A/N: Please DO NOT read this story if you are triggered by rape and non-consenual sexual acts. This is a very dark story and was inspired by the Handmaid's tale. Please consider your own personal feelings about the subject matter before reading. In no way is rape something to be condoned and I do not take this topic lightly. This was written as a release of personal demons.

Barren. Unfruitful. Desolate.

Panem's women are barren like the landscape of the shelled out carcass of District 13.

Panem is only a nightmare I have in the dark of night, a distant memory. There is no Panem, no districts, and no games. There is only Entity, the new regime, the singular law under which we all must obey.

My given name was Marguerite Undersee. My father called me Madgie. Our maid always called me Midge-Madge. My mother was the one that chose my name. "Madge means 'child of light'," she would say. I always smiled as though it was the first time she told me.

I am no longer Madge Undersee.

I am fertile. I am unpolluted by toxins, untainted by man. I am a woman ascending, delivering Entity into a new birth.

My name is Ascendant.

"The Tribute Center," Katniss whispers shakily as our bus pulls into the underbelly of the building.

I grip her hand tightly. She's shaking with the memory of fear. I'm shaking with her. I'm terrified. The jolt of the bus stopping pushes our clasped hands forward. I'm afraid to ask her where her mother and Prim are. I'm afraid of asking about Peeta. I'm afraid of a lot of things.

A man boards, wearing the Entity grey uniform, a carry-over ensemble from Thirteen. His voice is booming and full.

"Ladies, step off and walk side-by-side, two together, into the double doors on the left. Men, walk single file through the double doors on the right," he orders, swaying his gun in each direction to indicate the correct paths.

We all exit slowly. I look around with wide eyes, soaking in the dreary world around us. This inner garage is made of nothing but thick grey concrete. Men and women with guns line the path toward the doors. The two accesses are about 50 feet apart. We divide from the men. Behind me I hear someone protesting as his daughter is pulled away and the swift hit of something against his soft body. I try to ignore the sounds that come after that.

Katniss and I naturally fall together as a pair. We walk nearly shoulder to shoulder. My limbs feel sluggish after the long train and bus rides, but somehow I will my body on.

"Welcome to the Red Center," a hologram of a woman greets us as we walk along.

She's wearing the white uniform of the new Aunts. Women who are barren, but useful still. They will educate and raise the Ascendants and Givers of the future. We watched an audiovisual about it on the train ride from home, it all made me quite sick. I won't mention the other things it talked about. As we move through a brightly lit hallway another hologram appears.

"We appreciate your devotion to the cause and hope that you enjoy your time spent here," a young man's likeness buzzes from my left. He's definitely a boy who was once raised in the Capitol.

"Your sacrifices are for the good of Entity, blessed are the fruitful," another hologram says kindly. The words ring in my brain as the messages repeat for those behind us.

"I think that's from a banned book. I read parts of it in my father's study," I whisper to Katniss as we pass the last one.

She glances sidelong at me, but says nothing in return. She's shaking harder, eyes skittishly assessing our surroundings. She's seen all these things before, when this was a cage of a different kind. She's been in the ominous hallways we're traveling twice before this. We ascend a set of large stone steps and then another until we've reached an enormous entryway, leading into an opulent main floor.

"Welcome future Ascendants. You are all gracious volunteers. Blessed are we that you will bear our country with new life," the woman at the center of the marble floor is easily recognizable, completely unmistakable.

"I'm Aunt Effie and I will take you to the physical and psychological testing. If you can follow me darlings, we'll get you all right as rain."

Katniss inhales beside me. A stone drops in my stomach, it's a hopeless weight.

They call it the Red Center. We aren't allowed to say its old name. It'll never be the Tribute Center again. The glass building stands at the center of Entity, towering ominously above all other things. And within it there are thousands of beds, a full floor of physicians' offices, meal sites, training facilities, and the Aunts.

The Aunts are Capitol women and old Victors, dressed in large white shapeless garbs, still sporting their holier than thou attitudes. The only men at the Red Center are in the physicians' offices. They too wear white, except they have bulky lab coats. I learn quickly that the men from our district had exited through that second door in the garage and straight into an adjacent building.

They're surrounded by barbed wire now. At least for those men from Twelve, it's not something new.

I'm not permitted to speak during the day. The only acceptable time is to other Ascendants during bedtime. We have a half hour for devotions and joint prayer. But of course we can speak with Aunts and physicians, if we are spoken to.

The only Aunt worth talking with is Effie. She looks out for us all. She cares. All of this hurts her and at times it shows in her eyes. She couldn't have denied Entity's decision to place her here though. It was die or live.

She chose live.

In between praises for Entity during our nightly devotions, the Ascendants whisper encouragement to each other. We discuss women and men that we are missing. We look to hear news of them.

