my own bravado [.kiah drought plot.]

I was dying. Slowly I as rotting away from the inside out. The doctors told me that I didn't have long, that soon the caner would take its toll and I would be nothing but an empty shell waiting for my life to end. It was depressing, waiting in my ally way for my life to end. I was poor, I had nothing, and nor did my sister who had to support the both of us as I could a barely walk down the street without tripping over. I used to be able to run and have fun like the rest of the children but then the cancer took away my foot and I was left with a limp and a cane to help support me…

But I didn't want to be a waste of life, I wanted to be able to help people and thats why I now found myself in the deathly heat of District Ten. The capitol had dome allying for people to help the district which was dying by the hand of the Sun. At first I had’t really thought much about it, I had just thought the capitol was jealous that some other begin was killings its subjects and not themselves, but begin here now I can see just how serious the situation was. Around me people were begging for water, animals were dying… The whole place was a mess, the ground was dry as a parched sponge. I had never seen a drought before, district six always had water, sometimes too much, but here, my sweat almost evaporated immediately.

Because I was from District Six the Capitol was in sited that I go to the place where they like, I don't even know, look at stuff to make the gouda more nut riotous or something… But after I insisted to the that I was so poor that I couldn't afford to get an education so they shoved me off to the people who were delivering water around the place. I had a whole keg of water grasped tightly in my right hand, my left hand clinging to my cane. I must have looked pathetic, trying to hobble through the district clutching letters of water and an old wooden cane. “Damnit,” I curse as the keg slips from my hands falling to the ground with a loud bang.

Hastily I lean down and desperately try and grab the thing and pull it back into the safety of my arms, but it was just so hard with me clutching my cane and trying to keep balance as well as trying to pick up the large wooded container. I curse once again and sigh, hobbling over to a wall, my free foot kicking the keg over to my destination.

Sighing I lean back against the wall and drag a shaky hand down over my face. I had only been out here for a few hours and already I was struggling. I had come all the way out here to try and help these people but I couldn't even carry a keg of a few letters of water down to a few thirsty workers. I was pathetic, absolutely useless. Why was I even here? I was just making the situation much worse? I couldn't even help these people, I had come here with good intentions only to fail. All I had wanted was to help…

Frustration fills me and I turn around my fist flying into the wall. Pain fills me and I bite my tongue to hold back the grunt go pain. Sighing I look down at my hand to see the skin grazed and blood oozing from the fresh wound. I close my eyes and hold my hand close to my chest my mind flying back to a time when I had been so andy about myself that I had beat my hands bloody until my sister came round and held me tight, telling me that it was all ok… she had told me that I shouldn't be angry at myself, that it wasn't my fault… But despite all that hate had still surged through me, hate that was directed at myself, no one else.

After a moment I open my eyes and lean down to pick up the keg. It takes me a few tries to get it into my hands, but eventually I get it secured firmly in my hands. I grab my cane and take off back down the street, only to be stopped a few paces into my new journey. “Here, let me help you with that.” A voice says and I look up to see the smiling face of a girl who looked oddly familiar. Which was really odd, because I was in a different district and no face should have stuck out like this one did. But after a moment it hits me, in front of me was the winder of the 65th hunger games, Saffron Lowe. I try to summon a smile as she pulls the keg from my hands and into hers.

“Uh, Thanks,” I say tucking my injured hand behind my back out of site. “It heavy, so maybe let me carry one end?” I ask nervously, my fingers fidgeting with the cane that I clung to tightly. I was tempted to say something about how she was a victor and ask her what it was like, but then I thought better of it. She must get questions like that all the time and it must be horrible to be constantly reminded of the 23 other children who she had witnessed die. "How long has this drought been going for? Everything looks so lifeless, to be honest I hadn't excepted it to be this bad."

Saffron lets me take one end of the keg and I cling to it, trying my best not to look weak and feeble in front of her. I didn't want to look pathetic, I wanted to look capable, I wanted to look strong in front of this girl who had faced a much worse nightmare than myself. All my life I had tried to prove to people that I was more than I actually was, I have always tried to be better than I was, always putting 110 percent into things I did. It wasn't because I felt like I had to because I was a cripple and more because I wanted to be able to prove to others that just because I was a cripple didn't mean that I was totally worthless… But had I ever exceeded? Had people seen past my injury? Not really, they would take one look at me, give me a look of pity and turn to the next person. But here I had a chance, I had a chance to prove that my whole life wasn't a waste of time. I could do something worthwhile before my cancer devoured my very being.

"Too long.” There is a grimness in her voice that makes me glance n her direction, my piercing blue eyes taking in her fiery red hair and soft brown eyes. When I looked into them I could see the terrors that haunted them and my heart began to ache for her. It must have been so hard to continue on with life after experiencing what she did- at such a young age as well. The year her name was called was the year that the capitol had decided that they would only send children in between the age of 12 and 14. It had been a horrible year, a year which would be unforgettable. It disgusted me that the Capitol could be so heartless to send children so young into the games, some had just reached the age of twelve, they hadn't had a chance to live a life yet, it was taken away from them way to early. "Help should have happened months ago.”

She was right, the Capitol had waited too long, people have died, animals and crops too, and they were only sending help in now. The Capitol needed the people in the districts, we were what kept the Capitol running and on its feet. If the Capitol didn’t have us they wouldn't be as strong and as wealthy and as well feed as they were today. So why? So why had they waited till people lost their lives? Shrugging to myself I push the useless thought to the back of my mind. What was the point of me asking useless questions that I knew I would not get my answers for? I was just filling my head with thoughts that were going to get clustered and confuse me.

"You don't talk like a local. Where ya from?” Saffrons voice pulls me from my thoughts and I tun to her once again, my blue eyes taking her in. I could here her accent, in fact everyone around me had accents, it was very different to the way people spoke in my home. I liked the accents here, they were thick and had a homey feel to them. Where back at home they almost sounded posh there words laced with an education that you would not receive around here.

“I’m from Six,” there is no affection in the way I say it, no sense of pride, nothing. District Six wasn't really a place that I would like to call home. Not many people were poor in district six, but those who were poor were really poor. My family hadn't been poor, not until the cancer struck. My treatment devoured our money leaving us homeless to live in one of the dark alleyways where we lived now. Coming here, living here for the short period of time that I will be, will be the first time in years that I will actually be able to sleep in door and not on some dirty mattress in a corner of a filthy alley. The alleyway that was now empty, my sisters having gone missing, my parents gone… just me on my own… for so long my sisters had supported me but one by one they disappeared leaving me behind to try and support myself. “I came to help out, they wanted me to work in the labs, but I don't know anything about science and what not so I offered to deliver the water around to workers… not that I am doing such a swell job,” I indicated at the Keg that we shared between us.