Prologue 10: Lay
EXO Hunger GamesI am Zhang Yixing of District 10, Panem's livestock exporter. For the reaping, I'm dressed in a white shirt and khakis for the event. It's not much, and my outfit's a little dirty, but it's all I've got. District 10 isn't that wealthy of a district to start with, and my family resides in the poorest part of the district. There are better conditions I had wished my family and I could live in, but we're happy, and that's all that matters.
I'll wake up in the morning, and the first thing I'd do is check all the livestock for my parents. I'm assigned to watch the sheep, but I still check all the barns. My parents allowed me to take control of the sheep because they tell me I can take care of them pretty well. They told me that the sheep on our farm always used to be injured or sick, until I started to help my parents take care of them. "It's like you just...magically healed them," my mom would always tell me. "You're a great caretaker, Yixing...."
This morning in particular was dark and cloudy for an early summer day. I opened one of the doors of the sheep barn and peered into it, making a silent head count of all the animals. I noticed one of the sheep kept staring and bleating at me. I looked back at it, and it continued to bleat at me sadly. I was kind of puzzled about that, so I went over to the garage to get some food for all of the sheep. I distributed evenly and they all enjoyed their meal, but still, that one sheep just kept making noises at me. I kneeled down by the cage and looked at the sad sheep in the eyes.
"It's okay, dear," I said comfortably. "Uh...no one's going to hurt you."
The sheep, now looking at me blankly, chewed on the last bits of food in its mouth and watched me slowly exit through the barn door. I locked it shut and turned around to head back home. Except my mom was right behind me. It scared the crap out of me but it looked like she had something important to tell me.
"Good morning, Yixing. Are you ready to go to the reaping?"
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