barnabas stroud {district s e v e n} fin

{ Barnabas } 

I've not seen much of the world. An only child after a string of miscarriages, my parents were obsessive in keeping the cruel realities of  life away from their perfect little boy. Rarely even allowed out of the house, they always needed me in there sights, no matter what. I'd never even met someone my own age until my tenth birthday. even then my parents shooed the little girl away like a fly. I can still remember the pure amazement I felt at the sight of someone so much like me, yet different. Not understanding why my parents pushed her away when I so desperately wanted her company. 

Public school wasn't an option until I turned twelve. They taught me all they could before the peacekeepers showed up at their door, insisting that those of reaping age should not be homeschooled. My first day, I knew how to read, write and speak. But, that was about it. My father was a lumberman and my mother a housewife, between the two of them they shared little knowledge of important things. That's the reason I had to stay back a year. My mind simply could not wrap around the concepts they were attempting to teach. 

The world allowed me to blossom, however. The true intelligence I held slowly coming into its own the longer I strayed from the sheltered life I lived. I learned of the games, and their cruelty, and of the other children who shared my home in District Seven. As I grew, I watched children sent off to war, never to return. My mother insists that it is just a game, that the gruesome images flashed across the screen were all editing and ruses. The twenty-three others were living in the capitol of their own accord, hidden away from the rest of us. 

I can only pray that the words she speaks are the truth. That the lessons of death and darkness they taught me in school were all part of the elaborate hoax that is the Hunger Games. 

I've always hated the idea of suffering. There is nothing I fear more than a slow death. Lights slowly fading as you watch yourself die, helpless and alone. As much as you want to spring upward, primal instincts of survival attempting to force your body past its physical limits, you know you're done/ That in mere seconds the pain will overwhelm you. Just like that, you're gone. It's as if you no longer existed, left as a fading memory. 

I'd imagine that's how my parents felt, when their fears of the world were confirmed with one, swift motion. Dad died almost instantly, the knife sliding into his brain as he screamed at my mother to run. From what I've gathered, they'd been sleeping in their bedroom, a long needed nap after hours of worrying of my well-being. I smile when I think of them curled up, fathers arm wrapped protectively around mother just as it used to me. He heard the man first, as he slipped into the house. A black mask over his face, sleek silver in his hand. They were usually so careful... locking the windows and doors. It was so unlike them to leave them unattended.

My father attempted to fight him off, but he was always frail... 

The man went for mother next and was much sloppier. She was not spared an excruciating death, bleeding out on the floor as I slept soundly at my grandparents. Quite honestly I try not to think about it. Even if it the events had taken place less than a year ago. 

Even if their killer made off with three thousand cash and the lives of two people. 

I was engrossed in my studies after that, curiosity taking place of grief. Grandma worked as a nurse at the local infirmary, which I guess is what got me into medicine. They're almost always short on staff and didn't much mind I was barely seventeen. 

They told me I was an incredibly fast learner, even if it was only disinfecting wounds and kissing bruises. I've picked up a little knowledge here or there but in truth I'm little more than the janitor. Don't mind though, I like helping others. A lot more than I like helping myself. 

Fear was instilled in me since practically birth. Mother taught me that the world was cruel and never to be trusted. That the only person you could trust in the end, was yourself. It was an oddly dark message for the clean-cut image they painted of the world around us. But they ingrained it so deeply into my mind I cannot help but be afraid. Scared that the same fate which befell them will next crush me. 

My knowledge of the world is still lacking, I often find myself falling for the pettiest of tricks despite taking such pride in my intelligence. Grandpa insists that I am smart, just not so wise. Too sheltered for your own good, boy. I don't understand though... 

After all, aren't intelligence and wisdom two sides of the same coin? How could I possess one but not the other. I don't understand in the slightest. 

But, I suppose, there are a lot of things I don't understand.

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