samantha dane / district 4

You were born in darkness.

Quite literally, you'd never even seen the sun until you were fifteen and a blond-haired son of a retired keeper broke the rules and took you topside.

You'd never even smelled fresh air before that day. He'd only said yes because you asked with a smile and a wink, but you'd been so grateful—so completely in love with the beauty you'd been denied all your life—that you pushed him up against a tree (a real tree!) and kissed him right on the lips. He stuttered and tasted of the disgusting processed chicken sausage they always serve in the mess hall, but you wouldn't have traded that moment for anything.

It was the first time you ever truly felt like you could breathe.  

Since then, it's all you can think about. The world outside, or rather, just above the bunker you've always called home. You beg the boy to take you again, even promise there will be another kiss if he says yes, but he's scared to death what will happen if anyone finds out. He's allowed to be out there, granted access by his father's high rank in the defenses of Thirteen, but you don't care. You'll do anything to see the sun again. 

You swear to never tell another soul when he finally agrees to a second trip. He delivers the moon that time, and it is as if he plucked it from the sky above just for you. It's big and white and even more beautiful than the ball of fire in the sky you witnessed once before because this thing glowing above comes with something he calls stars. Little beads of light that paint the darkness of night. He says they're not even really there; that light travels so fast from that far away that its life has already ended by the time we see it.

What else is out there?

You ask him, completely engrossed in the things he says, in the insane amount of knowledge he has, but a part of you is jealous. Angry, even. Because he gets to learn about stars and planets (that's what he called them, but you thought the word was stupid), and animals and plants. Why does he get to know all this and you don't? And then you remember its because you were born ten miles below the surface of the Earth to a morphling addicted mother and a father who was lost in the pandemic that ravaged Thirteen a little over a decade ago, (It took him quick and without warning, and a part of you will never forgive this place for killing them.) while he was born to a retired Keeper father and a mother who saved lives. There is at least 103 floors between your cramped quarters and his, for lack of a better term, penthouse. 

In the eyes of your home, he's better than you and therefore worthy of the world's knowledge. Whereas you and your older brother are lesser and made to lead lives filled with hunger and hard labor. And that's why when he kisses you beneath the stars a week later, you don't feel what you know you should. Happy and smitten and grateful for the brief glimpse of above ground. Instead he just tasted like stale liquor and privilege, and as he backed away with a smirk on his face and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, you decided then and there that you would never be the type of girl to beg for scraps again.

ᕙ ᕗ

It took a year to plan, your escape. You contemplated asking your older brother to join you for weeks, to leave this place and never look back. It's not home. It can't be, you told him, on your knees begging him to come with you. We can't live like this, in here, when there's a whole world out there. He didn't laugh; he's never been cruel like that, but he did say you wouldn't get very far. Not alone. Not without him.

It broke your heart that he didn't believe in you, that he didn't think you had what it took to change your life. But what were you supposed to do? Stay hidden in a storage space beneath the floor for the rest of your life? While your mother spent each night in a different Keeper's bed just to get another dose to keep her sane. You knew you deserved more than that, more than a life underground with no father and a mother who didn't care if you lived for died alone. And you knew he deserved more than that, too. But he was scared, weighed down by all that responsibility your own existence had put on him. He was never going to leave your mother to die here alone, despite the fact she'd never do the same for either of you.

But you weren't going to die here, below ground, already buried deep. So, you thought. You schemed. You planned. You did dirty work in the darkest corners of Thirteen. You did things you'll never forget and things you wish you could. But the moment you set foot into the forest and never looked back, you knew it had all been worth it. 

It was a grueling trip. Nearly two weeks spent in the bitter cold of the deserted wood that surrounded Thirteen. Then another three more weeks spent hidden in crates atop a smuggler's boat, surviving on nuts and sips of water from the boy you'd paid to let you aboard. And just as you thought you were going to drift off to the other side alone at sea, the ship docked with a loud thud into the harbor of a brand new District. 

Wake up, your guide whispered in your into the cracks of your crate. You stir gently and squint as the side of your wooden prison is pried open and a familiar face greets you. He offers you a hand and as you take it, you step up and out, beaming.

Welcome to District Four.