[Six] Degrees of Inner Turbulence (Ada's Speech)

"We beat death!"

Really, Calliope Bloom, really? I'd found myself thinking yesterday, amidst the crowd's cheers.

We didn't beat death.

It feels cruel, almost deceitful, to stand in front of Riordan's aunt, or Vesper's baby stepsister, or the remaining Eckharts, huddled in a clump with their mother, and shout it in their faces -

Eighteen tributes from District Six have stepped up to volunteer in the past twenty years. Two of them allegedly being allowed to return from death is worthy of celebration, to be sure, but we can't take credit.

"Yesterday," I begin, "Mayor Bloom stood here and posed a question to all of us: what's next? I'm here today to answer that question."

"I'm here today, because there are challenges we face far greater than even death. After all, science comes easy to us - that's what we're told, isn't it? That's what we're taught to believe since childhood.

But it is not science alone that will sustain our district. And the medicine we make may sustain a body, but it is not sufficient to sustain a mind."

"We are a district of disillusioned youth. A district of high expectations and low hopes. A district where our citizens are so desperate to escape that children willingly flock to the Games." Six tributes, from a district with no fighting skills? they'd whispered, back in the 75th; that hadn't changed much in the past five years. I frown, and an image of forty-seven fallen petals scattered across a classroom desk pops up in my head. "A district divided, or so goes the Capitol gossip."

The image vanishes, one last red rose petal seeming to linger a fraction longer before fading. "How, one might ask then, can we fix these minds so they're happy with the district? After all, we are a district that takes pride in fixing things, and in finding solutions. But our greatest asset is also our greatest flaw; there's no pride in fixing the wrong things. Instead of dismissing our youth as lazy or broken, let us ask ourselves instead: how can we fix the district to be a place worthy for its citizens?"

"The scars of childhood last a lifetime, they say in our Institute - and it's not always the trauma we see. It's words swallowed, shame buried, the anxiety of burdens from outside and from within slowly killing the spirit through a hundred shallow cuts.

I've seen twenty years of students pass through my classroom. To some, it is a refuge; I leave my door open to them, and offer what little I can. I'm here today because I decided that was no longer enough.

My pledge to District Six as mayor will not merely be to solve this crisis. My pledge is to give the children of today and those of tomorrow what they deserve - to live in a district that makes it easier to understand that every life is worth living."