dancing on the razor's edge {flynn/aurora}

FLYNN GARNER
YEAR OF THE 89TH

This is the first reaping that one of my sister’s is in. After the bombings and Robin, I would not be surprised about the rumors of the Capitol’s rigged reapings to tear apart victors. There have been so many victor relatives, it cannot be a coincidence. I have the anxiety of that and the anxiety of a repeat of last year. Still, Teddy Ursa is quiet as ever on the stage. So incredibly numb to everything. I do not ever want to get like that. It is not human. It is not right. I will remember them all. Their faces. Their names and their stories. And the exact way that they all die.

I can never get used to standing on the stage every year, faces staring up and me. Their faces will age over the years, the young ones will move to the back to make room for the next crop for the Capitol to play with. The club are slowly moving further and further back. Just three or four more years. Just Six years for Dorothy but there is still the whole near decade for my youngest sister to go through. The club know never to volunteer. Never to do what I did. There will never be a dare like that. We swore to it.

"Aurora Emerson"

But Aurora is not in the club. She is a different type of a friend. She doesn’t know the rules.

I just can’t look at her without frowning as she walks up to the stage. ”What are you doing?” I mouth at her. I can’t do this. Why has she done this to me?

It is only when I am escorted to the train station that I can finally confront Aurora about volunteering. All the questions have been building up and all I can see in my head is Robin’s death with Aurora’s face instead of his. I am preparing myself for the worst. It is only going to be in a few weeks. No, it’s not!

”But you owe me a explanation Aurora!” I slam the sliding carriage door behind me. ”You saw what happened to Robin. What were you thinking?” I don’t know where to go, where to stand or to even sit at the table with her. I just pace up and down the carriage. ”You can’t do this Aurora. You are so stupid!” Maybe it’s the sweat from my brow that is drowning my eyes or I have finally cracked and the tears are on show for the cameras once again.

FLYNN GARNER
YEAR OF THE 89TH

There are not enough tables in this carriage for me to flip. There is not enough floor space for me to keep pacing. There is just not enough time for me to comprehend that an actual friend is about to go into the arena, by their own choice. I thought I would be the perfect example of why not to volunteer. It is not like I have been living the typical luxurious victor life, I am back at school!

Aurora pounces with the familiar aggressive stance, forcing my pacing to end. I know she will not be afraid to fire a fist straight into my eye, but I am probably the only person on this train who will spend every hour over the next few days that we have trying to help her. I pull my crossed arms tight against my chest, my gaze low as we are just a short foot stood away from each other.

”- I only did what you did a couple of years ago, saved my family." I have set everything in stone now, laying out a trend that has proven to be successful by the unlikely thirteen-year-old. But how many of the hundreds of tributes that have volunteered done it to save someone else, and failed? I was just lucky. It was just luck. Nothing else but luck.

”But now who is going to save you, Aurora?” I surrender to one of the leather seats, snatching a napkin from the table before sitting down. One napkin is not enough to dry my cheeks, it is too early for me to hold onto composure. I am young, naïve and emotional. That’s going to be my excuse every year that there is another Robin…another Aurora. ”You are not indestructible just because you can’t feel pain.”

There have been a few days where she has not been there in class, admitted to the hospital for one reason or another. We have spoken about her condition before, the research books have nothing. No breakthroughs. Though what a life that is, one where there is no such thing as pain… ”You will feel a lot of things in that arena, a lot more worse than a stinging wound or an aching knee! I just can’t believe this. I can’t lose you.” I am back in the usual position, face buried in the table. I am breaking already but I need to toss aside this selfish tantrum and try and help her. Try harder than I did for the first two.