_`Aim.Your.Arrows.High.`_{South}

While I have always hated working night shifts at the factory, the task has become all the more loathsome now that the slightest bit of exertion tires me to the point that it takes all of my willpower to simply stand up. The doctors have been encouraging me to quit my job, but if I do that how will we ever be able to afford food, not to mention my medicine? My mother's sewing and laundry business does well enough to keep her going, but the feeble salary supporting the two of us would lead to disaster. Quitting is not an option. I will be working until the day I die, which according to the doctors is about seven months from now.

I have long since moved past the fact that I am dying, fading a little further away from this Earth with each passing day. I'm sure that there are far more unpleasant ways to go than a slow fade caused by terminal leukemia, although at this particular moment I can't really think of anything more agonizing than the dull throb spiking through my body as I attempt to drag myself home through the hazy gray of almost-dawn. The thin blue cotton of my uniform shirt hangs too loosely off of my body, the fabric sagging where it used to fit nearly perfectly, contouring curves that no longer exist and bunching up where it tucks into jeans that are fastened with a belt as tightly as it will go but still manage to fall uncomfortably low, catching on my protruding hip bones. I usually wouldn't wear my hair down to work but nowadays it breaks off at the slightest provocation, and I don't even want to think about what would happen if I were to braid it. So it hangs around my shoulders in a limp brown curtain, occasionally obscuring sunken green-gray eyes that want nothing more than to flutter closed and allow me some rest.

Tonight was a bad night for me. I hadn't gotten enough sleep during the day, which made everything more difficult, not to mention that there was a whole row of reactor vats waiting to be scrubbed out when I clocked in. For a normal person the work isn't that hard, but it is torturous to my sickly frame, crawling around on a skeleton with not enough padding and attempting to chip away at crusted-on plastic with my feeble strength. I was so exhausted by the end of my shift that Leanne had to reach over and grab my arm to stop me from keeling over in the locker room, her eyebrows knitting together in concern. "You okay, Des?"

I had nodded mutely, relying on the wall to be my support until I left the building and was forced to stand on my own two feet. I've nearly completed the two mile shuffle back to my house, but my journey is taking longer than usual thanks to periodic breaks that leave me panting against the nearest wall or lamp post, sweating and shaking from the formerly simple effort of just walking down the street. I know better than to think that Mom might be worried, she's undoubtedly stayed up half the night sewing and will still be asleep. My eyes flick over to the graveyard across the street, tracing the four tiny tombstones in the distance under a large willow tree. My brothers and sisters. Dalton, Aleece, Caine, Serena... None of them lived to see their second birthday. I'll never say it, but something deep down knows that they all ended up just like me. Horrible, consuming cancers brought into their tiny bodies from dangerous fumes emanating from the factories. No one talks about it, but the sudden hike in District Nine's infant mortality rate since the industry change leaves plenty of unanswered questions in its wake.

I avert my gaze from the graves (after all, I'll be there in a few months, best not dwell on the future), forcing my feet to keep continuing their sluggish progression back towards my house and my room and my sweet, wonderful bed. I'm too tired to even notice the little girl tearing like wildfire around the corner before it's too late. She makes contact at full speed, sending the both of us flying backwards. My arms fly out in a blind effort to catch me, all of my ninety-nine pounds of weight coming down completely wrong on my left one. With a sickening snap and a hot blossom of pain I know that I've broken my wrist, a small yelp of agony exploding from between my clenched teeth.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there. Are you alright?" Through the haze of my pain the girl speaks, all tousled blonde locks and nervous eyes and jerky movements like the whole world is out to get her. And who's to say it isn't? I've never seen her before, she doesn't look the slightest bit familiar, and judging by her bare feet and haggard appearance she isn't from the ritzy side of town. My beaten-down body struggles to pull me into a sitting position with the use of only one arm, but I eventually get myself somewhat upright, scooting back to sit against a nearby brick wall until I have time to recover enough to finish my journey home.

"I'm fine," I start, but my voice is far too shaky, a breathy alto murmur, so I do my best in inject the last of my wavering strength into the words. "I think I may have done something to my wrist, but it's nothing unfixable."

She's young, just barely of Reaping age by the looks of it, and skittish as a baby rabbit. I take my down time on the ground to study her a bit closer, skinned-up limbs and tiny figure, multi-toned gold hair with jittery blue eyes. She could be anyone's little sister; almost all of my friends are fair and blonde like her in contrast to my dark, formerly-thick waves and tanned skin. My eyes slide closed as I try to breathe deeply and work my way around the stabbing pain in my wrist. There was only one distinctive crack, so hopefully it won't be completely shattered and we can find someone who's able to set it. When lids discolored from sleep deprivation slide open again, she is still standing there all tentative and wispy like a ghost that can't decide whether or not to remain in this world. I attempt a smile but through the misery in my arm it comes out as more of a grimace, lips warped into a mockery of a grin by pain. "So, why are you out running around so early? Late for something?"

