Marley Rose - D10 - Fin

The fire that ravaged our house was the only that that Bella could think about since we got here. The pound was a place that I never thought I would be completely okay with, but it turns out, I got a long with people here that I never thought I would.

We were all young boys and girls that never thought anything more of the people that were taking care of us, mostly because we took care of each other.

Bella was my sister, and she also was the oldest of the group, which meant that she helped more because she was able bodied and willing to do so. What people didn’t know was that she was offered many times to be taken out of out of our lives and put somewhere else. Somewhere she could be more useful.

However, she told them no. Because she didn’t want to go anyway without me. Which I thanked her for everytime. She was resilient in her view on being adopted. It would never happen unless I went with her. And I wouldn’t have agreed with her anymore.

I wouldn’t want to go without her either.

---

I don’t remember much before we got here. I do remember that I had a mother and a father. I remember that we used to have animals all over the place and sometimes I used to play with them after my chores around the house were finished. Bella would join me in those games when she could, and we would run around vigorously, trying to figure out how far we could push our bodies until they gave out from under us.

It was weird, growing up in a place that had no rules after you completed a couple tasks. Sometimes I would wait for my father to burst out of the seems to tell us to knock off whatever we were doing. But he didn’t. He just looked at us at laughed and even joined in when he could.

There were days where he would pick me up and raise me high up into the air. He used to call it his special airplane ride. He would hoist me up high for the world to see, and he would tell me to never let go unless I wanted to fall flat on my face.

I trusted him in that moment, and I felt like I was soaring.

---

And then one day I smelt smoke. A common scent in 10 with almost every home finding a way to put a chimney in. However, this scene was strong, filling my lungs and clogging my nose to the point where I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even speak.

My arms were limp, but my eyes were alert. They opened to see a thick layer of smoke right above my bed, and my lungs were on fire. I couldn’t breathe.

Things in my room were set ablaze in bright beautiful orange embers that were too hot to get close too.

I looked at myself in the mirror and thought about how this could have been my last day on earth. How this could have been one of the last things that I will ever see.

There was a picture of my family right next to that mirror, and it was on fire like most things in my room.

I watched the picture crumple in flames, and that is when I felt my legs carry me out of the room.

However, it wasn’t my legs. It was my father. He was tall, brooding, but he loved both of his daughters so much. He carried my out of that house, but before I could say anything, he went back in, and then the house collapsed on itself.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Instead, I stood up, looking for Bella, who I hoped made it out alive.

And she did.

---

We held each other close that night, and I told her that dad had saved my life. However, she didn’t believe me. She told me that I got out because death didn’t want to take me that night.

I told her that she was crazy, that dad made sure that I was safe before going back to get mom, and she simply gave me the same look that mom would give us if she felt like we were lying about something.

”I’m not lying.” I told her, and she simply hushed me, holding me tightly as we the people in the district tried to put out the fire as quickly as they could.

---

Everything was going well for us. All the way up until my birthday. Reaping day. I watched as my sister made her way through the children to make sure that I was okay.

I told her that I was a big girl now, and that I didn’t need her to keep watching over me the way that she felt like she had too.

I would never honestly tell her that I appreciated how much she took care of me. How I hated that none of the kids appreciated her for what she did.

Without her, they would have never known what a mother would have truly been like.

But as we stood there and listened to everyone around us, we weren’t expecting the next couple of words out of the stylists mouth.

”Bella Rose.”

And with that, emotions bubbled up inside of me as I watched my sister look back to me and take her spot on that stage.

It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

It was not her time to go. We were supposed to live together forever.

We defied death once, why could we defy them again.

---

And then when I got my chance to say goodbye, she told me that this was my chance to grow up and protect the boys and the girls at the pound. I didn’t know what she meant, but that didn’t matter with the number of tears that were flowing out of my eyes and onto the dress that she picked out for me.

She told me that she wanted me to look at a picture of use when we were younger. But my eyes went right to the other one of our parents, and she explained that she had found this locket from somewhere in our house. Our old house. The place where all of our hopes that dreams died.

I didn’t say anything to that, because I didn’t know what to say to that. All I knew was that this was never going to be same. Especially when my sister died in the games.

I would never see her again.

---

And when the games started, I was the one to make sure that everyone in the house was there to cheer her on.

As much as I didn’t want to watch in horror as she might have been killed, I knew that I needed to support her in any way that I could.

And this was the only way I knew how.

I watched as she jumped into that bloodbath, and I couldn’t believe how cold it looked on the screen. Everyone looked like picturesque statues in the blue mist that covered them all.

However, Bella made it out, and I watched her as she grabbed what she needed and attacked who ever got in her way.

She was strong, something that I now needed to learn how to be.

---

The day she battled the zombie my heart nearly feel out of my chest. I realized how much the arena had changed her. She had never been about killing anything, but that did not stop her from silencing the one thing that was getting in her way of getting home.

That is when I realized that there might be a chance that she could handle whatever might come her way.

---

And then day 6, when she went up against the alliance that seemed to be invincible. I watched her thrust her spear into one of the boys eyes.

She talked about death like she knew it all too well.

I listened to her words, and wondered if there was anything behind them. I knew that she was scared, but I also knew that she was determined.

Not many of them remained, and for what it was worth, it was uplifting to watch her kill a boy who stood in her way of getting home.

Getting home to me.

---

However, not everything could be perfect for Bella, as she watched a boy the next day send a spear right into her eye.

And that was the first time I cried in a long time.

She was so close to coming home that I could feel her presence right next to me.

I could taste her will of being alive.

I wanted her here now, but now, I was sure that I was never going to see her.

I ran into my room that day and locked it tight. I never wanted to come out.

---

Until I remembered the words that she said to that boy, telling him that they shouldn’t live because they wanted to. They should live because they had too.

I didn’t understand it. I wouldn’t understand it. But it echoed in my head, and the sound of her voice broke through to me.

There was no point in wallowing in her death. But instead, I should celebrate my sisters life.

I loved her, and I hope that wherever she was, she was happy.

And so that night, I stepped into that kitchen, and made her favorite dish for everyone.

Because after all, that is what she would have wanted.