Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
In District 12, we learn about mountains but predominantly the ones that cover the seams of coal that will provide our livelihood. Volcanoes barely get a mention. I know just enough to connect the name to the dazzling bursts of lava, the glowing streams, the cloud of ash flowing down the mountainside, enveloping everything in its path. I picture the tributes . . . Wellie . . . Hull . . . Maysilee . . . gasping for air . . . suffocating . . . and drop the binoculars. I can’t see them, but I can see enough to imagine their terrifying ends.
A blast of air hits my face, thick with stinging grit and a scent so cloying I begin to gag. I lose my footing for a moment and scramble for purchase. If the tree branches below didn’t catch me, I’d be dead on the forest floor. I squinch up my eyes against the howling, toxic wind. When I pull the collar of my billowy shirt up over my face, it provides a pocket of protection from the swirling particles. As I’ve learned at the gas plant berm when my shirtfront refused to ignite, and again when Ampert experimented with his sock in the campfire, our clothes provide a shield. This volcano is why. It has to be why. But I doubt our outfits are of much help to those caught on the mountain.
Am I it, then? The last tribute left alive? The victor of the Quarter Quell? Even if the Gamemakers are firing cannons, there’s no way I could hear them between the aftereffects of the explosion and the roar of the wind. From what Ampert said, everybody else was over on the mountain. Perhaps some, if they’d bedded down near the base, could’ve fled to safety. I don’t know, though. They might outrun the lava, but not that cloud. It isn’t a real volcano, but how closely did the Gamemakers try to replicate one? Could the lava set everything on fire? What if that ginormous water tank was built so they could quench the aftermath of the volcano? In bombing the tank, I may have destroyed any hope for those who survived the eruption.
I’m too exposed up in the tree. As soon as I’m able, I shinny down and collapse on the pine needles, using the trunk to block the wind. I retreat inside my shirt; there’s nothing to see anyway with the cloud erasing the moonlight. Besides, even if I could see, what would I do? Where would I go? If the fire comes, it comes.
The full force of my failure hits me. Who do I think I am? Why did I think I could change anything? That I could take on the Capitol, with all its might, and bring the Hunger Games to a standstill? Me, a sixteen-year-old kid from the trashiest district in Panem with little schooling and no outstanding skills. I’ve got nothing but a big mouth and an inflated sense of my own self-importance. All foam, no beer, that’s me. Near beer.
Plutarch’s words echo through my head, mocking me. “No more implicit submission for you, Haymitch Abernathy. Blow that water tank sky high. The entire country needs you to.”
Well, bad call, Plutarch! Turns out I was built for implicit submission, head to toe, through and through, inside and out.
I grind my palms into my face. What an idiot I am. What a stuck-up, self-centered, incompetent idiot I am. I don’t even know if Plutarch was on the rebels’ side. Like as not, he’s just another Capitol monster who’s laughing his head off now.
But no, that doesn’t make sense. Because even if the Games continue, his advice helped me throw a real wrench in the works. The Capitol’s gorgeous arena’s gone haywire. It isn’t enough, though, just a minor disruption with no real consequences. Nothing I’ve done is enough.
Ampert’s lopsided grin in the torchlight . . . surely his last smile . . . how he trusted me . . . and now there’s not even a body to return to Beetee . . . although Beetee could be dead, too. . . .
I find I’m crying, or maybe it’s just my eyes trying to wash out the biting bits of ash. The scratches from the bat claws burn like all-fire and ooze blood into my clothes, which are no star in the absorbency department. Tear-soaked, blood-soaked, misery-soaked, I lay on my side and curl myself around the base of the tree trunk.
Oh, Lenore Dove, how did it all come to this? The moaning wind conjures up the cabin by the lake last winter, her birthday, the best gift ever . . . me singing her song, which I am beginning to hate . . .
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore –
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore –
Nameless here for evermore.
Nameless here in this world. Dead and gone as I am about to be. Will I be her lost one for evermore? Will she be haunted by me for the rest of her life?
“Just let me go!” I cry out. I’m furious at myself for not telling her to move on after my death when I had the chance. I pound my head into the tree bark until blood runs, and then go limp as I await my end. All yours, President Snow . . .
Sleep? No, I don’t sleep, but I’m so exhausted by the night’s exertions and the crushing weight of my despair that I achieve a sort of stupor. Hours and hours pass, I guess, because the wind quiets, the ash settles.
Lenore Dove said there’s no guarantee the sun will rise, and I wish today proved her right. Nothing good awaits me. I’d rather hide in the dark. But eventually a faint daylight shows through my shirt. I don’t want to come out, so I don’t. Why am I even still alive? What cruel jokes are the Gamemakers playing on me now?
