Gabrielle O'Dale // District 6

You were born the moment your mother feels your life quickening inside her. She tells you that she could feel your heart beating alongside hers, in the dark of the night when the cold enveloped her like the skin did on her bones. She witholds the truth that she was stood on the bridge, the one that overlooks the empty flood drains that sometimes fill in the summer, looking over the edge, her mind feeling as dark as the night around her. She does tell you that you pulled her from a darkness. 

She brushes her fingers against your cheek and a warm smile fills her face and you smile. Everytime it catches your breath because she smiles at no one else but you- she does smile at your siblings, the children with plump cheeks and freckles on their faces, red, brown and black hair falling across their cherub faces, but the way she smiles at you... you can see it is different. It is as if she is looking at a heavenly being and you can barely find a word to describe the light that fills your mothers dark eyes when she looks at you. 

Sometimes, when she smiles at you, you can see tears filling the corners of her eyes and the ebs of the mother you see while hiding in the shadows comes through. When she is not watching you see your mothers spirit vanish from her, leaving her an empty shell that stares out the window or slowly sinks into the chair behind her as the embers of the fire cast a golden glow over her hollow cheeks, silver lines of tears spilling down them. You wondered for a long time when you were younger why your mother cried so when no one was watching, in the darkness of the kitchen, or in the night when she thinks you are sleeping and you feel her arms wrap round you so tightly that you can barely breath. 

Her fingers digging into your arms as she hugs you, you feel as if she clings to you in those moments for dear life. As if you are about to slip away. For a long time you did not understand- you have been healthy, your whole life. You were blessed with an easy birth and blessed that your mother worked to become a better woman when she found out you were coming- getting a dawn to dusk job at the factory for nearly 6 days a week to ensure that she could put food on the table for you. She keeps your belly full, but you often see hers go empty and it pulls at your heart strings. 

It is only one night, when you are 10, that you wake from the depths of sleep to find your mother screaming your name. Her arms are no longer around you, wrapping you in that motherly warmth you fall asleep to, they are flailing in the bed beside you as she thrashes about in the sheets. One of your siblings wakes and begins to cry too, adding to your mothers feverish screams. You flung off the covers and turned on the lamp, your heart sinking seeing your mothers face, tear and sweat stricken, pale as she sheets beneath her as she continues to call out your name, the pain laced in the words are that of a pained animal, on the verge of death.

You had grasped her shoulders and shook her, screaming for her to wake up. Suddenly she woke, her dark brown eyes void of life and staring up at you. Her hands suddenly found your face and she continued to cry your name, barely as a whimper. Your brow had furrowed as she wept your name- you did not understood, until she began to mumble almost incoherently. 

"You came home! Oh, Gabi! You came back!!"

You remember how your heart had skipped a beat in that second, in anticipation for something you did not quite know. 

"...from...where?...."

"The Hunger Games Gabi!"

And in that moment you realise and it is almost as if someone lifts a weight off your shoulders. Your mother must have seen the realisation in your eyes because you see the realisation in hers, and suddenly she is back, in the bed beside you, pulling you close to her and crying quietly as she rocks you. Her arms wrapped around you so tightly...

She had always said she'd named you after her baby sister but beyond that she had never talked about her and despite your young age you had figured that maybe she had died. She had always told you that you had looked just like her and you had never known whether that was true or not because there were no photographs in the house of anyone but you and your siblings. It wasn't until that night that you realised that you were named after Gabrielle O'Dale - tribute of the 70th Games.

You know now why your mother sometimes stops and stares- pauses what she is doing- or her breath catches when you enter a room. It is because for a moment, she sees a ghost. Your blonde hair, round face and blue eyes- they are all that she has left of the memory of your Aunt, the rest of her image distorted by time. You imagine your mother has looked at a photograph your Aunt since the day her image must have last appeared on that screen. 

Recently, you cannot help but feel your mothers anxiety rise. She does not talk about it, but you can see her counting on the calender. Everyday she flicks open the calender and skips months ahead- she skims past your birthday and she finds the following June quicker and quicker each day- the distance between today and then is growing smaller. You watch as she walks through the house, her her hand on her heart, or sometimes clutching at a worn out bear that had sat pride of place in your crib as a baby. 

You know exactly why she counts and you can feel your heart beating faster in your chest with every passing day. It is the reason for the past 11 years you and your siblings have crowded into the square to watch girls and boys leave for the Capitol, only to come home in a wooden box. For the past 11 years, you have been a spectator, someone who merely watches but come the next Games, you will not be a spectator. You will be part of the cattle. Your name will have a chance to be drawn.

And you pray to Ripred with your mother every night that it will not.