jasmine rosewood || district seven || fin

Her words pierce your slumber like a flashlight in a dark room, and yet for a moment, you barely react.

Slowly, you crack open your eyes. The first thing you notice is the lighting of your room - or rather, the lack thereof.

Confusion floods your mind as you tilt your head over towards the solitary window on the wall. A weak ray of sun peers through the glass, just bright enough to reveal the cloudy gray of the dawn.

Wait. Why is Aunt Rosemary waking me up this early?

The confusion spreads, for you've never been woken up this early, even during school days.

Then, the gears in your head click, and you remember.

You're up in a flash, covers tossed to the end of the bed and any thoughts of sleep rapidly fading into the back of your mind. Getting dressed in record time, it is only a matter of moments before you're trailing after your aunt, virtually quivering with anticipation.

After all, it's not every day you get to visit the vast forests where your aunt and cousin spend their days.

After a short breakfast consisting of cereal and an apple, you're pacing in the kitchen, the clompclompclomp of your boots echoing throughout the room.

Sage is late.

You almost want to go into his room and drag him out of bed yourself, but your aunt advises patience, reminding you that, while you are a morning person, Sage is not, and it'll probably be a few minutes before he's out.

You've never really liked patience, though, and you tell her as much, prompting her to once again go back and check on him.

For a moment, you wonder if it was all a prank orchestrated by them, to get your hopes up only to dash them against the ground like a glass vase. But finally, at long last, he arrives, boots in one hand and eyes bleary from sleep. And it is his mere appearance, messy brown hair and all, that causes all traces of annoyance to disappear.

Despite his exhaustion, your cousin manages a smile, and that is enough for you.

Grinning from ear to ear, you skip around the foyer, barely noticing when your aunt reenters the room, barely noticing when he engages her in a hushed conversation, barely noticing until your aunt calls out the words you'd been waiting to hear all morning.

You utter a little cry of joy, before you follow your aunt out the door, a skip in your step and a tune in your head.

***

You'd never known your parents.

Such was a result of losing both of them before you were two years old - your mother had passed away in childbirth, and your father, your uncle's brother, had passed away mysteriously a couple of years later.

At times, you wonder if it is something you should be more upset over than you are. It certainly seems that way sometimes, for whenever you mention it to someone for the first time, it usually results in a response of "Oh, I'm so sorry!" or something along those lines.

And then you simply shrug it off as something minor before quickly changing the topic.

But truthfully? You don't really see it as something major. Just because they had created you didn't mean that you were obligated to miss them, especially if you had never known them in the first place.

Besides, you had parents in your aunt Rosemary and your uncle Rowan, and you even had a brother in Sage. Sure, they might not be as closely related to you as parents would have been, but you do share blood with the latter two.

And even if you didn't, they were the ones that had taken you in and raised you after the unfortunate passing of your parents.

If they weren't your family, then you didn't know who was.

***

After a long walk consisting of introspective thought and the occasional quip or question exchanged between you and your aunt, you arrive at the chain link fence that separates the world you know and the world that lies beyond.

You steal a glance at one of the Peacekeeper guards standing near the entrance, secretly wondering why anyone would want to stand around all day doing nothing while wearing a ridiculous outfit.

But then you're on the other side of the fence, and the white-clad guard is soon forgotten as the vivid colors of the woods flood your vision.

Gone are the wooden houses and dirt trails that make up the majority of your home, gone is the clear view of a gray sky and the weak light of the rising sun.

Now, you are in the midst of Mother Nature herself, and all of her glory to boot.

You trail behind your aunt, your awe still strong even though this is far from your first time in the woods. The forest is truly a magical place, especially during this time of year, when the greens turn into yellows and oranges and reds and the leaves fall from their branches and dapple the ground with a vibrant carpet of natural color.

All too soon, you arrive in a clearing, complete with warehouse, axe rack, and log pile. Aunt Rosemary had called a base camp, a place where items were stored and the lumberjacks could take a breather from the day's work.

According to her, there were several spread out throughout the woods, but today this one would be the only one you would see. Not that you were bothered by that, really - you found this one somewhat lacking in beauty in comparison to the woods you had left behind.

You start, the sudden force that laced your aunt's voice catching you by surprise.

The question is sudden, and it takes you a moment to process. In the past, you had accompanied her out into the deeper parts of the wood and watched while she and her co-workers hacked away at the giant wooden beasts that populated the forest.

As a result, you had assumed that this trip would be much the same way.

But as it sinks in, you realize that, hey, today you actually get to choose.

