Saoirse | District 11 | FIN

In the shadow of two building of wilting brickwork, the fading light catches the glint of sea green eyes watching the steam rise off the cobbles as the evening heat dries up the last of a summer shower. Few people spare a glance to the stranger as they pass her by, she doesn't look out of place with her raggedy trench coat and boots which are encrusted with a thick layer of mud but in her heart she yearns to be anywhere else but here.

Closing her eyes for a second, she is home. Concrete walls surrounded her and concrete people that look just like her- red haired, ghostly pale faces set against concrete coloured clothing- pass her by in the corridor, their faces set in unsettling gazes of complacently as a shrill bell rings overhead.

The thought of home brings the stranger lurching back to reality. She tells herself that she left District 13 for a reason, to fulfill her insane mothers whim that they would be safer in the wilderness without a heart but her mother was dead and in reality she was feeling homesick. Her hand runs over the freckled scars of small pox scars that glitter her neck and cheeks with tightly knotted dimples the size of pin pricks.

Movement from the doorway of the butchers- a shop nestled between and beneath weathered apartment complexes- catches her attention and her sea green eyes flickers upwards. It is only the butcher, young, well built, he walks out of his shop to pour the contents of a rusting bucket into the drain that ran the length of the street. The stranger watches as a waterfall of sickly sweet red blood cascades against the cobbles as it is tossed from the bucket.

Suddenly a bang catches her by surprise and suddenly she is breathless, running through the thick undergrowth of an ancient forest, the sound of gunfire ricocheting through the quiet wood. A tree splinters to her left, sending shards of wood flying as a bullet whizzes past her, barely missing as she ducks out the way. The girl stumbles to her feet again, pushing forward as she breaks out into a sprint; through the trees ahead she can see the mist of a waterfall and can hear the sound of a raging river plunging some hundred or so feet over a cliff. Glancing back, the girl does not hesitate to jump as she reaches the cliff. She knows death lays behind her and about halfway through falling toward the plunge pool, she remembers she doesn't know how to swim.

She shakes her head, clearing herself of the memory. The bang was not a gunshot but the sound of metal against metal, a machine malfunction perhaps but whatever it is, she reminds herself that she is not in any danger. Not yet anyway.

She looks up again just in time to see the woman she has been waiting for to enter the butchers. The stranger rocks impatiently on the balls of her feet as she waited impatiently; she has been watching the woman for weeks now, as if she were a doe- no- a stag in the wilderness. Majestic, graceful, and undoubtedly deadly if need be. There were times, where Saoirse ventured too close and a twig would snap beneath her foot, a bush would rustle or a bird would be startled and the stag- the woman- would be look over her shoulder, dark eyes searching the sea of brick and mortar for something out of place but she never did see the stranger as they slipped into the crowds. Sometimes, Saoirse was too curious for her own good.

Moving across the street, the woman makes barely a sound aside from a singular grunt as she gets her bad leg moving, shoving her nimble hands into the pockets of her coat as she hobbles towards the butchers shop. She tries to act natural, but places like this make her skin crawl. Knowing she is trapped between the electric buzz of a metal fence that stretches for kilometers in one direction and then the other makes her nights long and sleepless; something she has used to over the last 20 years. She pauses to allow a horse drawn cart to pass by before she ducks into the butches.

The room is dimly lit and the singular bulb at the centre of the room flickers while the hum of the refrigerator lights glow a sickenling blue; the lighting makes her miss the stark bright lights of home. Little to the womans surprise, only the butcher is present in the shop, sweeping a mop over the chipped ceramic tiles and when you enter, he stops spreading the suds over the rough white surface. “We’re closed” he says, setting his mop to the side as Saorise moves in, tiltng her head upwards so he may see her face. He doesn’t say anything else, or he can’t as the stranger’s lips tilt into a small smile, her sea green eyes watching him with caution.

“I’m here for the meeting…”  she says with confidence.