05

THE REAPING

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"And the female tribute of District 11 for the 68th annual Hunger Games is," a gloved hand reached into the glass bowl of the reaping and picked out a small, folded slip of paper, "Evelyn Miracle!"

The crowd was silent, everyone turning to the youngest Miracle, her young face dropped in fear as screams from her parents and siblings echoed through the crowds. A Peacekeeper pulled her from the lines and dragged her to the stage where she stood next to the reaper, tears stinging her eyes.

The tears blurred her vision, but she could still hear her parents screaming out. Screaming her name and screaming for justice. 

Was this is even allowed? Both her parents had been victors of their own games, favourites of the Capitol. Yet an innocent sixteen-year-old was about to be sentenced to death by other children, just to please the Capitol. Had they not given enough?

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Evelyn's muddy hands trembled around the handles of the wheelchair that her mother sat in lifelessly. Even her knees, despite brushing them off, were still stained with dirt. All the victors from District 11 walked through the opening between the crowds, looks of despair and regret on everyone's faces.

She looked to the side as she continued to near the stage at the front, her eyes nearly watering at the sight of all five of her siblings watching her, knowing that this could be the last moment that they spend together. The thought of her daughter having to watch the reaping broke her. Evelyn refused to look at Jaime as he held her daughter to his chest, who she guessed had to idea what was going on. She hoped that she had no idea what was going on.

Evelyn turned behind her to see that there were more male victors than female ones. Atlas Mills, who had trained Evelyn in the 68th Hunger Games, drunkenly stumbled as he wheeled her father down the line. She faced the stage once more and ascended up the ramp on the side in silence. Standing next to her mother, Elodie Lliana, the other victor who had trained her during her games and two other female victors. On her right side, separated by nothing but a microphone and two glass bowls containing numerous names, stood all the male victors. There was about ten of them, double the amount of females. She recognised her father, Atlas and a few others.

The microphone rang loudly as the Capitol representative, Kavana, tapped it twice with a gloved finger. "Welcome to the 75th annual Hunger Games reaping, the third Quarter Quell. We will follow tradition, as always, and we will call the ladies first."

Evelyn felt the air fall from her lungs and her heart stop pounding in her chest, time itself seemed to stop moving. She even thought that her legs would give way. Instead, for comfort, she grabbed her mother's hand in her own and felt Elodie lace her fingers on her other hand. Kavana reached into the glass and pulled out a simple slip of paper.

"The female tribute from District 11 is," she took a second to unfold the paper and read it out, "Evelyn Miracle."

She didn't know if it was her mind playing tricks on her, or if her mother actually sobbed and squeezed her hand. Some force took over and she found herself robotically walking over to the microphone where she stood in silence. She stared off into the distance to avoid looking at her sibling's faces, looking at how the snow melted off the trees, the birds flying peacefully and even how the sun glistened from behind the clouds. Some would even say that today was a nice day, if it wasn't for the reaping.

"And now for the male tribute," she paused again and selected a slip of paper, "Dominic Miracle."

Her hearts dropped once more at her father's name before someone broke through the eery silence, "I volunteer as tribute."

Evelyn turned with wide eyes to see Chaff Oakley look at her father before joining her at the centre of the stage. Chaff's eyes met her own from across the microphone. 

"The tributes from District 11, Evelyn Miracle and Chaff Oakley," Kavana spoke happily, expecting for a round of applause or cheer from the crowd. Instead, they all raised their hand, showing their three fingers quietly. Evelyn felt her eyes drift from hand to hand in the crowd with shock and then her eyes landed on her child, her own small three fingers raised in the air. Evelyn smiled as tears rolled down her cheeks and raised her own fingers, soon followed by Chaff and many of the other victors behind her.

A Peacekeeper pulled on her arms suddenly and dragged her into the building as she screamed for her family, "I need to say goodbye!"

"Not this time, you are going straight to the train."

"No! I need to say goodbye! Aeliana! Jaime!"

The doors shut in her face. Darkness taking over her as fear swarmed her suddenly in a fit of shock.

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Evelyn waited impatiently on the train for the two mentors to walk through the doors, having no idea who this year's mentors would be. She hoped that it was her parents, but then again it would put them in danger by being in the Capitol. So when the doors opened and Atlas Mills and Elodie Lliana walked to her, wrapping her in their arms silently, she felt better.

"They didn't let me say goodbye," Evelyn sobbed into her friend's shoulders for the first time, finally able to understand that she was actually about to return to the arena for the second time. As if once wasn't enough, "I didn't get to see Lina or Jaime or anyone else."

They pulled apart, Elodie walking to Chaff and bringing him into a hug. Atlas, however, held onto Evelyn's shoulders, wiping her tears away. Though she could smell the whiskey and vodka and beer in his breath, he was sober. Utterly sober. "Listen to me, the only thing you can do for Aeliana now is to win. Okay? I don't care what you have to do and who you have to kill. But you are going home to your daughter no matter what and I am going to do everything in my power to do so," he stated, pulling her into one more embrace.

Evelyn pulled apart before rushing to Chaff and pulling him into an embrace, "Thank you, for volunteering for my father. I don't think you have any idea how much it means to me and my family that he gets to live another day without worrying about being in the Games. I will do anything to help you out, I mean it. I owe you my life."

