Secrets Revealed [open//three max]
Aug 21, 2010 17:59:52 GMT -5
Post by Jasik on Aug 21, 2010 17:59:52 GMT -5
Icarus Blight
It took me years, but I finally figured it out. My origins, from where my parents fled, the place that they would never disclose to me. I’ve wanted to know just what district I came from, but no amount of pestering, no amount of begging would get them to tell me which district they ran from. And then they died, and so did the secret.
Or so I thought.
My father’s journal, the first entry logged the day they fled. I’ve always been convinced that the secret was hidden between the covers, disguised by layers and layers of words. At first glance, one would suspect that my efforts were futile. Every time the district was mentioned, the number was blotted out with ink in order to hide the exact area from me. My parents didn’t want me to go back to that district. They genuinely thought they were protecting me from a terrible fate of endless toil, or starvation and poverty, or daily abuse from “Peacekeepers”, who were also mentioned in the journal. Maybe I’d be better off just forgetting what I’ve learned from the journal and just tossing it in a river, watching it float away with any desire to return to the district.
But that would be a waste. I would’ve just let go of all of those years, letting them wash away with my newfound knowledge. I’ve always known the intentions behind combing those pages. Find out where I’m from so I can return home. But the wilderness is your home, not some terrible district that your parents didn’t even want you to return to, a voice says forcefully from the back of my mind. I shove the thought away. I just want a glimpse, just one glimpse of the district that may one day be my home.
I look back on the moment when I discovered the district, when the odd pattern of numbers on that page in the back of the journal finally made sense. When I realized which number was the number of the district. Was it a feeling of dread or of joy? I can’t remember. Emotions were all conflicting with each other at that moment, and I can’t figure out which was dominant.
And now, sitting by the dying embers of my fire in the stillness of the night, I don’t know what my next move will be. I’ve always loved life in the wild. It’d take a lot for me to give it up. But... is the prospect of life in a district enough? A life of routine and ease, with the annual trips to the reaping? No, it’s not enough. But if I go, I can always leave. I can always slip back under the fence and take to the wilderness, picking up on the life that I’ve known forever. But would that small taste of life in the district linger, beckoning for me to return?
But is a life wondering what might’ve been any better? A life where I’d be yearning to realize how it would’ve been to live in a comfortable district life? In that moment, I know that I need to go, to find out what life in District Eleven would be like. So I settle back on my bedroll, watching the embers of the fire burn themselves out, leaving me with only moonlight.