Katniss always asks the other women about Prim. No one has seen her though. No one knows where she is.

Johanna asks for word on Annie Cresta. Two weeks ago she found out that Annie's at the camps in what was once Four. She's working as part of the fishing program. She's lucky. She has a job that will not kill her like the rest.

I don't ask after anyone.

I don't want to know what happened to the Hawthorne's.

I've taken to saying horrible words in my head all day.

When I'm alone, I whisper them aloud, sometimes in the bath or in my bed.

Fuck, I say as I dress each morning.

Shit, fuck, bitch, I chant it like a prayer as I wash my limbs slowly.

I say them simply for the pleasure of doing something forbidden. There is so little I have control over any more. All that I am and all that I do belongs to them. I allow myself these small mercies.

On the day of the Fruitful Ceremony we are permitted the right to see our Givers, but they are blindfolded. They are not given our names. We have no names. We are all Ascendants. We are given their name ahead of the ceremony. Perhaps to fill us with fear, to hurt our hearts, I don't know.

It can't have been chance, the way they chose our Givers.

Entity chose our partners in a way that would upset us the most; in a way that would wound the Givers the most. Before the Red Center I knew many of these men and women. In this time, I'll know them in a sickeningly new way. They chose my first two partners to hurt them as much as me. They'll know me in an instant, despite the blindfolds. I want to weep. The thought that they will force these men upon me brings bile to my throat. These are men whom I trust, who would give their lives for me if given a chance that Katniss or I could get away from all of this.

I stare up at the digital board that bears our Ascendant number and the Givers we will receive for this fertile period. First I will join with Giver Peeta and then with Giver Gale. For Katniss it's the same, but in the reverse order. We are the only Ascendants who have the same pair. The rest of the men are randomly organized.

This was not chance. Peeta and Gale were chosen to wedge an emotional hole in our hearts, to punish us.

In our life before the Red Center I was in love with Gale Hawthorne and she was in love with Peeta Mellark. In the time before the 75th Hunger Games though, all three of us were in love with Katniss Everdeen, completely unbeknownst to her. A complicated web, Entity doth weave, knowing full well about these relationships.

No, this isn't chance that they are my Givers.

We once would have told these men we loved them; would have shared that love quietly in our own time, with no one watching. Now we all have to watch as Ascendants and Givers attempt to create life, surrounding them in a holy circle. The new regime is too afraid to just take our eggs and sperm for combination and cultivation in test tubes. No, they think all the genetic manipulation of the Capitol's past is what caused their downfall. So, each of us is assigned two partners during our most fertile time. Each night of the fertile time we will spend with them in order for the best chances at procreation.

This is our first fertile week. I don't know if it is lucky or unlucky that Katniss and I share the same fertility period. I decide on luck, I wouldn't want Katniss to go through this alone. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Katniss is breathing rapidly beside me.

"Slow your breathing, you can't hyperventilate right now. They'll beat you," I whisper to her. She looks up with wide frightened eyes.

"I can't do this," she says.

There are tears there, hidden behind her long dark lashes.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be…" She can't go on.

I know what she's saying though. They were supposed to fall in love. They were supposed to have a happily ever after. I was too. I swallow around the lump in my throat, I won't cry. If I cry her tears will fall alongside mine and we'll both be in trouble.

"Turn off your brain. It's just like when you were faking…before," I rush the words out as the line starts to move ahead of us. To speak to each other now is dangerous.

We're wearing the deep scarlet Ascendant cloaks over our long crimson satin dresses, our soft leather shoes moving silently on the tiled floor. There's a sea of dark scarlet hoods ahead of us, moving like waves as we push through the tight hallway. She knows what I mean when I speak about before. She and Peeta have had plenty of practice with faking their relationship.

"This isn't like before," Katniss insists.

I see that her hands are shaking in the soft crimson leather gloves. They're made of the same material as our shoes. I wish I could hold her hand, but we must walk with our fingers laced together in front of us. Our heads are to be bent slightly, our shoulders back, our skin completely covered.

"You two better shut the fuck up, before Aunt Enobaria cuts both of your tongues out," Johanna hisses from behind us.

They really will do it. They don't care what the rest of your body looks like, they only need your reproductive parts.

In the Red Center Aunt Cashmere severed Johanna's right hand after she tried to kill her with an axe she had found in an old armory in the basement. They destroyed the rest of the hidden weapons from the tribute days after that. Johanna stayed in the physician's offices for a long while, and then she was in the confinement room. She's only been back for about a month. This is her third fertile period. She's been at the Red Center far longer than we have. She's attempted to leave it at least six times and three times she's tried to kill herself.

They won't kill her though, won't let her die.

They need her.

