The Lynching, Calling all D8 Residents

[panem]

It seemed like the air was thicker. The Smog wasn’t as busy as usual. It was heavily populated, there were plenty of people mingling, but there were no deals being made, no trades going on, no barkers drawing in business…. Everyone was still. Because they’d all been summoned by Peacekeepers. There were more in District 8 over the last week, everyone had been talking about it, and it seemed they were about to find out why. Early that morning every door had been knocked on. Each residency was handed an envelope. And each envelope had help a very intricate invitation clasped with a wax seal that was indicative of the president. Inside each invitation was this message, written in the fanciest of calligraphy:

Good citizen of Panem!
Your loyalty to your Capital has not gone unnoticed.
As reward your presence is required in the town square
at exactly four pm.

Tardiness or absence will be dealt with by
the head peacekeeper of District 8 personally.

It wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would likely ignore, especially with the pleasant threat of a meeting with the new head peacekeeper. It was almost silent as the clock in the middle of The Smog rang once, twice, three, four times. A small whisper started on one side of the crowd as everyone began to speculate. And then there was the wail. It was inhuman and every turned to look at where it was coming from. There were peacekeepers and they were dragging something, no dragging five somethings. The shocked gasps and screams and cries when everyone saw what it was filled the silence and only stopped when the head peacekeeper reached the raised platform in the middle of the square. That’s when the cameras appeared and the Capital representative took the podium. Slumped against the front of the platform were five people, all beaten within inches of death. There were two women and three men, all popular residents of district 8, and three of them parents.

“Residents of District 8! We’ve come to make an example of the traitors Briar Valence, Harol Valence, Youssein Varin, Palm Crav, and Benn Stam. Their offences are numerous but the most severe is their affiliation with the rebellion. The trial has been completed and now their sentence will be acted out: death.” At the word death the peacekeepers got to moving, hoisting all five up on the stage and leaving them on their knees.

And then they started shooting.

[Flax Lismet]

Since learning that his father was in fact still alive, Flax had become looser with his words. He was still no chatterbox, but people had seems to become warmer towards both him and his sister, which made his life a whole lot easier, although he still opted to stay at home for the majority of the day time - which lead to Flax being the one to receive the invitation to the smog, at exactly 4pm. His eyes narrow at the print, it’s been a while since he’s had to read something so intricate. He’s too used to the plain print of his books. Tardiness or absence, his mouth follows the words, no sounds escaping, will be dealt with by the head peacekeeper of District 8 personally. So there is a new head peacekeeper… He doesn’t like the sound of him, and something strikes as odd. Why invite the entire district just to introduce the new head peacekeeper?

He tucks the invitation away until Fox arrives home a little past 3pm.

“Here,” he pushes the card across the kitchen table, watching as her dark eyes (the only feature they share, warm brown and wide) flit back and forth between him and the proposition. Twenty-four years of knowing her, he can see the confusion could her vision for just a moment before she regains her composure.

“Came today.” He watches as she nods, barely catches her muttering at him to get cleaned up. He doesn’t think he’s very dirty, after all he’d spent most of the day inside, and he didn’t really see the point. They were just going back into the smog anyway.

He pulls on a clean shirt (despite his own qualms), some relatively decent trousers, clipping on braces and glances in the mirror. Same face - pointed nose and that funny lower lip, eyes that have really seen too much and said too little. He sits, twiddling his thumbs while he waits for his sister. When she appears, she’s wearing a green dress, one she saves only for the best of occasions, and that’s when he knows there’s something wrong.

“What’s going on?”

He watches as she shakes her head and motions towards the door. It takes them about four minutes to make their way to the edge of the Smog.

After that, everything blurs together. The bells ringing, the faces of the rebels, he thinks of his father (out there somewhere in the wilderness, in 13 maybe) and then BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Silence. Just. Silence.

Whether it’s his own brain refusing to cope with what he’s just seen, whether the loud shots have blasted his eardrums, or whether everyone is genuinely shocked into silence, he’s not sure. He feels Fox’s hand clench around his forearm, can feel his own pulse hammering under her fingertips. He tries to swallow but his stomach is turning and he thinks he’s going to be sick.

[Antice Stark]

Antice had seen the invitations, run black gloved fingers over the President's seal and had inconspicuously voiced her scepticism when the Head Peacekeeper had decided to use a couple of Recruits barely out of Peacekeeper training for the firing squad. Finally, however, she had grudgingly admitted that their presence behind the rifles would solidify their reputations within the District, leaving no doubts with the people of Eight as to how far these particular soon-to-be-Official Peacekeepers would go in the name of Panem. There was no longer any margin for error, said the message - spelled out clearly in the shooting of five suspected rebels - if we catch you, we will get all the information we need, and then you'll die. Alone, and in front of the ones you love, because in the end everyone is alone.

The brunette watched her former recruits with a sharp eye as outside the building, the square filled and inside, in front of her, the Peacekeepers chosen to carry out the forthcoming executions nervously shuffled their feet. For two of them this was their first appearance on the stage of Eight, in front of their new people's eyes. Luckily for them, it was not a homecoming, otherwise they might have been shooting their own aunt, brother, mother or daughter. Nobody knew what you could be called to do as a Peacekeeper, but you'd better damn well do it, and do it right the first time. Shifting the bulk of her weight from her aching right leg onto her cane, Antice drew a practised eye over the Execution Squad in front of her - some barely past the recruit stage, some old as the hills (for a Peacekeeper, that is) - and twitched her nose subtly, finally pointing out unpolished boots, a missing button and a smudge on someone's cheek. This was for Panem, she reminded them in dulcet tones, and Panem always put its best, bone-crushing, well polished foot forward. Always.

The silence of the square turned to muted whispers, rounded eyes and intermittent sobbing as the Peacekeepers dragged out their prisoners, legs flailing down the stairs and kicking up the dirt once they reached the flat. One wailed as she was dragged out the door, earning her a vicious slap around the head as she passed Antice, leather glove slapping against her skin and leaving a red flush trailing across her cheek. Annoyingly the wail only grew and the brunette snarled at her, earning a choked sob before the wailing struck up once more and she was dragged down the stairs and through the crowd. The slim woman followed the procession of 'convicted' rebels slowly with her eyes, listening as the Head Peacekeeper spoke, her face a picture of emotionless beauty, a white knuckle grip on the cane in her hand.

The truth of it was that Antice Stark would have given anything to be out there, to be part of the firing squad. To be whole again, and useful. Even if it did mean being hated by a few, she would still be able to carry out her job. The one thing that had meant something to her had been stripped away and now she was left to watch others complete what might have been her legacy from the stoop of some crumbling building in Eight. She didn't flinch as the guns went off - didn't move a muscle - simply kept her eyes on the Firing Squad and the crowd, calmly watching the ripple of horror that ploughed through the people.

The new Head Peacekeeper of Eight was either a very intelligent man... or a very stupid one.