"No, the only thing you owe me is for you to win and go home to your child. I am old now, I have lived. But you, my child, you are just starting."

Atlas poured them all a drink, making his bigger than the rest, before motioning them to sit at the dining table to discuss. "We aren't wasting any time, we are going right to it. Are you guys thinking of forming an alliance or not? That is the first thing."

"I work alone," they both stated at the same time, keeping their faces in their cups to avoid the glances.

"Okay, we will work with you separately once we are in the Capitol but it is easier now if we discuss the basics," Atlas stated, gulping his glass with a focused face, "It is a Quarter Quell, the rules are different and everyone is skilled and you all have experience. Which means that it will be much harder for everyone, we don't know who the other tributes are yet-"

"Finnick," she breathed out, "He would have been in the reaping, right?"

Atlas and Elodie shared a hesitant nod, watching as Evelyn's face washed over with sadness but carried on going with their talking, everything fading around Evelyn at the thought of reuniting with Finnick. Hey eyes wandering to the window just as the train started to move out of her home District, a flower blooming through the freshly melted snow.

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"And lastly, from District 11 we have Chaff Oakley and Evelyn Miracle," Haymitch informed Katniss and Peeta, switched the television screen to show images from the reaping back in 11, Chaff walking forward to volunteer for Dominic Miracle, "Chaff here volunteered for Evelyn's father who won his games the year before his wife, Helena. Both of them were reckless in their games and murdered anything and anyone in sight, wanting nothing more to go home and marry each other. Which they did. They had their own little litter of Miracles, the youngest being Evelyn"

Katniss sat forward in her seat, "If I wanted to form an alliance, which I don't, Evelyn is at the bottom of my list. I have watched her Games, the ending was ruthless and quite frankly scary. How she killed that girl from 8 was..."

"She did what she had to do, Katniss. Like we did," Peeta reasoned, knowing that they had no hope in winning if Evelyn was out there hunting them down, she was a survivor and she had so much to live for, "I think that she could help us-"

"No," Katniss interrupted. "She has something with Snow, we don't need another target on our backs."

"Anyway, Evelyn won her games by killing six tributes, including various careers with the same sword that her mother and father had used in their Hunger Games. She was most likely trained at a young age by her parents because as soon as she got ahold of that blade in the arena... well let's just put it nicely, a few tributes lost their heads. Quite literally."

Peeta watched as Katniss shook her head at him and left to get ready for the chariot ceremony with the help of her designer, Cinna. He turned to Haymitch, who was already halfway through his glass of whiskey, and stood up; "I want Evelyn in the alliance, no matter what Katniss says. She isn't like the other victors, she is putting up a show for the Capitol and Snow. I know that she could help us, I know it."

Haymitch nodded, "I get it, I'll talk to Miracle as soon as I get the chance. I guess that Katniss can't know?"

Peeta nodded before following in his fiance's pursuit to get ready for the welcoming ceremony.

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Evelyn felt Octavius Embers braid her hair and pin it into an elegant bun, finally stepping back to admire one of his finest works yet. Evelyn had arrived an hour ago at his station within the hotel to get dressed for the event later that day, surprised to see that his ideas were far better than she could have ever hoped for.

"Do you like it?" he asked her, a smile of his face.

She nodded, scanning over in the mirror one last time to see the outfit he had designed in less than a day. A simple, white dress covered her body with green vines wrapping around the bodice thickly, fading down her gown which revealed her emerald heels which made her taller than usual. That was a request from Evelyn so that she didn't look as small standing next to Chaff in the chariot, she didn't want to look inferior. The vines even wrapped around her arms and legs, climbing up her body in a way to hide most of her scars, another request.

Octavius placed a small crown of twigs and leaves on her braided bun and pinned several purple berries into her hair, which she noted were real Nightlock berries from her District. She felt her eyes raise to her face that adorned Octavius' signature lilac eyeshadow with sage diamonds dotted around her cheeks. She pulled a dark, forest green lipstick over her lips to complete the look before pulling her stylist into her arms.

Evelyn sat on the couch in the corner next to her friend, "Thank you, for everything that you have done for me, Octavius."

He chuckled dryly, "I only wish that I could do more, to take you from this all so you could go home and be with Aeliana. How is she? How did she take saying goodbye?"

"You don't know?" she asked, "President Snow ordered the Peacekeepers to take me straight to the train, I didn't get to say goodbye to her or Jaime for that matter, not to anyone. The last time I saw them was as my name was reaped and that was it."

Octavius had always been a dear friend to Evelyn, ever since the young girl arrived to get her first dress fitted for the ceremonies, they had been as close as possible. Talking about everything they could in whatever little time they had before the 68th Hunger Games, it was a shock to both that she had won and it gave them more time to become friends. Evelyn would spend most of the 8 months in the Capitol with Octavius, he had even met Aeliana and Jaime at the train station several times. To say that he and Jaime were close was an understatement.

"I will do something so that you get to talk to Aeliana one more time. I swear by it, I swear Evelyn. You don't deserve this, not again. Not when you have your family, your daughter, at home," he pulled her hand in his as a Peacekeeper walk in to whisk her to the stables.

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I had to make Chaff a last name but I stuck with the nature theme. I hope that the dress made sense to you guys, I imagined it to be a small, green gown with ivy for decorations. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!