by the water, filtered and collected some water with my bottle. I unzipped my rucksack and ferreted around for a vial of iodine to clean the water with. Eventually I found it. A small vial of brown liquid. I added a few drops to the water. The last thing I wanted to do was catch Cholera.
About ten meters away I spotted a massive Kudzu plant. Jackpot! I feasted on the leaves and roots until I was satisfied, The plant was bitter, but filling. I drank deeply from my bottle once I had finished to wash away the taste. I filled up my bottle again and quickly gathered my stuff and headed off to the area of the forest we were harvesting today.
All the lumberjacks walked in silence lugging heavy equipment to the forest. I grabbed an axe with my mouth and started the repeated hitting of the tree that would go on for hours. It is so much easier for unicorn, that’s for sure. At least they can use magic. Us earth ponies have to work for hours to get the same result as the unicorns can achieve in thirty minutes at minimum effort. It hardly felt fair, but... when was this world fair?
After finishing work I headed back to my forest home. As I walked I kept an eye out for dry sticks and logs, but this proved to be a difficult task as it had rained yesterday. Most of everything being drenched in the process. After half an hour of searching I had a pitiful pile of sticks, but they would be enough for a small fire. I trotted over to the stream and collected more water and some more Kudzu leaves. I boiled the Kudzu leaves and it made them less bitter. As I ate my meal I thought to the reaping. I had nothing to live for anyway. Absolutely nothing at all. How bad could it be, honestly? I found I didn’t fear the reaping as so many others did. I had already died inside, and only those who are still alive can fear death.