We exit the double doors. Each one has the blood red emblem of Entity, an image of an hourglass woman, hands turned up toward the sun, a swirling circle shape in her womb. It would be a beautiful symbol of fertility if it didn't belong to a wicked regime. It's all newly painted. I can smell the tinted scent as I pass through the third set of doors. There are two guards holding the doors open for us at each level.

We can't open them ourselves. We don't touch things, only food and essential items are allowed these days. We can only remove our gloves to eat and wash. We can only be touched by others if ill, during examinations, or when we are at the Fruitful Ceremony with our Givers. Otherwise, we touch nothing.

We do nothing.

We say nothing.

We are nothing.

Johanna goes first.

Giver Finnick and Giver Beetee.

Johanna had said Entity couldn't do anything else to hurt her, everything had already been done, but she was wrong.

When she is through with both of them she has a vacant look in her eyes. She stares at Aunt Cashmere with absolutely no expression. Finnick must have known it was her. He had cried as she whispered to him. She had gripped his hand throughout it all, squeezing it so hard that their knuckles were pure white.

If this is her third fertile period, I wonder who the four previous Givers were for her. Who could have emotionally wounded her more than Finnick, her closest friend, and Beetee, her father figure?

I want to retch.

Three more women go, but it does not get easier to witness with each consecutive time.

We are on the top floor. There are skylight windows above us. I know this is the floor where Katniss and Peeta once stayed for the Hunger Games. My true aunt must have stayed here with Haymitch for their games.

I find myself gazing up as the sky outside begins to ink into darkness. We've been here for hours and I'm beginning to feel the burn of hunger in my belly. My body aches from remaining seated in observation.

We chant praises and prayers of fertility and strength as each woman leaves the ballast, the gravel circle that surrounds the raised platform. This Fruitful Ceremony is especially large, at least fifty Ascendants. So we will do this fifty times. Each woman takes two Givers, so by that calculation I will have witnessed ninety-eight rapes tonight and partaken in two.

One hundred rapes. One hundred - that will occur daily for the next week. Seven hundred times - that another piece of my soul will blister and burn away.

I had a dictionary hidden under my bed growing up. The word rape had horrible connotations and definitions, of course. Perhaps though there is one in particular that seems more fitting to what I am witnessing. It sounded like a perfectly harmless definition at the time, but now I find new meaning in it.

New meanings in the way I watch each woman crush in on herself, leaking the light she once had.

Rape: the dry pulpy residue (such as fruit, seeds, or fish) of material from which a liquid (such as juice or oil) has been pressed or extracted. Yes, each of these women is a ripe grape when they ascend the dais, a plump harmless fruit waiting to be plucked and devoured. When they descend they are something else entirely, something crushed to a pulp mass, mangled in more ways than one.

Katniss will be last, I am sure of it. Only the two of us remain untouched. It does not surprise me when I see the next pair of Givers being led in. Gale kneels on a crimson pillow below the dais, just beyond the gravel, hands bound and eyes covered. As the kneeling man he will wait with Aunts flanking him on either side.

I feel a caged being in my chest.

There is something I've thought long dead clawing at me, beating against me, screaming out.

My heart.

It's still there, proof that I'm alive.

An Aunt who I don't recognize pulls Peeta up the three steps that lead to the platform. His prosthetic leg gives him trouble on the last one, causing him to stumble heavily forward. This Aunt is unlike any other I had seen up until today. For one thing, she carries a gun, for another she's extremely tall and bulky. I imagine she was probably once from a Career District. Another Aunt is waiting at the top with a glass vile of clear fluid, an aphrodisiac.

"Giver Peeta," she pauses, "Drink of the knowledge of life."

The bulky Aunt unties his hands and quickly presses the gun into his back. We watched this all with each man. Some of them had barely looked older than 15. Apparently there is no depth Entity will not go to achieve natural conception. The vile is placed into his palms. He seems to hesitate for only a moment before tipping his head and drinking it in one gulp. It reminds me of the times I watched my father and Haymitch knocking back shots in the study.

I was always eavesdropping as a girl.

This feels like a worse kind of prying, peering on through each horrifying event, unwilling but unable to look away.

"Giver Peeta please disrobe," she demands.

Please implies choice. He has no choice.

The Givers wear white garments, loose pants and shirts that remind me of my father's bedclothes. Instead of buttons they have small cloth knots that the fabric loops over. It seems to be some sort of rough cloth, a contrast to the silk gowns we wear beneath our crimson cloaks. Some of the other men were shaky as they unfastened their shirts. Not Peeta. He's used to being watched and he's always been very brave. I can just feel the quiver of Katniss's cloak brushing against mine. She's shaking, but I don't dare look away from Peeta. The Aunts are watching me.

Peeta has always been boyishly handsome, but I've never given much thought to his body. I saw parts of it when Katniss washed him in the stream during their first games, but no one in their right mind would admire a boy dying of blood poisoning. Well, maybe Capitolites would have. Maybe they did.

