Zahara Cole || District Twelve (Fin)

XX

Pale blue eyes stare down at a pair of slender hands, working, grinding away at a pestle full of rice. For three days, the bag lasts, with the dregs of the bottom currently in the bowl. Her tiny arms focus, pushing down as hard as she possibly can, her teeth gritting with the effort. Feeding a family of six is not the easiest, especially when she was the only female provider during the day.

Having started school early, the year before was the eighteen year old's last year of schooling, leaving her free to care for three brothers, a mother and a father who both worked in the mines.

Her eyebrows knit together as she removes the grinding stone, and glares down at the small amount of rice flour left behind. She sighs, and begins to slowly add water, collected earlier from the stream rushing past her home. No running water in her house, she finds herself struggling more and more to rush to the river, until every container in her house is full.

Dark brown hair bobs in a tight ponytail, her choppy bangs flutter across bushy, unkempt eyebrows. Lips clenched tightly together, she mixes the fluid in with the powder until she achieves a gooey texture. This, she pours out onto a hot pan, heated with what little electricity flows through the decrepit home.

She's done the best she can with the place, really. Old, faded sheets cover windows, make-shift curtains block out most of the heat from the summer sun, and unframed paintings decorate the peeling wallpaper. It's not much, but it's home.

The door swings wide open, and the girl calls over her shoulder in a high voice- "Welcome home Damien!"

'Damien' chooses not to answer.

How unlike him.




She sighs, and turns to face what should be a teenage brother, though her eyes grow wide at the six foot tall man clad in black standing in her kitchen. Her lips struggle to form words as he approaches, a hand reaching violently down to seize her weak jaws.

His breath reeks of year old milk, and his crooked teeth smirk down at the female. "Where's the money, pretty?" he whispers, disgusting compliment slithering from his tongue.

She struggles against the rough hands, her own tiny fists rising, balled up to push him away, though he holds her fast. "What money? I don't fucking know you!" she screams, though he laughs.

"Your brother owes me." he whispers in her ear, pushing her back against the counter, while she whimpers, her 5'2 frame continuing to struggle. "See, he bought some things from me on credit. Never came back."

Her slender lips tremble while his fingers trace along her earlobe. "Think I'd like payment one way or another."

A bony knee rises, slamming into a rather sensitive area, the male doubling over in pain. Zahara's voice rises to a screech as she sprints free from the home, blazing past weeds and flowers, her legs carrying her quickly on pure adrenaline.

Ribs poke out from below her ragged tank top, her form trembling with fear. What the FUCK would her brothers buy? Her mind flashes back to finding the middle brother doubled over by the creek, vomiting his lungs out, or her youngest bro slipping inside furiously, terribly late at night.

Her parents never seemed to notice the things, always exhausted with large, black bags hanging below their eyes, their fourteen hour days put in at the mines showing plainly on their faces. 'We work, so you won't have to.' they like to tell their children, especially Zahara.

How do their boys repay them?

By affiliating with shady ass men.

Her heart pumps loudly in her throat as she runs, doubling over in the middle of a bricked path, panting heavily with a massive throbbing pain below her ribs. Her trembling body struggles forward, voice crying, shouting out for help, until she finally collapses in the street, her fingers clutching around her emaciated stomach.

Her body collapses forward into the dirt, lungs heaving and struggling for breath.



She wakes, stars sparkling overhead. Cool night air blows, ruffling her hair and clothes gently. Nervously, she swallows and struggles to her feet, limping forward. The fall scraped up her knees, leaving large gouges embedded in her flesh. She picks her way in the dead of the night, arms wrapping around herself as though she were holding her body together.

As she wanders, the ground begins to light itself, orange yellow glows reflecting from the ground. She turns the corner and comes to a home- alight with dancing flames.

Sharply, the female inhales, and can only watch as her neighbors struggle, sprinting back and forth from the river to her home, attempting to quench the unrelenting flames. Crazed eyes focus on a few hunched over forms- her mother, held back, screaming for her youngest while her other two brothers and father hold her back.

Wild eyes focus as others shout and yell, and she scurries inside the aflame building, her chest heaving and pounding while she raced, down the living room, past the

Smoke clogs her trachea, blood pounding in her ears. Her struggling hands push through a solid wood door, managing to swing it open on the hinges. Her eyes focused to the body lying on the bed, sprinting to the form collapsed there.

Her voice cries, drowned out by the sounds of crackling wood, and the rush of heat from overhead. Her fingers dig into his shirt, struggling to drag him away. The heavy body, limp where it lays refuses to move, though the female continues to struggle with him, crying out to drag him out, to wake up.

Heavy hands pull on either side of the female, and a patchy, scarred face begins to pull.

Her father came to the rescue.

Together, they pull through the burning building, just as the rafters overhead collapse to the earth below, a wide gust of heat smacking them in the backs. The mother rises, gasping in shock, hands grasping the shirt of her youngest son, husband, and eldest child.

A grin splits the female's face, while her shoulders heave gently, actually laughing at the situation.

Defying death, one saving at a time.



The night, that single, brave act, leads the female to seek out more and more defying acts. Never before had she felt the surge of adrenaline as she did that night, never before did she make a literal life and death decision. 

As the days and months pass, and the initial feeling of shock pass, she finds herself yearning more and more for the feeling of excitement, the pounding of her heart, the feeling of being fucking human.