spencer adric <d9> fin

cw/tw: robbery, murder of an innocent, gore, vomit

There are two screams, but the first one doesn't come from me. Instead, it comes from my mother. I hear her from across our home as a window shatters. I stay hidden, as Mom always told me to do if something like this happened, no matter how much I wanted to run out and help her. Then, I hear a gunshot. Her screaming stops. I know she's gone, and tears begin to fall down my face. It's a quiet type of crying, though. I don't want them to know where I am.

I can hear the intruders looting our home. Things are falling, breaking and shattering. With the riots that are going on outside so close to here, no one would bat an eye at the sounds coming from our home. My whole body is shaking as I sit there, hiding and praying that they won't find me. It takes what feels like an eternity before the noises stop and I no longer hear the intruders' voices. Our front door opens for a moment before slamming shut. I assume they're gone, but I wait a while longer to be sure.

As soon as I feel that it's safe enough for me to come out of my hiding place, I emerge. I move cautiously, my body shaking all the while, throughout the house. There's broken glass on the floor. A photo of Mom, Fable and I lies on the floor, the frame's glass shattered and the photo torn. I take the photo carefully out of the damaged frame and fold it up with tremors in my hands, slipping it into my pocket.

Slowly, I move to where I knew my mother was. She had been in her bedroom. I'm terrified of what I'm going to see, and I don't know how I'll respond to it, but I try to prepare myself the best that I can. Before I turn the corner to enter the room, I take a deep breath. I have to be ready for this. Then again, how ready could a twelve-year-old boy ever be to see his mother dead?

When I first entered the room, the only thing that registered in my mind was the amount of blood that there was surrounding my mother's body. I felt the nausea surfacing, as if I were going to vomit, an quickly ran from her bedroom to the attached bathroom, allowing myself to puke into the toilet. I wiped my face, stood up, my whole body shaking with uncontrollable tremors, and went back into the bedroom to force myself to witness the scene once more.

My mother lay there, a terrified expression on her pale face and her deep brown eyes wide open. There was a bullet hole through her neck, blood still pouring from it, pooling on the ground beneath her as she lie there in it, lifeless. Her hair, curly like my own, was matted with blood, unlike my own. Then came the second scream: my scream. It was a scream of despair. It was the scream of a child who'd just lost his mother, and was finally coming to terms with that fact.

When I finally got myself to stop screaming, I was hyperventilating and sobbing. I had to get away from here, especially after I'd just screamed. The intruders- no, the murderers- may come back if they had heard me. I rush to the kitchen, dizzy and lightheaded, trying to keep myself from just falling over and passing out. I find a pad of sticky notes and a pen, take one of the notes, and jot down a quick message for Fable, because I know that when he returns from the Peacekeeper Ball, he'll come to check on Mom and I.

"hide and seek, come find me"

That's what I wrote on the note that I left. I put it somewhere where Fable would see it, and went to where I always used to hide when we played hide and seek as kids. It wasn't too far from the house, so I hoped I'd still be safe. Underneath a pile of leaves and twigs was a small wooden hatch that I could fit myself through. I slid down into the hole, into the small, well-hidden shelter. Fable would know where to find me. I just had to hope that this well-hidden shelter was well-hidden enough.

My brother Fable and his fiancée Fiona eventually found me. Since then, I've been living with the two of them in their home. They've done everything they possibly could to try to make me feel better about what happened, but I knew that at least Fable was just as broken as I was, if not Fiona as well. Fable was the only blood family I had left, now. How was I ever supposed to feel whole again?

I grew up very close with Fable, yes, but him being the only one around made things feel so different and a bit uncomfortable. We used to play music together all the time. He'd teach me how to play guitar, and now he focused most of his time on Fiona. Which, to be honest, I get it, but it's still frustrating. I often wish things could just go back to how things were before I lost most of my family. If we went back that far, though, Fable may not have had Fiona, and I couldn't do that to him.

Now, I'm creeping up on my first reaping, the eighty-fifth Hunger Games. A Quell. Death. Fear. More death. I'm not ready. Fable is safe from the reaping now, ever since that boy Fangor saved him at his final one, but I'm not safe. I have many, many years ahead of me.

I'm easily scared, sure, but the Games are something anyone would be scared of. I'm not physically very strong, so that wouldn't help me much, either. If I were picked for the Games, I'd be screwed, and Fable would have no one left but Fiona. Would he be okay if I were gone? Would he be okay if I died?