The humming I noticed last night still radiates from the ground. I remember it directly preceded the return of the fake sky, and I put two and two together. It must be coming from the generator Beetee mentioned. The one just outside the arena. At the top end. Despite whatever disruption the flooding caused to the energy supply, the generator is keeping the arena running. Well, the energy supply was never our target: The brain was. Though it was damaged, enough of it’s still functioning to entertain the audience.
“Oh, shut up! Who cares now?” I tell myself. I’m sick of wallowing in my failure. Enough. It’s all over.
I try to go back into my stupor, but I’m too antsy. Scratching at the back of my brain are the words Mags spoke when we were about to begin our training.
“In the early Games, I didn’t ask the tributes what they wanted because the answer seemed so obvious. You want to live. But then I realized, there are many desires beyond that. Mine had to do with my district partner. Protecting him.”
We had wanted to die quick and proud with a minimum of suffering for our loved ones. I had wanted to outsmart the arena. But Mags had been concerned about her district partner. I don’t know if Maysilee’s still out there, but if she is, she might need me to help her die with her head up. And maybe some other Newcomers could use a hand as well. Multiple cannons must have fired after the volcano, but I didn’t hear them with everything going on. I haven’t been declared the victor, though, so someone else is alive. I won’t have a clue who until nightfall.
Instead of giving up, maybe I’ll see if I can’t be of some tiny use to someone else. Throw myself in front of an attacking Career. Bring a Newcomer some food or water. I’m pretty hungry and thirsty myself, come to think of it, and I can’t afford to get weak. I might as well see if my supplies survived.
When I pull back my shirt, I’m once again shocked by the beauty around me. I’d imagined the ash to be gray and dingy but, in keeping with the arena’s design, they’ve made it clear and sparkling, so that everything seems to be coated in a layer of rock candy. Sunlight bounces off the crystals, throwing tiny rainbows around the forest. I rise, stiff and sore, and knock the stuff from my clothes. I’m tempted to put a chunk of it to my parched lips, even though I’m pretty sure where that would land me.
The ash disorients me, but after a while, I manage to crunch my way back to the butterfly bush berm, where the blossoms look preserved in ice. The berm’s ajar, although the mouth has gone still. No more sparks shoot from the trees, no baby deer rampage around, but I do see a few dead ones under the ash. Damage was done, for sure. Probably throughout the arena. The Gamemakers are going to have to be very careful about where they point their cameras.
Everything looks frozen, like I should be shivering, but the air’s warm and perfumed. I kick the ash from my backpack, retrieve my water, and take a deep drink, leaving about half a jug. My remaining food consists of two potatoes, two rolls, one egg, one apple, and a final glass of grape juice. My belly’s hollow so I smush the egg between the rolls for a sandwich and wolf it down. I savor my last apple, then retrace my steps to the scene of Ampert’s death. His skeleton has been removed, but I find my hammock and shake it out. When it’s free of ash, I fold it neatly and return it to my pack.
Now what? I consider going to find survivors, then realize I’m as likely to run into Careers as Newcomers. I dig around with my feet, trying to locate the spear I abandoned, but to no avail. Did the Gamemakers take it with his body? I uncover my knife, however, and try to retrace my steps to Ampert’s ax. It takes a while before I can remember I dropped it when the earth shook and I was flung to the ground. I hunt it down and slip it into my belt. I want to carry mementos of my allies with me.
My fingers go to the sunflower at my neck and find its shellac coating has dissolved in the flood, leaving it firm but impressionable. The paint job holds up, so it still looks as good as new. Too bad I don’t have a blasting cap; the stuff isn’t much good without it. It needs another explosion to set it off. What would I blow up anyway? We succeeded in messing up the brain, but either it’s partially working or they’ve been able to run the arena from the Capitol. Probably some of both. Anyway, no chance I could get to it. At this point, the generator’s also essential to continuing the Games, but the only way to reach that would be to break out of this place.
A tiny ray of light penetrates the gloom of my mind. Perhaps it would be possible to escape the arena and try to break the generator. All I’ve got is a knife and an ax, but that’s not nothing. Of course, it’s an incredible long shot . . . but so am I. Maybe I’m just the guy for the job.
Doubts swamp me.
You can’t do it! It’ll never work! You’re just a loser with an ax, trying to chop down the Capitol again. Have you really learned nothing?
Maybe I haven’t learned anything and there’s no chance of success and I should double down on my implicit submission. But the truth is, what have I got to lose? Nothing, that’s what. And I owe it to Ampert to try.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.