Chodas Sidue \\ District 11 [CB]

Athreya

Doesn't come down when she calls, "It's time for breakfast."

They had lost her to the wind some time ago. A girl full of life and promise, stripped away by a human who wanted to play God.

Momma can't get down those halls fast enough to see

Memories of the night they found her stick in throats and minds, never able to be swallowed or banished.

Glass is sprayed across the floor from the broken window.

His fist is bloody, shards of glass embedded in the skin and sticking out almost like a porcupine's quills. She stares at him with tear-filled eyes for a moment as he stares back. Both sets of eyes are like saucers.

She can't breathe anymore. Can't deny what we know.

The family is barely holding together, just a mother and son clinging to each other because they know that without the other they would collapse.

They're gonna find you, just believe.

He trains and prepares in secret. She could never know because it would break her fragile heart and scare her terrified mind. He was doing this for her, he was doing this for his sister. He would find the man who had torn them apart and return the favour.

You're not a person; you're a disease.

If he is caught it is all over. The brother who would die to defend his sister might die in trying to avenge her; the man who harmed her, stole her dignity and her life in one night, would die if caught by the boy he didn't know.

Posters hung on building walls of missing faces.

He gathers information on others that had been harmed. Each story, face, sister, memory that he learns of hardens his resolve. He becomes more bold, more reckless. There is a knife strapped to his side at all times, hidden by a baggy shirt.

Months go by without the cause, the clues, or traces.

Determination was the only fire keeping him warm in the winter of his sister's death. Preparation and training took a long time, but he would see it through. He must.

Shed the light on all the ones who never thought they would become

He would avenge all of the sisters and daughters lost to this monster, no matter the fact that the clothes he wore were white, or the helmet he bore to shield his face. He would pick out the individual and destroy him. Each life he had ruined would be another stab wound into his flesh.

A father, mother asking why this world can be so cold.

His mother would never have to know, not fully. He would tell her that the man was brought to justice and that would be enough. As he neared his goal, though, he knew he must stay somewhere else so she wouldn't get caught up in all of this. For now he would have to abandon his mother.

Doesn't come down when she calls, "It's time for breakfast."

She called for him but heard no response. He had left the night before, sure to not make so much as a sound while doing so.

The memories begin to fall. She asks, "When will I be free?"

From outside, he heard her heart break and had to cling desperately to the knowledge of his goal in order to stop himself from retreating to her arms. This would all be worth it, in the end. Or so he hoped.

- Chodas Sidue - male - seventeen - district eleven -
^{CB from Ratmas 2016 [2/5]}