Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
Bam! They start drawing the names at the reapings, beginning with District 1. “Silka Sharp!” “Panache Barker!” They machine-gun through the tributes with a quick shot of each and a counter in the corner of the screen that tracks from one to forty-eight. Being the home of the victor, District 12 is allowed a bit more time. Drusilla, yellow hat feathers bobbing, gets in her “Ladies first!” before “Louella McCoy!” My sweetheart marches up. “Maysilee Donner!” There’s Maysilee, Merrilee, and Asterid clutching one another in the crowd. One of the tearful good-byes captured by Plutarch. “And the first gentleman who gets to accompany the ladies is . . . Wyatt Callow!” They briefly cover Wyatt, and then Drusilla calls my name. Lenore Dove’s refusal to perform has not made this version. Not tearful enough for Plutarch and too Covey for Snow. But there’s no Ma or Sid either. The omission chills me. Why isn’t Plutarch’s footage here? “Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the District Twelve tributes of the Fiftieth Hunger Games!” says Drusilla, as if daring District 12 to do anything else. “And may the odds be EVER in your favor!” I’m obliterated by a swirl of confetti.
I want to scream out the truth. A boy’s head was blown off! People in 12 were shot! My reaping was rigged! But I just sit there, mute and radiating implicit submission. Snow has me by the short hairs and he knows it.
Incitatus Loomy could not have masterminded a finer parade. The frantic backstage prep never makes an appearance, just a majestic, orderly rollout of the tributes. There’s a final aerial shot of all twelve chariots cruising along the route in perfect sync, which ends about fifteen seconds before that blue firecracker exploded, sending the whole event into chaos. This is all the country saw anyway. You had to be there in person to know about the crashing chariots and me holding Snow accountable for Louella’s death. Which, as we know, also didn’t happen because, look, it’s time for the interviews and all forty-eight tributes are in the house.
The Careers have been edited to appear smarter, the Newcomers less unified. Does anyone even notice this besides me? Lou Lou’s reduced to a girl wearing live-reptile fashion, Maysilee’s and Wyatt’s memorable turns are entirely ignored, and I get one snarky exchange with Caesar:
“So, Haymitch, what do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?”
“I don’t see that it makes much difference. They’ll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same.”
The audience laughs, and I give them this grin that confirms me as a stuck-up, selfish jerk. No mention of my support of the Newcomers. No silly interplay about making booze for Peacekeepers. The rascal’s just a jackass.
Now we’re rising into the arena. The opening sequence is a love letter to the Gamemakers as we savor the beauty of flora and fauna. For me, though, it calls to mind the deceptively sweet, brain-clouding smell of the air.
The jackass, meaning me, grabs his gear and hightails it out of there and then we get to watch the bloodbath, where eighteen kids are killed in excruciating detail. The audience before me gasps and cries out in glee, though they’ve seen it all before. Wyatt dies a selfless hero protecting a bewildered Lou Lou, who manages to scamper off unscathed. Maysilee fights, then follows Lou Lou to protect her. So many Newcomers fall. Two doves, the boys from 7, all of 8 and 9, Lannie and the other girl from 10, Tile from 11. With Wyatt, that makes sixteen. The only Career casualties are a boy and girl from District 5. Eighteen in all.
Oh, hello again, jackass! Sure, take your time. Catch your breath on the rock. Check out your pack. Don’t worry about the Newcomers, they’ve got this. Ooh, look at that pretty woods. Have a nice hike!
A bunch of us sicken as the poisonous fruit and water kicks in. Carat from 1 and Urchin, the boy from 4 who knocked me off the chariot, writhe to death. That accounts for the twenty kids I saw in the sky that first night. The rest of the Careers have formed their pack on the snow-capped mountain.
Up until this point, I think the recap’s been a fair record of what occurred in the arena. However, on Day 2, things start to go wonky. At some point, Maysilee, on her own, kills the boy from District 1, Loupe, which I believe to be true because she told me this. There are a lot of tributes still recovering from the poison and the Career pack’s hunting Newcomers. That, too, seems likely. But the recount of what happened in the woods, my tale, begins to deviate almost immediately. Timelines are twisted. Connections misleading. It’s less flat-out lying than lying by omission. For instance, I see myself fighting squirrels, although they weren’t around until the third day when I fought them to save Ampert. But we haven’t even met up yet, so I seem to be trying to save my own life. They show Lou Lou gasping in the flowers, only I’m nowhere in sight. Later, I’m just running from the butterflies without even a glimpse of my fleeing with her body, hiding in the willows, and bringing on the shockers as punishment. What they showed during the actual Games, I don’t know, but in the recap, I’m not even attempting to protect any of my allies. Day 3, the squirrels, as if making a second appearance, swarm Ampert, and then there’s a reveal of his skeleton on the ground. Again, I’m nowhere to be found. In fact, our picnic, the campout, the bombing of the tank, my rampage, and the arena going haywire – not a bit of that appears.
The horrors of the volcano take center stage. The tributes experience the flame-shooting eruption, asphyxiation by the ash cloud, burns from the chemical lava. Twelve die. The rest barely escape and head across the meadow to the woods.
Cut to me, waking up blanketed by the sparkling ash. I get back to the business of trudging north. With the tank plot erased, my whole agenda seems to have been about getting to the end of the arena, which was, I guess, my cover story. It rains, but they’ve concealed all the bombing’s damage. The arena’s as perfect as ever. I get trapped in the hedge, follow the gray rabbit to freedom, and run into Panache and company.
