Lilliana Mason, District 7 ~ FIN

Sirens call for me in the night. My eyes are open, wide, staring up at the plain white ceiling. I've had a nightmare. A bad one.

My name is Lilliana Mason. I live in District 7 with my mother, father, five sisters and two brothers. I love them. What if something unmentionable happens to them? What if I'm left all alone in the dark, hidden from view, tainted? I would be terrified, and abandoned. I would be lost and I would never be found. They would never come back to me, not even Rosie, whom I believe is the strongest of us all. No. I refuse to let them face the unmentionable. The unmentionable fate that has been brought upon many. I won't tolerate it. I won't sit down and chortle like some people I can mention. Some people are heartless, cold, cruel, calculating, but I'm not one of them. It's a pure relief I wasn't born into those bastards. Scum, that's all they were. Just scum. And I detest them with all my heart.

"Come and fly, little bird. Let Heaven take you away."

She was so kind whilst she lasted. She was an elderly woman, who visited the store every day. Elderly people were a treasure in the district. And she cared for me. She cared. In a way nobody would ever know. "And soon I will be off and flying as well," she told me sadly. She touched my hair, and I felt the wings spouting on my back, although when I reached to feel them she held my arm down. "No, little bird, for if you touch your wings, they'll vanish." Wise, whilst she lived. And then she died. God disliked her, it seems. I certainly did not dislike her. I adored her. The old lady who gave me hope, who assured me I was a bird. Her little bird, the important one, the one she loved.

Nobody saw my wings. "Liar, you never grew wings! You're just a fake." That's what they'd say, but I could feel them on my back, flowing from my shoulder. I have the appearance of a fairy too. A smooth round face, and bright blue eyes that I've seen so often in fairies in my dreams. I have my mother's blonde hair, and my father's pointed nose. I wish I had freckles, but my face remains stuck. "Everybody has flaws, little bird. Everybody, even me, even you." I had been shocked. "Surely not, Mama Bird!" But she nodded in dismay. I was astonished. Mama Bird had flaws? "Many. But as long as you believe in yourself, you can overcome these flaws. It is your destiny, Little Bird, to become a lady who has overcome all her fears, her flaws, her bad points. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And soon, Little Bird, you'll take flight."

For one of my birthdays, Mama Bird gave me a dress. A pinafore, perhaps you could call it. Whilst my parents worked chopping down trees and collecting wood all day, she kept me company in the lonely hours. School was overrated. "I'll teach you all I know, and I have lived a long and generous life, little bird. You will soon be as intelligent as I," she said, and I can almost smell the aroma of her as I hugged her, my head resting on her shoulders. She was shrinking and I was growing, but she kept me entertained and educated. She was my saviour.

Yet all good things must come to an end. And so did Mama Bird.

She told me I was a true fairy. A true bird, wings spread, prepared to fly. "I taught you to fly," she told me. "You were adept at flying, and I promised your mother I would take good care of you. And now here you are, my little bird, growing bigger by the day." That made me smile, and for the first time I giggled. "I love you, Mama Bird." And she promised she loved me too. She was perfect, all I ever needed. Instead of friends at school, I walked to her house, and she talked to me. She talked and she laughed and we talked some more. I was a poet, and I wrote at my writing desk in my spare time. She was the one who suggested I recited my poems to the kids at the community home.

But, with this horror dawned upon us, I wonder when I will take flight.