Aunt or cousin? Which will you spend the day with today?

A smile creeps up your face as you make your choice.

Your aunt shakes her head in mock annoyance, before giving you a close-lipped grin of amusement. With a wave and one final reminder to stay out of trouble, she soon melts into the foliage.

You plop down heavily on the ground, letting out a sigh as the inevitable waiting period begins.

Minutes pass. Leaves rustle in the breeze, and still, Sage does not appear.

Aside from that, it is quiet.

Too quiet.

Curiosity wrests control from anticipation, and you stand back up, gaze flitting from the entrance to the hanging axes to the warehouse.

But nowhere during your inspection do you spot another person.

Your senses alert but not quite at the panic level yet, you wander, exploring each edge of the clearing for any signs of movement, any signs of life that might signify that you not, indeed, alone.

But as the sun rises higher in the sky and begins to burn through the gray, as you look in the warehouse for the third time, it becomes apparent that the only other forms of life in the vicinity are the trees and the grass.

Geez, what's taking Sage so long?

The thought echoes within your skull, echoing despite the common knowledge that your cousin was not a morning person, and therefore would likely be taking his sweet time making his way to the base camp.

The point, first and foremost, is that you are alone.

And as it sinks into your conscious like a seed pressed into fresh earth, a grin slowly spreads over your face.

You are alone.

And that means there's no one to stop you from doing what you want.

Such as, you think eagerly, climb a tree.

You dart over towards the nearest such beast, noting with delight that one of its branches droops low, ideal for the beginning of your ascent.

You aren't allowed to climb many of the trees around home for "safety reasons", as your aunt put it, but you were confident in your ability to scale this one. After all, you've been practicing the hobby for several years now, and you've avoided falling out of each and every one of your conquests.

You position yourself directly beneath the low-laying branch. You take a deep breath, before dropping into a crouch. Muscles tense, then release as you jump, both arms raising upwards in an effort to grab onto the branch.

The thrill of success briefly floods your mind as you clasp onto the branch with an iron grip. It pitches under the sudden addition of your weight, leaves trembling as it shakes.

Once the threat of it snapping passes, you pull yourself up, slowly but surely, until you are practically on top of the branch, hugging it for dear life the way a sloth might - that is, if sloths were pale and dark-eyed and sat on top of a branch instead of hanging from it.

You prepare to make the next step, which in this case involves inching towards the tree trunk in preparation to climb higher, but all thoughts of proceeding are brought to a screeching halt as a different kind of rustling, too loud to be the wind and too far away to be you reaches your ears.

Your heart skips a beat as adrenaline floods your system, and for one wild moment you fear the worst.

But then the bushes part, and you let out a barely audible sigh of relief as a rather disheveled Sage emerges instead.

Silently you watch from your perch as your cousin makes his way towards the axe rack, gaze focused straight ahead as if seeing neither you nor your aunt was to be expected.

Which, you realize, it was, seeing as this would be the first time you had ever stayed behind to wait for him.

As he chooses his axe, you slowly slide off the branch, undoing your hard work in an instant.

You hit the ground with a quiet thump, and you look up to find the dark eyes of your cousin looking into your own, an axe in his hands and an expression of pure shock and surprise across his face.

A grin splits your face, and you almost nonchalantly skip over towards him, as if you approaching him from across the house.

"Saaaaage, what took you so long?"

"Uh, what do you mean, Jasmine?"

"I've been sitting up there for ages! It was starting to get really boring."

"You do know that if-"

"I know, I know, the Peacekeepers could have caught me. But there was no one around."

"Still-"

"Saaage, you worry too much! They wouldn't have caught me."

You watch as your cousin places a hand over his face in exasperation, and despite the very real fear that you had felt a moment ago, you cannot help but feel the sparks of indignation emerge at his very audible sigh of annoyance

"Seriously! I'm not that stupid, you know."

"I know, Jasmine, I really do. But you're like a sister to me. Of course I'm going to worry."

"I thought it was a mom's job to worry though."

You stare at each other for one, two seconds, before each erupting in your own fit of laughter.

Finally, you pause, and after a moment he speaks again.

"Well, you're not wrong, that's for sure."

"Of course I'm not!"

"Ha. You're funny.

"Duh! But seriously though, Sage, what are you going to do today?"

"That's right, you've never spent the day with me out here. Want to learn how to chop a log, Jasmine?"

"Yeah!"

"Sweet! Today, you'll just be watching though, okay? Can't have you accidentally chopping my head off."

"Awwwwww!"