I don’t know who that is on the screen, so brutally killing those Careers from District 4. I guess it’s me, but I can’t own it. I stop thinking of myself as the jackass because it seems too complimentary for the creature I’ve devolved into. Doesn’t help when they show every syllable of my toadying, babbling speech to Panache, who is finally silenced by Maysilee’s dart.
“We’d live longer with two of us.”
Oh, Maysilee. I am mortified to be sitting here.
For a bit, things get back on course again. Maysilee and I look out for each other, and Silka and Maritte take out Ringina and Autumn in combat. But in a mind-bending realignment of events, Maysilee and me drawing off the porcupine mutt and Maritte and Maysilee killing the three Gamemakers at the berm have vanished. Somewhere in time, Maritte and Silka chase us through the woods, and Buck, Chicory, and Hull die from the quills, but it appears the porcupine just wanders off on its own.
Is it Day 4 or 5? Maysilee and my attempts to carve our way through the hedge have merged into one big sequence that involves the ladybugs and blowtorch. We’re on the cliff that looks down on the treacherous rocks, but they steer clear of the generator. They’ve edited out the cannon announcing Maritte’s death and with it the part where Maysilee says she’s just going back for the potatoes, so it looks like we’ve really decided to split up. To my surprise, they keep my discovery of the force field. I guess they need it for Silka’s death?
The pink birds attack Maysilee and she screams. For the first time, I look like I might be redeemable because I run to her aid. Oh, no. They haven’t turned this into a redemption story, have they? Selfish rascal learns to care about others? Please tell me no.
Day 5 or 6? Who knows? It’s just one big, big, big day.
My delivery of milk from Snow has evaporated. As I run through the woods, they’ve added the sound of Wellie screaming, which didn’t happen. I appear to have finally remembered that I belong to a wider alliance so I’m going to the rescue, when the cannon sounds and I come upon Silka, Wellie’s head in hand.
Smash cut to the golden squirrels stripping Maritte to the bone. No matter that she’s been long dead by this time. But people must know that. Maysilee and Maritte appeared in the sky together. Does no one remember? Do they just not care? Or during the Games, did they show the audience a different sky? Or none at all? And did they intentionally save Maritte’s death to increase tension at the end? The Gamemakers must have been scrambling like crazy to control the narrative by this point. Whatever the case, the audience here in the auditorium has embraced this version, cheering and jeering on cue. Their lack of discernment transforms the recap, validating it as truth. I hope those in the districts can still see it as the piece of propaganda it is, but no telling what they’ve been fed.
We’re back to Silka and me facing off, knowing we’re the final two. Without words, we quickly engage in battle. Fatal wounds are exchanged. I run to the hedge.
On the cliff, Silka corners me, throws her ax. I drop. They cut to her anticipation and then back to me, convulsing. This must have happened after I lost consciousness.
The ax rebounds and buries itself in her head. And then? – and then?
Silka dies, her cannon fires, and I’m hanging on by a thread. The sunflower bomb, the quartz, the flint striker – there’s no record of any of them. All of them gone or tucked away from sight. The hovercraft removes Silka’s body. Trumpets declare my victory. A claw closes around me.
Are there rules about breaking out of the arena and using the force field to win? Possibly they are implied, but I have never heard them mentioned. So, what am I? A rascal? A cheater even? Maybe. But clearly I do not rise to the standard of a rebel.
The camera pulls back slowly as they carry me away, for the first time revealing the arena as a whole. It looks like a giant eye. The Cornucopia marks the pupil. The wide circle of spring-green meadow makes up the iris. On either side, the darker green of the forest and mountain terrain narrows to points, forming the whites of the eye. Well, the symbolism has been lost on no one. Even the little kids in the Seam know the Capitol powers are watching us.
I wonder if they ever consider that we’re watching them, too.
All eyes on me now, as I rise to my feet before the thundering crowd. The anthem plays as President Snow descends from the heights on a crystal platform, a bloodred rose in his lapel. In his hand, he holds a golden crown.
Some victors bow, some kneel, but I just stand there trying to read his expression as he approaches and places the crown on my head. Heavy. Entrapping. “I guess Snow lands on top,” I say under the applause. Utterly guilty on all possible counts, I await his sentence.
He merely smiles and says, “Enjoy your homecoming.”
The after-party’s held in the ballroom of the presidential mansion. I’m displayed in a giant golden birdcage that dangles from the main chandelier at about eye level. It’s supposed to be a joke, I guess; the guests sure seem to get a kick out of it. But it isn’t. When I try the little handle at the door, it’s locked tight.
My Peacekeeper buddies stand nearby, giving courage to the partygoers. I roll with it, bantering with my sponsors and posing for pictures, painting the best poster I can to convince President Snow that I’m on his team now. His puppet. His plaything. Because my blood’s been ice water since his comment about my homecoming. What awaits me? And if I behave, can I alter it?
People bring me tidbits, feeding me by hand like you would a pet dog, and I smack my lips with appreciation, eating until my shrunken belly’s like to split open. I’m hoping they’re not showing this in District 12. People may forgive but they won’t forget such behavior, especially since I won’t get credit for all the trouble I’ve caused, which has landed me in this cage. The shame of this is not the sort of thing a person can live down.
It’s all being recorded for posterity, though. Plutarch Heavensbee and his crew, still assigned to me, buzz around, taking footage. He refuses to let me catch his eye. I’m back to doubting if I can trust him – after all, he appears unscathed by the fallout of the rebel plot – but I’ve got no shortage of questions I’d like to ask him.
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.