Peeta's skin is still a bronze sort of tone, his hair as golden as ever. I'm glad I don't have to look into his eyes. That would be unbearable. Peeta's chest and shoulders are broad, his stomach still tight with the muscles he regained after he had been held hostage in the Capital. He drops his pants in one swift motion. I know from all the other men that I have witnessed tonight, that they wear no undergarments. Peeta's thighs and calves are still muscled as they were when he used to wrestle in Twelve. I look no further than that. My gaze stands fast on his blindfolded face.

"Ascendant 12 – 01 – 20," the woman states crisply, "come forth."

My limbs protest as I stand. I walk at a pace that is neither fast nor slow, my blood pounding in my ears. It feels as though the eardrums ache under the pressure. I glance furtively down at Gale where he kneels. His face is set rigidly and I imagine he is clenching his teeth. The two Aunts that were flanking Gale follow me up the steps. One unclasps my cloak; the other removes my hood and gloves. This will be one of the only times that people see my hands, my hair, my face. Only these women will see me. Never men. And I will never see myself. There are no mirrors in Entity.

"Ascendant, uncover."

I'm not as strong as Peeta, my hands shake as I pull the flowing silk open. There is only one simple clasp on my left hip and another underneath on my right. It keeps the fabric folded over like a bathrobe. I now wear nothing but the red leather shoes and the black set of numbers burned into the skin below my collarbone over the right breast. I stare down at them for a moment.

12 – 01 -20: Twelve for my previous district, one for my distinction as the mayor's daughter, and twenty for the year of my birth.

I've examined the numbers every time I bathe. I learned the pattern in them during our training. The Red Center doesn't like to allude to the time before Entity, but they are nothing but thorough in their organization. Organizing us numerical at least keeps us sorted and easily identifiable to those who keep the records of our previous life.

I wonder if Peeta has figured out the patterns of these numbers. I look at him. Even with the blindfold covering his cornflower blue eyes, he is still handsome.

In his face I see that he has learned the meaning of the numerical system.

He knows me.

Peeta's hands are warm and firm as he presses them into my hips. He pushes his forehead against mine. It's almost as intimate as a kiss, but he doesn't mean it that way. He's trying to ground us. His breath puffs over my face, fanning my chapped lips. Even though it is forbidden I wish that he would kiss me, not because I want him in that way, but because it would be a welcome distraction from the pain ripping me open. He is perhaps as gentle as he can be. I try to relax myself, but my muscles are tight with fear and disgust. Everything about this is wrong. Peeta's fingers grip my flesh tighter as he nears the edge of release. I raise my hands to clutch at his shoulders and press my palms flat over the flexing muscles there.

When he finishes I dig my nails into the flesh of his back and whisper, "It's okay."

I've never tasted a lie so bitter.

I lay naked on the dais as Peeta dresses in the white garments. They guide him to the kneeling position and allow Gale to stand. His height looms over me as he removes his clothing. I watch as the deep tone of his skin is revealed to me. I remember a time when he took me to a lake outside Twelve. Katniss and Peeta were in the Games. Gale's chest had nearly glowed that day as the water had glistened on his skin.

He reaches forward with one hand to touch the hard surface below me, searching for it in his blind world. His hand brushes against my shin and he pulls it back as if burned. The hard set of his jaw shows the tension within. His nostrils are flared as he kneels above me. His legs are nearly too long for the platform. He buries his face in the skin of my neck and I choke on the scent of him, so familiar to me.

His lips press firmly against my pulse point and his eyelashes tickle the skin of my jaw. I remember that the jaw bones are called the mandible and the maxilla. I focus on naming as many bones as I can while his body envelopes mine and he moves within me. He grips the edges of the platform and keeps his face in the same spot. I feel wetness on my shoulder and realize that he is crying.

A damn breaks within me and I begin to quietly sob. An Aunt immediately stands beside the dais.

"Dear girl, ascension is the path to deliverance; take of the flesh and you shall receive life."

I bite my cheeks until I taste the tangy copper of blood.

After the first Fruitful Ceremony Katniss and I are both with child.

I never see Givers Peeta and Gale again. All I can do is hope that they are still alive.

My baby has grey eyes and a strong tan face. His hair is dark, the color of chocolate. In another world Gale would have loved him as I do. In another world I would keep my son after he's done nursing, but for now I cradle him to my chest and memorize him.

I am no longer Madge Undersee.

I am fertile. I am unpolluted by toxins. I am a woman ascending, delivering Entity into a new birth. I am a mother with a lost child; a child who is out being raised by a woman unlike me in every way, a child with Seam blood in his veins.

My name is Ascendant 12 – 01 – 20.