70th Reaping [D9]

Try to deny it as much as you want
But in time our feelings will show

A quell games. I can still remember the previous one. I was eligible for the reaping, but thankfully the odds were piled up against me and I managed to keep my head above water and force air back-and-forth into my lungs - it swelling which every breath my 12 year old self took.

And 1826 days later, 5 years exactly - the familiar air of nerves and tension swirled around all the teenagers in my district. We stand in uniform lines wearing our appropriate reaping clothes as our frightened eyes gaze up to the large, intimidating screen where intricate tiny pixels portray an image of President Snow at the Capitol.

My eyes stare longingly at the large glass bowl (which was larger than normal, much larger) filled with hundreds of little paper slips with the names of innocent children and teenagers alike. I always hold my breath as the slips are unfolded as I pray that a name close to my heart isn't reaped.

Not Anya Xiaoqing.

Not Elijah Xiaoqing.

There used to be a time where the night sunk into the day and the stars were barely visible as the sun rose from the hill-filled horizon where I would chant those two sentences like a ritual. With every inch of my body and mind, I hoped that the names would never make it into any of the games, any of the quell games or anything to do with the Capitol.

But in this moment, my siblings and myself stand next to each other, occasionally glancing our empty eyes to one another, the skin of our hands slipping into the shape of another's. I see Anya flushing a sickly pale, it swiping across her face like ink staining paper. 

Not Anya.

My eyes wander over to her again and I can feel my throat becoming dry and a lump forming on the back of my tongue. I can't bear to look at her any more, because I can see my vision becoming blurred with the release of a salty liquid in my eyes. I try to swallow, but it's feels so forced, so unnatural that I give up and let my head fall to face the grey concrete which has seen the reaping of children almost 70 times.

My head is charged with a riddle of painful and sorrowful thoughts which flutter around my mind like diseased butterflies which cannot escape my skull. I do not bring myself to look at Snow rummaging his hand around the bowl and picking a piece of paper, I daren't look at him pronounce the name of the child who will die in a beautiful arena filled with opportunity and wisdom.

But nothing can stop me from hearing it.

"Maya Xiaoqing!"

I feel my world stop spinning and the moon and the stars fall from the once perfect sky. It wasn't Anya, nor Elijah, it was someone who I'd often forget in my prayers, in my naive chants before dawn exhaled a breath of the new day. Maya Xiaoqing - me, myself, I.

My heart thuds against my chest as I move through the crowd. Time appears to be slowing down with every step I take, the world turning into nothing but a childhood myth or legend a mother tells her children to help them fall asleep. I blink and I'm transported back into reality, into a place where stories are nothing but stories, where fiction is nothing but a false hope, held together by the thinnest of threads.

My soul is held together by rickety bones which protect it from the barbaric truth of the moment in which I stand. The only things that makes me feel alive is the eggshell pulse which flows aimlessly around my body. It has no meaning any more, the blood in my veins is nothing but cold and bitter.

I reach the stage and I inhale the inaudible farewells from friends and strangers alike. This will be the last time I shall see their faces, each one telling a different story of today, each one etched with fear, created with an essence of relief. I can't look.

I won't look.

If this is what death is like, let it carry me forever. Bring in the rain to drown my sorrows, ignite a fire to burn my hopes and dreams. Let me become deserted and desolate so nothing but my soul shall fight.