[Path] | District One | Fin

As is the way, the path travels on,
with or without you.

Please hold all questions until the end.

It's crazy to think that people used to be... what's the word I'm looking for-- Different? Not necessarily different from us as a whole, but different from each other. Unique, but not particularly special. It's difficult for people like us-- district folk, I mean- to understand that people used to have choice. I'm not talking about day to day choices, but life altering decisions. Anyone could be anything, go anywhere, and they only dealt with their own consequences.

I don't mean to imply we don't have choices. I, myself, chose who I was going to be. I guess the term I'm looking for is 'opportunity'. We don't have any of that sans the games; where we either die, or murder. By the way, if it wasn't clear, that's not the choice I'm talking about.

Often times people say to me, "Path. What a peculiar name." And as if I were playing a game, I watch their heads cock sideways, and their mouths purse open when I tell them what it's short for. Inevitably, the fun ends when they ask, "Well, then what's your real name?" Although, I already told them, they persist. I don't budge. That name died when I chose to renaissance myself into Path.

My mother doesn't support me. She is one of those parents who just wants their children to fall in line. To be wonderfully ordinary. She thinks I'm being dramatic, and wasting my time-- perhaps. But she doesn't know what I have at stake. A slip of paper. A small puzzle piece, missing from a story with endless narratives. It's a truth, suppressed. It's something, that is only mine. My little piece of history. As much as they may try to erase it, the past will always exist, and I've chosen to dedicate my life to protecting it. Preserving.

"I want you, to just be you," she says, intent verging off of endearing.

"I want to be so much more than just me," I rebut, "Or at least give someone else that chance."

Are my intentions pure? Of course not. It's empowering to have something no one else does. I wear enlightenment as a necklace across my frail, white collar. Arrogance drips from my sky-like eyes. Just above my hair, cow-licked and dark as the tunnels beneath the district. The tunnels I call home, but show to no one. There, I find my brothers and my sisters. They taught me to choose, simply by choosing me.

Despite how extraordinary I've chose to be, I look as my mother would want, plain. My head remains covered in the messy hair. I'm lean, but not fit. As I've said, the games don't interest me. I don't intend to waste time preparing my body for them. My jaw comes sharply forward with my bright pink lips painted in the center. My fingers are frail, and my chest is sunken. I'm not a looker, but I don't want to be. Looks come with expectations.

Expectations. A curse if there is any. You live up to them, or you're nothing. At least that's what they'll tell you. Over and over again, until you believe it into truth. And that's all you are, until you're a kid with no direction, wondering aimlessly through your district, and someone finds you. They see you, not for who you are, but for anyone you want to be. And finally, with a weighted hesitation, you take one step forward. Following your own path.