Prologue 1
Cameras everywhere. Constant surveillance. When I was little I remember my father pointing them out to me and my older brother. Showing me where they hid, tucked into corners, mounted high above streets, disguised against walls. “Always remember,” he’d say, “someone far away is watching.”
They were hard to spot within the densely populated city of district 3. The buildings were so high and the smog so dense that we could hardly see the sky, let alone any cameras. But my father knew where every camera was. He’d helped build them. He said he could walk the entire district from memory, marking every blind spot, every place the Capitol wanted an eye.
When my brother and I walked past those cameras on our way to school I’d look up at those black lenses and imagine the people on the other side. My father said they were there to keep us in line, to make sure we never spoke out against the Capitol, and especially never against the Hunger Games. My father would often say that the capital kept an extra eye on district 3. He would say “The more you know, the more they watch.” And in District 3, we knew a lot. We had to.
My father, brother, and I lived in a cramped apartment on the poorer side of the district. My mother’s side of the family had owned a home in the nicer quarter for generations, but when she died giving birth to me, it was taken away. With one parent gone and one working long hours, we could no longer afford it.
After long days at school my brother and I would come home and work on small tech jobs for neighbors patching circuits, repairing transmitters, trying to make some extra money while our father was away at work. I hated working. I was never as good as my brother. He had a sort of technological genius that I never understood and that I knew I’d never have. He was like my father in that way. While he would finish up the work I would wander away and try to explore the district that I’ll admit from a young age I found quite ugly.
I wandered away from my hard at work brother down the busy streets that smelled of oil and metal. Overhead wires buzzed like restless insects. I’d follow them until I reached a cleaner part of the district, where the buildings were taller, shinier, and formed a wide circle. At its center stood a massive metal stage. Here, the buzz seemed to vanish. The silence was heavy, almost unnatural. This was the reaping square.
I was still too young to be chosen, but my brother wasn’t. Every year since he’d turned twelve, my father’s face grew tight with fear as the day approached. On the day of the reaping, I gripped my fathers hand without understanding why everyone looked so scared. So tense. I remember the relief flooding his eyes when my brother’s name wasn’t called. But I also remember the horrified screams and the sobs of the families of the children who were taken.
After the reaping my father always visited the grieving families. He’d bring them food, help with chores, even hand over what little money we had. It didn’t matter how little comfort it gave. People knew his kindness. They remembered it.
The year of my brother’s fourth reaping, everything changed.
It was July 4th. He’d just turned fifteen a few days earlier. That morning, my father laid my only nice dress across my bed. This would be my last year safe from the reaping; I’d turn twelve in October.
I slipped on the white dress and walked to the square with my family. I stayed with my father while my brother joined the line of eligible boys. I stood still, my small hand wrapped tightly around my fathers. The girl’s name was always drawn first. As the escort dipped her hand into the glass bowl, I thought about how next year my name would be among the paper slips. The thought tied my stomach in knots.
This is when I finally started to realize the weight of this situation. When the girl’s name was called I imagined myself in her shoes and the sickness in my chest deepened. Then came the boys. I was still imagining what it would be like to get reaped when my brother’s name was called. “Glitch Riven”
The sound of my brother’s name hit me like a blow. My heart dropped. My father shouted. I couldn’t tell if it was toward my brother or at the Peacekeeper dragging him away but the crowd reacted. Shouts rose, bodies pressed forward, and the Peacekeepers drew their weapons.
We were shoved out of the square. People scattered, rushing for home. My father pulled me inside our cramped apartment, his jaw clenched, eyes burning with a fury I had never seen before. He told me to stay put as he grabbed something from the cabinet. Before leaving, he unknowingly gave me the last piece of advice he would ever offer: “We can never stop fighting them, Summer. We can never stop getting in their way. Because when we do… that’s when they finally have real control over us.” Then, without another word, he stepped out the door. I don’t know where he went that afternoon, or what he tried to do.I only know that he never came back. And neither did my brother.