"I’m not late,” she says, and her voice is as wispy and skittish as she is, not really here but not altogether anywhere else. "I just, I guess, I like to run…”

I used to like running, back before it hurt, before it hurt to walk, much less fly over the ground with the wind in my hair and the steady one-two pulse of my heart in my ears. Looking at the girl, it’s easy to see that she has a runner’s physique, muscular build and compact frame. She's fast, each throb of my injured wrist reminds me of this fact, and small enough that she'd probably be extremely difficult to catch once she gets going. But over all of this she exudes a palpable air of nervousness, a deep-seated desire to keep moving that I am able to notice even in my preoccupied, weakened state. "I’m sorry about your wrist. Is there, uhm, anything I can do?”

"Unless you happen to be a paramedic as well as a champion sprinter, I don't think so," I reply, testing out the wounded joint and disappointingly finding that I am unable to bend it in any direction. The swelling has already started, dark purpleblackblue bruising beginning to swirl up my arm in a mottled swirl of color. Distantly I realize that my words were more than a little acerbic, that they might have the potential to be seen as hostile, so I quickly adjust my attitude, giving the little girl another grimace-smile of silent apology. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure I'll be okay; I've seen worse."

It isn't a lie. A few months back I took a headfirst trip down the stairs at work, breaking my femur and the same wrist that now pulses liquid fire through the left side of my body. Before that there were broken toes from stubbing them on doorframes, a fractured tibia from tripping over the coffee table, cracked ribs from accidntally rolling out of bed... the list seems endless. Leukemia has made my entire being fragile, but it is perhaps most noticible in my brittle bones and tendency to bruise at the slightest provocation (I think of how my mother has padded all the sharp corners in our house like a toddler lives there instead of a notoriously clumsy eighteen year old with a terminal illness).

"I'm Tabitha, call me Tabby. What's your name?" Her jittery tones jerk me away from my thoughts, drawing my stormy blue eyes up to meet hers, which are a clearer oceanic shade. Despite her noticeable fear that seems to stretch beyond her years, she still retains the childlike playground innocence of the question, face lighting in that way that says hi, I know nothing about you but let's be friends anyway. I can't help but smile, for real this time even though the agony continues to radiate up my left arm in white-hot waves.

"Desma Prather," I reply, shifting my weight to follow her previous ministrations, propping my arm up over my head to bring down the swelling. I think of the small bottle of morphling tablets that sits securely in my pocket - costly, but worth it, my mother says - little white pills that sap the pain from my body but leave me in an unpleasant haze of numbness and make the air shimmer in a dizzying way that I've never been fond of. Still, there are times when the aches start, the terrible convulsing pains that rack my entire body, and then the less desireable side affects of the medicine are more than preferable compared to the misery. I remember the very beginning, right after I recieved my diagnosis and we were still too poor to afford expensive things like real Capitol medicine, when I'd curl up in a ball on my bed and sob for hours because it hurt so badly.

Through a haze of pain I remember watching the hurt mirrored in my mother's eyes, watching her get thinner and thinner until she was almost as emaciated as me, until one day the bottle appeared on my bedside table, cool hands brushing my sweat-soaked hair from my forehead and slipping a tiny tablet under my tongue. Sometimes I feel awful that she's making sacrifices just so I can die with a little more dignity, but the conversation has been promptly shot out of the air every time I bring it up with a "Des, I'm not discussing this. You need those pills." My mother is the strongest person I know (she has lost a husband and four babies and soon to lose her only remaining child and still remains a rock), but perhaps being strong is her only way to avoid shattering into a thousand pieces.

"It's nice to meet you, Tabby," I say softly, unable to keep the fatigue hidden from my voice as I slump against the rough brick. I want more than anything to sleep but if my wrist isn't set soon it will never function properly again. There are several things beyond work that I need my wrist for, namely my list, ten things to do before I die, most of them requiring what little remaining mobility I possess. I think of the huge box of paper cranes sitting in my room, precisely three hundred and twenty-nine of them, exactly six hundred and seventy-one more that need to be made. The thought gives me enough motivation to spur me into action, gingerly lifting my battered from up from the pavement. I rely heavily on the wall for support, but at least I am standing, which is good enough for now.

Because in a few months, standing won't even be a possibility.