67th Reaping [D12]

DENIAL - “Eira Craft” The sound was impossible to ignore, yet impossible to accept. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t. Somewhere in my mind, a voice convinced me that it was all just an illusion. They voice didn’t speak my name. It couldn’t be. Ever since my fathered died a few years ago, my life had been misery. I lost all of it, my father, my life and my self-respect. I went beyond far to provide for my family, to feed my starving siblings. I had been through hell before, but it had never seemed as impossible as this. I had been convinced that that was my burden to carry, I had to live through that hell, so this one wasn’t coming for me. It was somehow impossible, that the world could be this cruel. It finally became real to me, when I felt the little push on my shoulder from a girl next to me. She was trying to wake me up, to get me back to reality.

ANGER – From nowhere, the rage caught up with me. The capitol expected me to be a part of their little game, to die for them, even worse – to kill for them. How could anyone do that, force children to do that? How could the common people, the ones who sat in their expensive sofa that us district people had slaved to make, how could they sit there and watch the children they enslaved fight for their life, for their own amusement? I wouldn’t accept it, I wouldn’t. I’d die here today instead. The moment I was supposed to let my rage out, the moment I was supposed to start a riot, to freak out I saw her. In front of the line I saw my little sister, so vulnerable and innocent. Her eyes were red, wet and swollen. I realized that my actions would affect her to. I would die either way, but she wouldn’t. None of them would.

DEPRESSION – I had to leave them all, I had to be a part of their game. A toy for the capitol to play with, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It didn’t matter anymore. It was as if all the misery I’ve ever went to was just a preparation for this moment. It was as if none of it really ever mattered, it would all just be shattered. Sooner or later, I would be a product of the capitol. They would make me their warning sign, one of the hundreds of children who got slaughtered to scare of the others. I was supposed to be the example product, the one who didn’t really matter. I was the female from District Twelve. I wasn’t supposed to live, I wasn’t supposed to win. A few had managed, but they weren’t like me. They were strong and beautiful, capitol favorites. If not smart or beautiful, then clever, gifted with a sharp mind. They always had something to make them unique, that made them special. I was none of that. I was a simple girl, used and broken since long.

BARGAINING – If I was to die, couldn’t it be somewhat less brutal? Couldn’t it be without suffering, without the games? If President Snow wanted to kill me, couldn’t he do it now? Why didn’t they just bring us up on stage, and put a bullet through our brains? It would fast, I wouldn’t have to be frightened. I would have to fight, I’d rather just die. The questions were racing through my head. I came to doubt everything I ever knew about myself. I came to the point were I would trade every single child in that square to spare my own life. Every single one except for my siblings. I never knew how highly I evaluated my life, until it was finally threatened. The games had already turned me into a monster. I wouldn’t accept that. I rather die as me or live as their toy.

ACCEPTENCE - It was as if my entire life somehow had been leading up the this point. This wasn’t supposed to happened, not to me at least. But it did, and in the end, I accepted it as the reason of my own death. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline that suddenly rushed out in my blood. I turned my head I around to get one last glance at them. I had to see them to know it was real. She had pressed herself to the fence, an old man with long with beard, a complete stranger was holding his arm around her shoulders. They all mourned for her sake, they all mourned for me, even if I wasn’t even dead yet. We all knew it. I wasn’t dead but I might as well be. I was doomed to die, right in the moment when that man on the spoke my name in that microphone. When he picked up that piece of paper, I was doomed. It felt silly somehow, I almost felt the need to laugh. That little piece of paper would be the reason for my death. I would die, because someone wrote my name on a little piece paper. She held my younger brother in her arms and she cried, she cried a river. Her entire body was shaking and I could see even from that distance that she had a hard time catching her breath. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel anything. It was as if the shock had got the best of me. I suddenly noticed that the girls standing around me had backed off a bit, with all their eyes focused on me. The truth finally got to me. The sympathy hiding in their eyes, I knew way to well. Every year, I been one of them. I’ve been the one who was turning my head to get one last look on the child that was going to die. It was different this year. I was the child that was going to die, and they knew it as well as I did.

I could barely walk on my shaky legs, but somehow I managed getting myself to the podium. I never cried anymore, and this moment I was thankful for that. Crying made me seem weak, and with my appearance in consideration I didn’t need to look much weaker. I need to stay strong now, I couldn’t let myself shatter into pieces again. I never quite understood if the entire towns square had suddenly fallen silent, or if I was to caught up with my own thoughts to be able to hear anything else. Here in twelve, being reaped had never been a celebration. I already knew that, but it felt surprisingly quite, surprisingly dark all the sudden.

As I stepped up to the podium, I saw them all. The hundreds of children who was scared of being me. The few children that knew me, the ones that mourned my early grave. Most of them were my siblings, my beloved ones. I would die for them, not the capitol. I would die in their place. None of those girls would be dead this year, but who know in the years to come? Somewhere in my mind, I knew my death didn’t matter. Too many of the would die anyways. I had to tell myself it did, I had to tell myself my death would be heroic, beautiful. It was the only way to accept it, to accept being a tribute. font]