a world's relief | {one-shoot}

garnet millison

" and what should happen
if i'm afraid of f a l l i n g ? "

I cannot breathe.

I feel like I am underwater, struggling to cope with the fact that I am not okay, and neither is Pearl, while everyone else is having the time of their lives.

It is not fair. It is not fair to see highlight features of Pearl, of the "newest, hottest tribute: the gem from District One!" Because Pearl is not just a tribute. She is a person. And a great one, at that.

Almost as if the blonde girl were a burning building, I cannot take my eyes off of the screen. No matter how terrible the sight is, my vision seems to cut everything else out, my brain too concerned and worried about what might happen if I look away, even for just a second. The games have already begun, I keep reminding myself, from the moment her name shook my bones, the games were beginning. Occupying my time elsewhere may mean missing the last moments of my cousin's life. So, I stay in my room, or in the square, or at Pillar's house, anywhere that makes an eye on the Capitol's skies available to me.

It has been a few days now, way too many for my own comfort. I have been lying to myself that the day I am stuck in will be the last one filled with worry, that she will be home soon and everything will be back to the way it was before, but I know in my heart it is not really true.

Caeser Flickerman's old, worn face pops up on the screen, his hands folded neatly on a stack of papers. There are introductions, reminders of dates that I have already memorized. (The bloodbath is only two days away now...) Then he grins with the terrifyingly sincere joy that has always made up Caesar Flickerman as a person. "Now, this next moment is one I am sure you have all been dying to witness: the revelation of this year's training scores! As you all know, the training score of a tribute is a limited edition, first class piece of evidence that tells us, and you at home, just how talented the tributes actually are! So, without further adieu, I give you the training scores of the 68th Hunger Games!"

Pearl's face is the first on the screen, a moving picture of her doe eyes and her porcelain skin and the fear she is hiding so well jabbing daggers into my stomach. "Pearl Millison, with a score of..." he calls, and I close my eyes. The next word echos through my room, then repeats itself in my skull. Over, and over and over again. "Nine." Nine?

I glare at the screen, sure I have misunderstood, but there is a large, blood-red, bolded 9 circling her upper body like a hungry animal. A nine. Not a four or a five, like one might have predicted, but a nine. Leon Krigal won the games with a nine, some people have one with scores even less than that. A nine. Pearl got a nine. I listen to the other scores, and each one seems to be lower than the one before after the career districts, and when they at last announce that the boy from Twelve receives a six, I have already realized one thing: Pearl has gotten the highest score.

Part of me does not believe it. We are supposed to be the worst of our family, and perhaps we still are, but now Pearl is the best of the 68th.

I suddenly find a new sense of hope that was not there before. It is not much of one, but it is enough to get me through for now.

Because now, Pearl might really have a chance.