I'm gonna pick up whe I left off for my story based on "the hunger games" from rues point of view... I think you'll like it if ou read it!!!
The followingis the first chapter :) let me know if you like it bc I'm working on more chapters!!!!
Part 1
Preparation
1.
Climbing.
It’s what I’ve been doing for the whole of my day these past few weeks. Picking berries and cones from the highest of the branches that soar over the terrace of District 11. I was never exactly sure if no one else really wanted to climb up to the height I always did, or that the other workers just knew that I was the best at it.
I always thought of it as a little of both. I was old enough that the workers would let me go off on my own, high into the trees, where their hands could not reach. Old age kept most workers on the ground picking the bushes for berries, harvesting the grains and oats from the fields, and growing wheat while managing the production of the orchards, plus I thought that the mass amount of tracker jacker nests in the trees swayed people’s interest in climbing as high as I did.
I didn’t care though. When I would be climbing, I felt free. Free as the mocking jays that flew around my head at an hourly basis. I would have to urge myself many times of the day not to stop and listen to their melodic tunes. Their songs would fill the air as I swung myself from tree to tree collecting the precious fruit. I sometimes would pretend that their singing was my theme song to my own superhero television show.
But I’m not a superhero. Far from it actually. There are no super heroes from District 11. Only those who can escape the wrath of the Capitol, and those are few. I have to tell myself that quite often to bring my mental state back to reality.
My name is Rue Jessamine. Rue, the brown skinned tree climber. No super hero I ever heard of had skin as brown as mine, or hair as dark as mine. All I see are the Capitol’s ideas of super heroes. You know… hair that stood five feet above the head that was dyed with some bright color, golden tattoos all across their arms, torso, and face. Muscles that could break a stone wall with just a simple flex. Such the perfect idea of a hero to Capitol dwellers.
I think they look silly.
But I did not have dyed purple hair. My shoulder length dark black hair was dyed only with the sweat and dirt that would gather after a hard day’s work, sometimes a week’s. It was hard to get fresh water sometimes at my home, so drinking water always overruled showers.
I didn’t have golden tattoos all across my body. Instead I had dirt smudges across my brown skin. The occasional scar would be spotted up and down my arms, but that was a rarity. I got them from the stupid things that I can only help but to laugh at myself for. Like the one just under my elbow was when I was pretending to be a monkey that swung in the branches beside me as I worked. Well the vine I clung onto was not meant for anything but monkeys and it snapped under my weight. Fell only about ten feet before I clung on to a branch that stuck out. The branch had done a real number on my elbow, but I always manage.
The three scars behind the back of my neck were from tracker jackers when I was only six. Tracker jackers are the genetically-altered wasps conceived and created in the labs of the Capitol. Just another one of the Capitol’s sick and twisted ideas of keeping “peace” in Panem.
If anyone disturbs the nest, they will track down to kill them, hence the name “tracker jacker”. Most people can’t tolerate more than a few stings, and I’ve heard that a lot of people have actually died at once. If you’re lucky enough to live, the hallucinations brought on by the venom have actually driven people to madness. It’s why I am very glad that my father was there when I got stung.
Even though I was only six years old, the Capitol shut down the schools and put all the children to work. I was still very young so my father was uncomfortable with the fact they had made me crawl into the depths of the trees that not even he could see. He didn’t move more than an inch away from the trunk of the tree I was climbing.
He saw me falling before I even knew I was stung.
I don’t remember much, but from what he tells me I was stung three times by the beasts in the back of my neck. Devils as they already were they came up behind me. He tells me that the stings formed lumps the size of small plums almost immediately, but he had seen the stings before so he knew what to do.
My brown eyes turned into a glossy gray he says, so he knew once I started convulsing what exactly had happened. He always carried the leaves that excreted a remedy for the sting. He shoved a few into his mouth as he pulled out the stingers and gently pressed them into the wounds. Of course, that is not what I remember. They don’t kid when they say the venom causes hallucinations.
As I was falling, the trees around me came alive. The branches that extended from their trunks turned into arms. Arms that moved with the fluidity of water that were reaching out for me, reaching out to strangle me. And then arms did catch me. But I didn’t see the arms of my father. I saw that I was trapped in the arms of a monster. My father’s grayed hair turned into maggots that crawled over his scalp seeping into his mouth and ears. His brown eyes were fire red now, burning holes through my skin with every glare. His white teeth grew points that protruded several inches from his mouth. I couldn’t feel my arms and when I saw him chewing on something I only assumed it were my limbs.
Of course since then, I would always keep an eye open for the tracker jacker nests, as well as carry a few of the remedial leaves that my father had used on me. I’m smarter now. I no longer am the little six year old girl that was unaware of her surroundings.
As of a week ago, I am twelve years old and am wise beyond my years, or at least it’s what the other workers tell me. I don’t think I’m that smart. After all, school’s been shut down so many times over the course of my life, technically I still am in grade one. But there are some things that I pride myself on.
My father had taught me the ways of the trees. Teaching me what berries are safe to eat, and which ones are poisonous. How the look and feel of a tree branch can tell you if it’s safe enough to stand or hold on to. How the branches smelled if there was a scent of tracker jacker so I would know to avoid those branches.
My father had taught me the ways of the woods. I could survive out here for weeks, and that’s something I am very proud of, for some workers still don’t know the difference between a delicious blueberry and a poisonous nightlock berry. Of course those who do have the knowledge hold the difference between life and death.
