Nightlock: The Story of Foxface

Light comes through the thin curtains in streaks, dancing around the tiny room and waking me up. I draw the curtains and peer outside at the rolls of the hills and livestock that cover District 5. It would be such a beautiful day if it weren't for the reaping. Why is the reaping always on the loveliest of days? Seems like a contradiction seeing as how this is one of the saddest days of the year, or at least for two of the families living in District 5.

I go over to the small dresser in the corner of the room and get dressed in a plain white tee shirt and dark denim jeans. I tie my long red hair back into its usual ponytail and head out to feed the cattle. Unlike the majority of the districts, District 5 still has work to do, even on reaping day. Being in charge of livestock, we have to. My mother always says, "Those cows aren't going to feed themselves, now are they?"

As I walk out the door I hear a voice from behind me, "You aren't going to leave without breakfast now are you?" I turn and see the smiling face of my older brother, Max. Every time I see him, I can't help but smiling. Max has that power on people. Out of my two older brothers, he was always my favorite. "I'm not all that hungry…"

"Oh come sit down! Goody decided to give us a feast today!"

My face brightened into a smile as I saw him pull out a bottle of milk, cheese, and crackers from behind his back. Goody, our elderly neighbor, must have been feeling kind to give us some of her precious crackers. I have only had them a couple of times, but enough times to know that crackers and cheese is definitely my favorite meal. Goody has always had a liking for Max, so she probably traded him them for a bottle or two of our milk. Although we live in the livestock district, we don't get to keep whatever we harvest. My family mainly milks cows for a living. Unfortunately, we can only keep a minimal amount of what we collect. It gets tough when you have a large family to care for. We are forced to work out fingers to the bone milking stupid cows all day and we get close to nothing in return. I detest the Capitol for this. I live among animals every minute of my life, and yet I go to bed hungry daily.

The worst part of all is that we don't even have it as bad as most. Unlike some Districts in Panem, District 5 is split in to three different "classes." My family and the others who are in charge milking and harvesting livestock are what can be considered the "middle class" because we can always keep the milk. The merchants are the upper class. Then there are the stable hands. Those are the unfortunate people who are stuck shoveling animal crap out of the holding areas and washing all the livestock. They are what we consider the "lower class." I don't see them too often, but if you do see a stable hand, its pretty obvious. Many District 5 citizens refer to them as the "walking skeletons" because they don't even get to keep any milk or anything so they spend the majority of their nights even hungrier than I am. It's all so depressing.

Max and I sit down and munch on our crackers and cheese in silence. I can see the worry on his face but he is doing his best to stay silent. "I'll be okay Max, I promise." I force a smile on to my face, but it's obviously not convincing him. He looks down at his hands.

"I know…it's just…you're the only one eligible this year and all of the tesserae are yours…I just…I don't want your name to be called, Holly."

He looks at me and I can see the hurt in his eyes. Ever since Max turned eighteen three years ago and was officially out of the reaping, he worries every year for me and my other brother, Roy. If we were ever pulled, Max would lose it for sure. And now that Roy turned nineteen, I am the last one left. I'm only seventeen. I hadn't had to take out a single tesserae since I was fourteen. That was the year Max turned 19. Each year Roy and I would spilt who took out what. Roy would take out three tesserae, and I would take out two. Not this year. This year everything was on my hands. There will be twenty-one slips in the reaping ball this year all saying Holly Maglite in small, neat handwriting. But what were the chances? There were thousands of people in District 5. Twenty-one in a thousand. I couldn't get picked, I couldn't.

"Aww come on Max," I smirked, "I won't be picked! And even if I am, I'm sure I can handle it. After all, I have had to grow up with two older brothers beating up on me. I'm tough!"

That made him smile.

"Now how about we bring the rest of the food down to the family in the fields? I'm sure they are starving and besides it's already 11 o'clock and we haven't even finished milking the cows! The reaping is at two!" I said and hopped out of my seat.

We both headed down the hill smiling and cracking jokes about the Capitol people and their funny make-up and accents, but something was tugging inside me. What happens if I do get picked? I wipe the haunting thoughts from my mind and continue towards the cow fields.