journey of the damned // district 3 train

Esther takes this moment to regard her two companions- Atticus Manor, the winner of the 72nd Hunger Games, and Sierra Bordeux. Sierra she knew from school, they shared a few classes with one another and Esther was certain that they must have shared some form of conversation, passing hellos and waves, small talk children share when they are growing up because she does not feel the all too familiar need to recoil from her, the way she would have done if she had been a complete an utter stranger.

Esther’s shyness was like a disease, progressive and she was certain that it would be fatal.

As for Atticus, who by all means was a stranger, she felt no repulsion to him either. His face had been plastered on their TV screens for as long as she could remember now, a familiar somber face. His face was supposed to provide some sort of comfort, some sort of fuzzy feeling of hope that maybe this year someone from Three would come home. And each year Esther would walk through the streets of Three, passing by torn down posters of Atticus’s face, others would have been defaced. She knew his face so well that he may as well have been her friend; though she knew subconsciously she didn’t know this man at all, and it made her skin crawl.

Esther let out an all too audible sigh of relief when Sierra suggested that Sparky to shut up. Finally. She thought to herself, her fingers till resting on her cheek. Glancing at Sparky, who looked taken back at the suggestion, Esther nodded in agreement with her District partner and classmate. She felts less comfortable around Sparky- unlike Sierra and Atticus- Sparky was a stranger. A faceless person with a name that Esther forgot year on year out when the woman appeared on the stage of District 3. Quickly, Esther looked away, turning her attention back to the window beside her and watched in the reflection as the neon coloured escort stormed from the room.

Her lips curled into a small and foreign smile.

In the reflection of the window, as the world passed in a flurry, she saw Sierra extending a box of cigarettes. Cigarettes were expensive in three, and she’d only smoked one on a handful of occasions, mostly with her friends. Feeling a pang of regret that she had foiled their chances to say goodbye, Esther reached out and took one cigarette from the box. “Thanks” she said quietly, her voice small and timid, her fingers fiddling with the thin roll of paper and tobacco. She watched Atticus out the corner of her eye rise and toss a black lighter in their direction.

She reached out her shaking hand and caught the lighter before Sierra had the chance, taking the moment to light her own cigarette between her lips. Once hers was lit, she extended the lit lighter to light Sierra’s cigarette for her, flicking the lighter off once both cigarettes were lit.

Esther’s brow furrowed tightly at Atticus’s statement. “Start detaching, just for a little while. The quicker you shift your focus to survival, the better."

Esther took a long drag of her cigarette as she thought of District Three, its dark streets, dried out canals and the stench of the factory smoke wafting that filled the streets, she thought of its smog and the loud sounds of all the machines there. She thought of her shop and her house, the little shack at the edge of the canal.

As she thought of these things she felt like a kite on the edge of a string, fluttering and diving in desperation to escape from the singular earthly tether that kept them there. Closing her eyes she lay back onto the sofa and exhaled slowly. “Thats fine with me…” she said in a small voice. The Hat maker wondered how long it would take her to forget the little things of District 3, the little things that made it home- how long it would take to forget her friends? If she made it home, would she even recognise the place she had grown up in?


Quickly, she took another drag of the cigarette and exhaled. Rolling onto her side she propped herself up onto her arm “...Who’s Bellamy?”