Malfunction [Sarella]

Marie jumps around, trying to find a place to set a trap. Since starting on her way to the ocean she had been told about, things had run rather smoothly. She'd had food, water, trees. She estimated she was near District 5, and wondered if she might run into anyone. Of course, how many citizens actually snuck into the woods? Breaking through the trees, she finds an area of grass and forgotten road. Perhaps part of Ghent district that was cut off. A few factories. She begins to walk around, looking for anything useful left behind.

She spots a girl, staring up at an oil jack. The loud thumping and banging of it's malfunctioning pump trembled her body ever so slightly. The constant motion draws her eyes from the girl. It was rhythmic, like a clock, counting down the last seconds to a school day. It had been years since Marie had been in school, though she was only fourteen. She holds back her tight, bouncy curls. They fell over her face like a curtain and ran around her head, as her hand shaded the desert-sand eyes.

She looks back at the girl, thinking to herself quickly. Fences gave her bad memories, thus why she stayed away and kept mute. No words for six years was quite a success, you know. All because of that day, six years ago. It had been default for her dad's whipping. She was no runaway.

Adjusting her bag on her shoulder, Marie sighs and begins to walk, intending to go behind the girl and past her, so to be unnoticed and avoid conversation. Just as she passes the girl though, her bag slips off. As she grabs for it, she tumbles forward and kicks the girl's back with her legs.

Marie remains shocked, and helpless against the fierce girl. Circling her heart one more time for good measure, she backs up a few inches. She was usually very balanced, but something about that creepy old jack made her unstable. She stares at the girl, fearful. In the mess one of her photos had flown under the force, forever folding the brunette's body in half. Marie remembered the girl. Not really her friend, more of a bossy brat, but her neighbor nonetheless. Marie rubs her deaf ear, a habit she would never seem to successfully shake. The other hand, though, was loose and flat on the ground a few inches from a sheet of paper. Useful, only with a pencil.

Standing up again, she watches the girl carefully. Then stoops down again and slowly picks up the pencil. Marie signs to the girl, knowing it useless but trying anyways. This would either irritate the girl or... irritate her more. Marie abruptly stops and jots down some things on the paper.

Then she begins to run around, picking up pictures and papers, coiling up the tape measure marked with different heights over the years. From the time she was four to last week. A few of the photos had names, Sarah, Daniel, Ma. Each one had it's own caption. "First day of work with Ma." "Playing with grandpa." "Sarah after mud fight." "Daddy's back after the bad thing." She had captured every little moment in her life, though most of the photos were in district 6. Some gave her nightmares, like her fathers torn back. Some were more nostalgic, like "The fence." Or "The first capitolite I see." It takes less than a minute for everything to be in her bag. Then she peers uneasily at the girl again. Marie knew not her who she was or what she was doing here, only that she was a threat. She places the last photo in her bag, one taken on her first day of work home in District 6. Her mother was guiding Marie's hand over different plants. Each was meant for something different. As it is dropped in, she sets the bag by her feet and begins to sign again, only to stop after remembering. Before she can bring her arm in though, it mis-flings and hits the strange girl's face. Oops!

Marie is trembling from head to toe, eyes widened, mouyh open. The girl had become an image of horrifying threats, and behind her, a contraption that could kill her faster than she could blink. Would this unnamed girl actually do it? By the hostile look in her eyes, Marie knows she would. Perhaps even without hesitation. She had recieved three strikes, and one more would no doubt overfill that tiny metaphorical bottle. The pressure on her shoulders begins to hurt, so she wriggles away, knocking her bag over again but paying no attention.

She writes a few more things on the paper in her hand and drops the pencil. Then she signs again, repeating the same pattern to spell Marie. Maybe she could calm the girl down. She does it slow and seperated a few times before stopping. If nothing at all the girl would at least guess she was not going to try anything. Or the opposite.

Marie struggles, pulling away, not caring how much her hair hurt. She had pushed the girl too far, but it was not over yet. She could still get away. But when her face is pulled towards the girl's face she snaps, losing purpose, and screams. Even if it was a peacekeeper, she would not care. They would both go down. She would not, however, lose her life to a malfunctioning machine. She is stopped, and thrown under. A twisted, ear shattering scream rivets through her as she struggles to get up. Her heart rate picks up in her fraction of a second. Her head turns toward the girl she did not know, utter terror planted on her face. Her life plays in a moment.

Grandpa held her in his arms, proud of his first granddaughter. Marie would be the next child to hear his adventure stories. He sings her a lullaby as his own dauhter comes in to feed her. A little brown curl falls into her face, and he moves it away lovingly.

The peacekeeper smiles, all part of the trick to find out Mr. Lujen's secrets. Little Marie had fallen for it. In a few days, he would be at the whipping post with a good reason.

"Run," he says, shoving her through the hole in the fence. "Remember you will never be a runaway. You will bd my little wandering star."

So Marie snaps the picture. The picture of the terrible peacekeepers. Her father's back after being whipped. Her grandfather reading his book. Marie after her mud fight. Marie doing a split. Her mother cooking a squirrel. Every moment of her life, frozen. Somewhere in her bag she had directions to find her picture box.

"I'm sorry!" Marie yells, crying the first tear in six years. Saying the first words. Her words ring in the air, even as the pump comes whamming down on her frail and cowering body. Straightening her messy curls. Blinding. Deafening. Taking her life, short as it was. Fourteen years of uselessness and stories and pictures. All because she would not speak.

As it rises back up, revealing her mangled body, the note sits on the edge, flattened but readable.

"MARIE LUJEN 14 DISTRICT 6
SORRY
I AM NOT A RUNAWAY
KEEP THE PHOTOS"