So even though I really learned how to read, my father taught me how to survive. He also taught me how to climb, the thing I am more proud of anything else in my life. After the work hours were over when I was young, he would take me home and we would climb the tree in my backyard that soared high above the roof of my house. Every day he when we got home, he would take my doll and place it a certain height in the tree, every day the placement of the doll would be higher and higher.
I thought he was teasing of course, at that age who wouldn’t think that? But now I see what he was doing. He was training me per say. He would climb the tree behind me in case I would fall, but even he was surprised by how quickly and easy it was for me to maneuver myself among the branches.
I would swing from branch to branch without almost any thought. It just made sense to me. Swinging from a branch and to grab a hold of another to step in between the divot between the space the branch and the trunk. My ability only grew as I did.
The other workers would call me ‘Squirrel Girl’ because the agility that I would climb the trees, they said, would envy the squirrels. I was given the trees that absolutely no one else dared to climb; either because they were so high or because no one else could climb them.
It went without saying most days that each day I would be asked to climb to the very top of the highest trees to pick the luscious fruit that grew where only the sun could reach, as do most of the children my age. The berries gleamed as the sun hit them almost giving off the sense that they were rubies, only meant for a royal’s touch. In part I guess, this was always true, for most of the fruit I picked, as well as the other workers, would be shipped off straight to the Capitol.
The Capitol.
Just the thought of that place makes me sick to my stomach. Knowing that I work from sunrise to sunset and have almost nothing to show for it, while most Capitol people don’t even see the sunrise unless they’re coming home drunk, reeking of the alcohol they consumed at a party that served foods I couldn’t even dream of.
The Capitol.
Where they never have even heard of the word ‘work.’
The Capitol.
Where the children never had to worry about going to work to supply for their needs. After all everything is provided for them. Why would they need to work like the rest of us?
Everything is shipped to the Capitol. Everything. And not just from our District. But the other eleven Districts have their responsibilities as well. District 4 for example sends multitudes of seafood. District 7 has to ship in lumber. District 9 is known for its mining equipment. And even District 12 has to provide with the only thing its good for, coal.
Agriculture is what District 11 is used for. Even being one of the poorest districts, almost everything is shipped out to the Capitol every day after work. We would work from sunrise to sunset every day, but today was different. Today was the day of the reaping.
I begin my ascent to the very top of the tree very early today. I find myself doing it quite often today as well. From my tree, I can see the white flag that they raise to signal that the work day was over. Wow. Ten o’clock already. Those four hours flew by like nothing, or maybe because it was because it meant that it was time for something that none of us were looking forward too.
I look for my special friends and of course there they are, lining the branches as if they were waiting for me. The mocking jays truly looked just as magnificent as they always do. The blue lining of the feathers seemed to just blend in with the skyline.
They fill the air with their glorious singing; so glorious I could sit there for hours and just listen to them. It almost upsets me when they stop, but they always stop when they see me. There were the few birds that continued on with their song, however, almost as if they were saying hello to me. Call me crazy, but some of the birds were looking at me as if they were saying, “Why are you up here so early today, Rue?” But they knew just as much as I did.
I began to sing my four note song to the birds, the same song my dad taught to me when he told me about the mockingjays. They sing their own tunes most of the time, but if they hear any kind of tune, song, or jingle from anything else it only takes them a few seconds to start singing it back. It was possibly the one thing I enjoyed more than climbing. The music.
My dad would take me into the orchards and demonstrate by singing the four note song; something simple for the birds to take in, as well as for me to learn. They began singing back almost immediately and I was thrilled.
Some of the birds began singing with me immediately, for it’s the same song I sing to them every day. It only takes about ten seconds before the mass amount of birds are repeating the four note song back to me. As if on cue they begin to fly in all different directions of the orchard to sing the song to all the workers. I came up with the idea only a few days after my dad first taught me the song. I would sing the four note song to the mockingjays and they would fly to different parts of the orchard singing the same song to all the workers, telling them that the work day was over.
After I make sure that all the birds surrounding me have flown off, I begin my descent and sure enough there he stands. My father. Standing beside him is one of my younger brother and the twins.
The twins danced around my father at the excitement of the work day ending so early. They were so young. They didn’t know the reason behind it. Of course they would be happy to be able to go home, they’re only six years old.
My younger brother and my father on the other hand did not have the intensity in the smiles as the twins though, for they knew what could happen today. We pray it would not, but there always was the possibility.
“Hey Rue Rue,” my father said as I slid from the trunk into his arms. He held me tight with his muscular arms and held me tight. I could feel my brother, Lamium, hugging me from behind as well.
“Rue Rue! Rue Rue!” Pyrus and Prunus would scream joyfully around us. They did this every time my father greeted me. They were unaware that this might be the last meeting that we share.
“You’re not going to get picked, Rue,” my father whispers into my ear.
“She can’t be,” Lamium stated as he hugged me tighter. “She can’t be…”
My father took hold of Pyrus’ and Prunus’ hands and guided us back home, where we would have to get ready for the ceremony. It was the first time that my father was truly nervous for the games ever since he was eligible to be picked.
“Don’t be surprised when I am,” I joke back with them although this is probably the most inappropriate thing to be joking about. The Hunger Games were forced down upon us and it was not a joking matter.
