Death of a Tribute, Birth of a Star [Cyril's Death]

Cyril never expected death to be so quick.

In a flash his life had ended. No air rushed through his lungs, no blood pumped its way through his heart. He had fought to stay alive. He had fought to return to the people who loved him. And he had failed. And he had died.

There was no more pain to be felt, no more anger at his situation, or fear of the inevitability of his fate. He no longer pitied the dead, now that he was one of them. His childhood friend Nessa. The fallen tributes. Royce. Sky. Oblivion. Orion.

Cyril.

The faces that had once haunted his dreams now greet him as a friend. All gone before their time. Unnecessary deaths made necessary by the Capitol. But there was no more Districts, no more Capitol, no more Panem. They belonged to Cyril's old world.

It wasn't long before Cyril felt himself leave the planet behind, his soul soaring up into the midst of the distant stars that he had loved so much. He let the dazzling lights of a billion stars surround him, become one with him. And he knew he had left his short life behind. It was time to start his new journey into infinity.

---

In a house like any other in District 9, there is pain. A mother and a father sitting wrapped into each other's arms, crying tears of grief and loss. On the screen before them, a child lies bloody and broken, already gone from the world, a metal star placed gently on his chest by the one who took his life.

The little girl doesn't join in her family's tears. She doesn't fully understand what she's just seen. All she can do is look out the window into the night, where it seems like any other night in the District. It won't be until the sun rises the next morning that she truly understands that she's lost her brother. But for tonight, she stares into the night sky.

And she notices it. It shines new and bright through the light and air pollution in the sky.

For the first time in her life, she's seen a star.