Hazel Castiel -- District Eight [FIN]

KEEP OUT.

Hazel Alexis Castiel.
District Eight.
47th -

      August 6, 60th Hunger Games

They told me writing down would help. I didn't know what they meant - what would writing down help? But I have been speaking less, and they think there's something wrong with me. I don't think there is. Sometimes I just like to stay and be silent. Listen to some for a while. I've read in a book somewhere, in a shelf somewhere, in the Konstantine's library, that as we get older we think of our years passing by too quickly. It said it is because we discover as children, and learning new things makes time seem a lot longer, so I'm just trying to follow. I'm trying to see the small things. I'm trying to discover.

(Today I discovered a red stain on my bed. My mom says the world is saying congratulations. She bought me a cupcake.)

I'm trying to discover more things, but I'm tired. I think I need to sleep.

      May 6, 60th Hunger Games

'Positive.'

Definitely not.

I am not pregnant, despite -

I lead eleven years of all things in the middle. Middle-class, middle height. A strange case of staying in between happiness and sadness at the same time. And now, (we are in a room, beside another room and you can hear the faint crackle of television) pen scribbled on paper made words to determine that I am Hazel Grace, thirteen and breathing (for now) and leading a life of tragedy.

(We are in a room, beside another room and the faint crackle of television and the sound of a gong - perhaps mine - cannot cover up the sound of my mother crying)

      May 8, 60th Hunger Games

Today, my parents sent me outside. It was spring, and I didn't mind. There weren't any flowers blooming, no scent of spring lingering, but I heard the whir of machines and I sat somewhere safe (or so they said.) When I came back, they had covered my bedroom walls from a stark clean white to an old flower wallpaper. They thought I was traumatized of hospitals. (I had spent thirteen days and fourteen nights.)

I wasn't.

But they were.

      May 21, 60th Hunger Games

I was told there were few doctors here in Eight. There were three kinds: One for children, one for amputation and one for the dying.
My doctor was Dr. Jim and he was of the third kind. I like how he didn't smile when we came in (because every other seems to have smiles that say, "I feel sorry for you," while their eyes say, "I'm so sorry for you.") and instead treated me like any other. He asked me the usual: what happened, what I feel, until he asked my mother to go out and he scribbled in his notebook and for seconds I stared while he made notes and - as inappropriate as I am - wondered at how many have died from misreading his words. Then he looked up and set down his pen and asked, "Are you afraid?"

Some men are destined for certain things like fortune, and glory.
Some sadness, some death. The victors are destined for glory. I was destined for death.

"No."

We went out, and passed by a Dr. Cathryn who said hello to my mom. She looked at me with a great big smile and looked at my mom. From the corner of my eye, I saw her squeeze my mom's arm and whisper, "I'm so proud of you."

Dr. Cathryn was a doctor of the first kind, and she has been inside our home before I was born. She has been there exactly two times, the same number of times Mom found blood going down the drain. They were Alex and Carina, if they had lived.

I am going to be was Hazel, 'if she had survived.'

      May 31, 60th Hunger Games

We were supposed to go to the barber's today, until my Mom decided that it was better if she did it, like it was some kind of ceremonial duty or something. Father stood by, smiling at me whenever I'd look at him. I tried to smile back. I felt my Mom's hand go through my mousy brown hair, taking a few pieces and finally positioning to cut. Then she said, "I can't." I furrowed my eyebrows. "Mom, they're just hair." I heard her take a deep breath and I knew I said the wrong thing. I was glad I left out saying, It's gonna grow anyway. I heard a few snips and felt my head just got a wee bit lighter.

I knew it was done when I heard her sob.

      July 6, 60th Hunger Games

My treatment starts today, and I've taken more than two dozen pills in a week. Mom and Dad seems quietly satisfied, a new light building up inside of them.

I can feel my lungs filling up.

      September 28, 60th Hunger Games

My head hurts.

      September 29, 60th Hunger Games

I can't move my legs.

      September 29, 60th Hunger Games

I can.

      September 30, 60th Hunger Games

I think I'm seeing colors.

      November 16, 60th Hunger Games

I've been excluded from running during outdoors class. Everyone ran, and I stood there looking after their shrinking figures, smiling, only to stop once all I could see was dust.

I tried my best not to bite it.

      December 25, 60th Hunger Games

Merry Christmas! I'm doing my best to be especially cheery. So far things are going great, until I received my presents. I've got nothing against presents, except for when you know it's really expensive and you just feel bad because you know the money could've gone for better things instead? Well, that, and when I opened an envelope full of letters from selected classmates and my teachers. They all spoke of how brave I was without mentioning the fact that I had it. That was false, especially for the whole "you're nice and sweet and absolutely funny" phrase, as I believe we barely spoke. And the whole thing that ruined it? They had forgotten to remove the letter of approval for my withdrawal from school.

I received a new cannula, though. This one's light blue.

      January 2, 61st Hunger Games

The cannula's not helping. Neither are the medicines. Nor the pills and the tablets. My lungs still suck.

      January 16, 61st Hunger Games

It's ironic how I said my lungs suck, because they do, like literally. I spent a week in the hospital, in the same room, in the same bed. I saw the little notches I made on the bedpost. I also saw the liquid that dripped out from my lungs. They were dark.

      February 1, 61st Hunger Games

I woke up to a flag waving frantically at my face. My mother was beaming happily. I squint at it, and I see our Mayor's face taped to the flag.

"It's the Mayor's birthday!"

      February 29, 61st Hunger Games

It's a leap year. My mom's favorite holiday, next to Ratmas and New Year and Valentine's Day and her Wedding Anniversary and - you get my point. I'm wearing a red shirt. For luck, she says. "Luck? For what?" I tried to joke. She frowned. (I tried my best.)

      March 4, 61st Hunger Games

I'm sorry for abandoning you. (But I don't really get the point of me addressing you, when you're inanimate in the first place.) The night of my last entry, everything was the same. My parents went to bed. They greeted me goodnight. I said goodnight, too, and then I slept.

At least I tried to.

You know that feeling when all of a sudden, every part of your body seems to be stabbed with a knife all at the same time? I know you don't, so consider yourself lucky, because I did. I did, and it felt horrible. I ended up in the hospital, and if we lived somewhere with better equipment I would've been back home by just a night. But we don't, and I lay in the hospital bed with prehistoric tubes and needles stuck to my veins for three days and two nights.

I needed the luck after all.

      April 3, 61st Hunger Games

The pain won't stop. I've considered just dumping the whole bottle of medicine down my throat to maybe numb out the pain, but whenever my parents stop and pop their heads through my bedroom door I put the bottle down.

Anything to make them happy.

      April 6, 61st Hunger Games

We went to my Dr. Jim for the fiftieth time in my existence.
I was probably the one patient who won't quit.
(My parents are proud of that fact.)
They sent me out, because the weather was nice.
But before I closed the door, Dr. Jim flipped the page.
I saw the number.
1, in his familiar handwriting.

I've got six hundred nintey days left, and I was considered lucky. Almost.

      May 28, 61st Hunger Games

We walked for a while
my mom and I
and we passed by this child
who stopped to poke at her shoes
and said to her mommy,
"Why are my shoes easily broken?"
the mother said,
"Probably they didn't have time."
The maker didn't have time.
A side-effect of dying

      February 8, 63rd Hunger Games

Father saw a page
(The one where I wrote,
"The world is a wonderful place.")
and asked why I cut
my sentences short.

I'm too tired.