Danna Silverbell ⚓ D4 [fin]

"Fear."

Danna's Sometimes Irrational Fears:

spiders&outdoors&reaping&hungergames&
blood&heights&peacekeepers&drowning&
fish&crabs&death&
unfortunatethings&unexplainablethings&
lifeingeneral

"Fear is the price of our instrument."

It's a saying I've heard a little more than I desired to. How much fear has grazed the skin of my family members, cut deep into their bones and immobilized their bodies, for me to stand here now, violin in hand? Voices laced with worry, faces lacerated with fear and sleeves stained red from the blood that they shed. Bravery and stupidity are pretty much synonymous to me, and I know that every person who has been branded coward feels the same. I'm too afraid to communicate like everyone else does. I can't form a complete sentence. Most of the time, I remain silent. The years of speech therapy did me no good; I am, and shall always be selectively mute.

It's all because of fear.

There's a price for everything. You pay for food. You pay for clothes. You pay the price for your crimes. There's a price for life.

I don't know how many prices I've had to pay myself to be standing here today, all the scars and blisters on my hands, and on my heart. I'm constantly complimented for my looks. Freckles scattered across my face. Eyebrows thick and untamed, and round eyes a chilling pale blue. Stringy mahogany hair spilling around my shoulders. My lips allocate a lot of attention, full and pink, and curved slightly at the ends. My face is round, with a wedged chin and chubby, child-like cheeks.

But sometimes I wonder - do they see beyond my pretty face?

"The pretty girls lie."

That's true. I am - or rather I was deceptive, and sly, and I lied more than I breathe. I was almost criminal-like, acting shady and living on lies. I could say one thing, and the next day I'd say something totally different. They called me a hypocrite. And I totally loved showing off. I have so many cool quirks, like doing archery, and playing recorders with my nose, fire eating, and playing the violin of course. Then there's my synesthesia.

Every letter has a color.

Though while I'm nice to look at, and interesting to watch, I am imperfect. Ugly on the inside. That's what everyone says. They're not wrong, but I can't help but hope that one day my name won't be presented with a negative connotation when it passes someone's lips. How many times have I heard someone whisper, 'Danna Silverbell' in spite when I pass? Sometimes I dream of leaving District Four, leaving Panem, but I know that even if you leave your home, your home will not leave you. Your secrets and your sins shall haunt you forever, taking over your mind until it caves in, and your heart, the one mechanism that keeps you going no matter what, malfunctions. And then it's done.

People don't expect much of a sixteen year old girl. They expect to meet a bubbly, imaginative little nuisance who is still transitioning from childhood to womanhood. They expect her to be obsessed with fashion, boys, and the latest trends. I am nowhere near that. I shouldn't have suffered so much, being so young and innocent, but guess what? I have.

How did fear paralyze me so, and make me transform into an empty shell of myself? My story is a complicated one, one that I don't like to write about. Though, I guess this time is an exception.

People tend to think of their parents as stepping stones throughout life. They use them as a handrail to lean on, until they're ready to move on and have kids of their own. It wasn't like this for me. There's a large operation in District Four, called Mavri Agora, or the Black Market. To people outside of the business, it's just another place to purchase goods. When you're a part of the operation, that's another story. They sell all kinds of things in there. They even sell kids. Sometimes they trade infants at birth, or just pay the parents and take off. Some women are hired just to birth children to sell. My father is the one who runs the Black Market, and is a mass producer of the children they sell here. He can't even remember which ones are his children. He just throws his hands on any girl he sees, and I constantly have to remind him that I'm his daughter, his blood.

The Black Market doesn't sell children to just anyone. I bet that half the people in District Four don't even know that they are basically holding children for ransom (I kinda hope they do, but ya'know.) They examine all their customers carefully, and then the customers go through an "authorization process", meaning only certain families are allowed to purchase children from the Black Market. According to my father, I was "a special one" and only deserved the best of the best. He kept me locked in a back room for a week, feeding me only bread and cheese until my new family came by.

