India Rose, Avox

Sometimes when I can look at the sky, the blue sky, I can imagine a world of freedom where there's no suffering. I'm only five and yet I think such scary thoughts, troubled thoughts, ones that normal five year old children shouldn't even dream about. I still remember the day where I heard Daddy shouting from downstairs. I was playing with my old ragdoll. One of her eyes was poked out and her arm dangling by a loose, poorly knitted thread, but she felt like a close companion to me. I wore my best and only frock, as it comforts me to wear pretty things. To feel like an ordinary, innocent girl makes me happy. "Hurry! Downstairs, now, and take everything important to you!" Obviously, I grabbed my ragdoll Cindy and a few old pieces of clothing. Underwear, my special glittery pink comb. My sister Maggie tugged me downstairs and now she wasn't pestering me. This was serious, by the look on her face.

"Daddy, who are those men in white?" I inquired, facing the Peacekeepers who stood holding these scary looking weapons. I think they're called guns or something, and I saw him raise one at the sound of my voice. Daddy fell silent, and then there was a loud boom and blood poured from his head. He crumpled to the ground and Mummy pulled me away from his dead body, tears streaming from her face. I killed my own daddy, and I'll never forget it. The Peacekeepers were faster than us. One picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, as I screamed and punched his back, howling with desperation and fear.

Mummy was tugged away by another man and she called my name. Someone poked Maggie with his gun and led her away. I was carried away with Maggie. Mummy was taken in another direction. We left District Two forever. This flying machine transported us to a big city that the Peacekeeper explained was the Capitol. I was silent the whole journey. Little did I know that 'white' was my very last word. Then they took us into a frightening white room, very very bright, and brought out big knives. I thought they'd kill me. "Indie! They're turning us into Avoxes!" Maggie screeched just before a man sliced at her mouth. I wailed but then the razor sharp blade hit my tongue as well.

The pain was unbearable as I felt my tongue dispatch from the rest of my mouth, separate, and metallic tasting blood dripped from the empty stump left. It wasn't comfy. I'd tasted blood before. Once I fell over and licked the red liquid from my arm, thinking it was some of the leftover strawberry sauce that we had as a special survived-the-reaping treat for Maggie. It tasted awful, but I grew accustomed to the taste. It gave me inspiration, the horrible taste, and as I continued licking my wounds as they came, I thought it was quite nice. Only now the pain distracted me from the familiar taste of blood. Have you ever tasted blood before? People assume it's horrid. Next time you get a graze or a cut or something, just try a little. I swear, it's not as bad as it seems to be.

After our tongues were cut off, we were shoved into a line of other poor children and adults who had suffered the same fate as us. All kinds of people; different hair, different genders, different skin, different clothes...different districts. Girls and boys as young as me tasked with being a slave to the Capitol. The days were all the same; being lined up and displayed for Capitol men and women to be gawped at and examined. I hated the days, the sheer sameness of them, but then I was whisked off on my fifth birthday.

The man was a mean person, and he wanted me to try and stay out of the way. He told me to clean the house. I remember when I was walking around downstairs, clueless of what to do, and he asked me where I thought I was going and I realized I was walking towards the door. He whipped me, and something red came out. It was more blood, just like when we had our tongues cut off, but there wasn't as much. He whipped me three times and I collapsed on the sofa and blacked out. When I woke up, he grabbed my wrist and took me back to be returned to the line of Avoxes.

From then on I've just been waiting until somebody came and got me. I'd be an avox for the rest of my life. And I've never seen my sister Maggie. Sometimes, on terrible days, I forget I even have a sister. Or a mother. Or my deceased father. Are they dead? Or are they serving a wealthy family? Mummy's always been a good cook; has she got a good position cooking for a rich family? Or is she sweeping the dusty floors? Is Maggie supposed to clean a whole mansion with her own skinny arms and run around mopping up with her bony legs? I have no idea.

wip