Sunrise on the Reaping

The sun rose over Ashfield with a golden hush, brushing the tops of trees that hadn’t stood here for centuries. Where bombs once fell, now roots grew. Where screams once rang, birds now sang.

But beneath the calm, the ground remembered.

It always does.

---

This land was once District 12. Reduced to cinders, reborn in shadows. People call it “Ashfield” now—a name meant to hide the wound. But names can’t bury truth. Not when the soil itself still whispers of fire and rebellion.

I was born here. Raised here.

My name is Kaela Thorne.

Seventeen. Just like she was.

And today, the world remembers her.

---

Katniss Everdeen.

The girl who volunteered.

The spark that lit the fire.

Five hundred and thirty years ago, on this very date, she changed everything. And every year since the Rebirth, on Reaping Day, one young voice is chosen to read her story aloud by the Mirror Flame.

This year, it’s mine.

---

The path to the flame is lined with silence. Not out of fear—but reverence.

Children walk hand in hand with elders, heads bowed. Some carry carved wooden birds. Others wear single golden pins—replicas of her mockingjay.

No one speaks. But in their eyes: defiance, honor, awe.

---

When I step onto the black stone circle, I can feel the heat of the fire behind me. It roars in the center, tall and gold, never dying. Fueled not by gas, but by solar and memory. A symbol that remembers for us, even when we try to forget.

I open the book. I begin.

---

> “Her name was Katniss Everdeen. She hunted, sang, and survived.

She stepped forward when her sister was chosen.

She faced death with an arrow and a heartbeat.

She became the Mockingjay—not because she wanted to,

but because the world needed someone who dared to hope.”

I pause.

Not because I lose my place, but because the emotion catches in my throat.

Looking out at the crowd, I see what she saw:

The pain of history, and the desperate desire not to repeat it.

---

They teach us in school that after the fall of the Capitol, the world fractured. Years of silence, collapse, regrowth. It took three generations before humanity even agreed on the name "New Panem."

But it only took one name to survive through it all: Katniss.

Not as a myth. Not as a warrior goddess.

But as a girl. Flawed. Brave. Human.

---

And that’s why her story still burns.

---

I speak of the Games. Of Peeta. Of Rue.

Of the berries. Of the cameras. Of the scream she never let out when her world crumbled again and again.

I speak of the moment she raised her bow—not at an enemy, but at power itself.

And when I tell of Prim... of the bomb...

I don’t hide my tears.

Because stories like this aren’t told to entertain.

They’re told so we remember what it cost to become who we are.

---

Behind me, the Mirror Flame flickers—showing a reflection not of me, but of faces from the past. A digital shimmer, encoded in the fire.

For one moment, the flame shows her face.

Katniss.

Still. Fierce. Tired. Glorious.

---

> “She didn’t want to lead. She didn’t want to fight.

But she couldn’t let the world burn twice.”

---

After the reading, the audience rises slowly.

Three fingers.

Silent salute.

The same gesture that began a revolution five centuries ago.

I hold it, not as a tradition, but as a vow.

---

Later that night, I sit beneath a tree planted in her name.

Its roots are deep. Strong. Unmoving.

Like her.

I open my journal and write:

> “She showed us that fire can destroy—but it can also protect.

That the smallest voice can shatter the loudest lies.

And that one girl, armed with love and fury, can change the whole world.”

---

People ask why we still remember.

Why we still read her name.

Why we gather in silence every year.

And I tell them this:

Because freedom that is not remembered becomes privilege.

And privilege that is not questioned becomes control.

---

Katniss Everdeen lived in a time where silence meant survival.

We live in a time where speech means resistance.

And both require courage.

---

So when I wake tomorrow, and the world begins again—faster, noisier, brighter—I will carry her story not as an obligation…

…but as an inheritance.

A legacy made of fire, and forged in love.

---

May we never stop remembering.

May we never stop telling.

And may the sun always rise on the reaping—

not to choose who dies,

but to remind us why we choose to live.