Lurking About {Onyx}

Elden Morgan

Late at night I could hear the crying.
I hear it all trying to fall asleep.

It's always hard to keep your mind off of something when it keeps crawling back into your life. For me, that something that decided to crawl back into my memory was my brother's death. Alder was a sweet an innocent boy who died much too young, and for some reason, even though it had been two years since the terrible incident, I was having nightmares about his murder night after night. It would wake me up in the middle of the night, and I'd be sobbing, covered in sweat with my blankets twisted around me. The murder of the young boy would never leave my memory, no matter how hard I tried.

Not only did I have that terrible memory on my mind, but I also had the reaping on my mind. I wasn't exactly scared of myself being picked, no. I was more so afraid of my closest friend, Fangor being reaped. I promised him that if he ever got picked, I would volunteer for him. This meant, however, that not only did I have to worry about myself, I had to worry about him. The promise I made to him wasn't one that I planned on breaking or abandoning.

I hated having so many things looming over my head. On top of the reaping and terrible memories, I still had schoolwork that I had to focus on. It wasn't as stressful as the other stuff I was dealing with, but was still a bit irritating to have to handle nonetheless. At that time, I just knew that I needed to find some way to get my mind off of all of my troubles that I was facing.

That morning, as soon as the sun rose, I did what I had to and then headed out the door. I had eaten a very light breakfast, and didn't do any more than I had to before I left. Walking down the street, I decided that venturing around the District may be the best way to distract myself. I wandered about for a while, and thought about anything besides what was bothering me, and didn't think about the other stuff. Or, at least, I tried not to think about those things. It was very difficult to do so, though.

On my walk, I decided to make a slight detour into a part of the District that I had only been to a few times. It was a bit run down, and I hadn't been there much, but I would luckily still know how to get home from there. It didn't appear that there was anyone else around while I was out and about. At least, up until I came across a junk pile and thought I saw someone among the rubbish that was in it.

Surely there hadn't been anyone there, right? I couldn't be sure, however, so I doubled back and looked at the junk pile once again. There was definitely someone there. A girl, younger than me. Was she okay? I decided to speak up and find out as I approached her.

"Excuse me, are you alright?" I asked the one lurking in the junk pile.