Best family, my ass.

They were all boys. Every last one of them. The mother could barely keep control of her own sons, and the father couldn't be bothered to stick around. My four brothers were David, Derek, Delta and Drake, and they were the most annoying little pests ever. I was twelve when I moved in with them, all of them in their late teens. They felt the need to harass me every second of the day. They spit in my lunch, wreck my room and run off their mouths all day long. I vaguely remember a time when I was fourteen, when I was showering and I had laid out my clothes on my bed. They broke into my room, grabbed my clothes and took off. I had to go on a wild goose chase around the house in only a towel just to find my clothes. And guess who came along and decided to rip my towel off and shove me outside in the pouring rain? Delta. And guess who ended up running around the district with no clothes on?

When you're born into the Black Market, you work at the Black Market. The children of Mavri Agora all have to learn at least two talents. I took on violin lessons and classes on how to perform with fire. I didn't want to be an archer to begin with, but I was forced to try archery. I was allowed to quit at any time. Worst experience of my life, but it was still worth it. I'm slowly learning how to do it with my feet, but my arrows always come up short and my balance isn't that great. I always do foot archery in a sitting position, which is wrong, apparently, because I got reprimanded for it.

Once my mother took me to the town square, where a large fraction of the district had gathered to watch the Bloodbath. She asked me, "Danna, darling, what do you see?" I spied with my little eye, I looked as hard as I could, but I could not see past the blood and the death. I told her this, and she shook her head. She was disappointed, and she answered the question for me; "That, my dear, is what's in your future. You will fight for us, and you will volunteer. Keep up your best reputation."

Mother made me write the words on my hand for a week; Victors have good reputations. I told her that I understood, but she didn't care.

After a while, it seemed like everyone either hated me or wanted to take advantage of me. The boys' eyes were wandering. The girls seemed to want to get rid of me. My mother only saw me as a pawn to be played in the Hunger Games someday. And of course, there was that little streaking incident.

I sort of started to retreat into my mind after that. I was normally the teacher's pet at school, and I had a lot of friends. Now that I was going through my dark phase, I turned into a rude, stuck-up slut like some of the girls I used to despise. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I started showing off more and more, and I slacked off in all my duties. My grades dropped, I didn't sell anything at the market, and by then I could've been pretty much deemed useless. I didn't keep up my good reputation, and I really think the guys started to see me only as an object of pleasure.

I was disgusted in myself. I really was. My mouth would not stop running, my fists would just keep flying, and I just couldn't keep my pants on. I couldn't stop. I was slowly losing control of myself, and my mind was about ready to cave in. I let myself crumble slowly, until I could take no more. I had completely receded, like the ocean's tides. I stopped speaking to people, and became more reserved at school. I spoke more through my music than through my mouth. I had to make a chart for what certain notes played on the violin meant.

Five strings, 20 notes.

_{C string - 0 fingers - A
C string - 1 finger - B
C string - 2 fingers - C
C string - 3 fingers - D
G string - 0 fingers - E
G string - 1 finger - F
G string - 2 fingers - G
G string - 3 fingers - H
D string - 0 fingers - I
D string - 1 finger - J
D string - 2 fingers - K
D string - 3 fingers - L
A string - 0 fingers - M
A string - 1 finger - N
A string - 2 fingers - O
A string - 3 fingers - P
E string - 0 fingers - Q
E string - 1 finger - R
E string - 2 fingers - S
E string - 3 fingers - T
C string - 0 fingers - half note - U
G string - 0 fingers - half note - V
D string - 0 fingers - half note - W
A string - 0 fingers - half note - X
E string - 0 fingers - half note - Y
A/E strings played together - Z}

I'm well aware that no one can really comprehend my new form of communication. I don't care. They don't need to hear what I have to say. I don't mind not getting a chance to voice my opinion. At least not for now. I know that someday I'll have to speak again, but for now I'll just embrace the silence. I know the old Danna is just hiding in there, somewhere.

She's just waiting to make a comeback.