ellis gallagher, d12. [fin]

I've never said it out loud, but I almost enjoyed the Reapings. The quiet atmosphere of the district on Reaping day was not one a quiet that I experienced often. I knew that Reaping day should be a depressing and sullen day while we mourned for the inevitable loss of my fellow classmates, but I couldn't help but feel comfortable in the silence.

Chaos always followed my family, no matter the circumstances. The chaos usually arrived in the form of my father, who's drunken shenanigans always riled up conflict in our small Seam home. He was almost always found with a bottle to his lips or knocked out on some form of narcotic. It was hard loving someone who was present but in the absence of sobriety. I couldn't even begin to understand the circumstances that produced such an incompetent father as he - but here he is, six children later with no mother in sight. Silence was not but a dream in our household.

My mother disappeared years ago. No one knows where she went, or if she was even alive. There's many theories that roam around the Seam - none confirmed, and certainly none known to us. Not even my father knew, and even when asked, he just mumbled incoherent obscenities and changed the subject. My older sister Petra took my mother's spot as matriarch of the family, sacrificing her body and livelihood in the coal mines just to provide for us. And of course, the rest of us of reaping age took extra tesserae to get us through the winter.

I'm often compared a lot to my mother - both in looks and personality. When she was around, we always shared a special bond that none of the other siblings had with her, not even the babies. We both experienced emotions at an extreme rate - anger often turned into violence, happiness turned into intense motivation and celebration, sadness turned into days on end spent in bed without moving. Our impulses basically controlled us. I knew right from wrong, but my brain held me hostage in my own body, not allowing me to think for myself sometimes. I envisioned wherever my mom was, was a result of her inability to rationalize situations. Sometimes, I felt the same longing feeling to see what lay beyond the District. On some days I spent hours staring at the gates lining the border of the District, waiting for the right moment to escape and live in freedom. That moment has yet to come.

I often spent a lot of time comparing my inabilities to my siblings. My older brother was not much older than me, yet he held a potential to succeed that the rest of our family could not even dream of. In comparison, I had already predetermined my destiny to be much like my elder sister's - slaving in the coal mines, living day to day trying to survive in this world. It was a cruel world, and I planned on bringing no children into it. Watching Petra's struggle just for our family had turned me off of the idea entirely. Petra had a compassion in her that ceased to exist in me. I often thought about what was wrong with me - why my siblings were so perfect, so full of potential and brilliance while I reminded everyone of our absentee, bipolar mother.

I have never lived without fear or certainty. As long as I can remember, even when my mother was around, we took each day as it came. I never knew where or when my next meal would come, and what circumstances brought us the money for that meal. We often dabbled in minor crime. It was a wonder none of us had ever been to the slammer - I suppose my father's drunken shenanigans kept the peacekeepers hands full enough that the rest of our family could slip underneath the radar. My older brother and I often became each other's accomplices - he was the brains, meanwhile I was the brawn. I was the getaway driver - with my speed and agility much better than my brothers. Even my little siblings had begun to catch onto the manipulation tactics that we fought so desperately to shield them from. But alas, this world was not one we could hide from and preserve our childhood innocence.

Gay. It was a word that seemed so simple, a word that could slip off of the tongue with ease, yet it was one I could not muster the courage to say out loud. It was a ridiculous fear - these days, your sexuality had almost zero baring on yourself as a person. Somehow, I still looked at the hypersexuality of my older siblings and felt ashamed of myself. I didn't understand why Ripred decided to make me the black sheep of the family, a gay, bipolar teenager who's cowardice was so extreme I couldn't even admit that I didn't like girls. I knew my family already knew - I had never pretended to crush on girls in my youth. I suppose I felt as if admitting it to myself prevented the preservation of my masculinity, something that I held onto so dearly, especially when it came to protecting my sisters.

Coming of age in District 12 was not the picturesque ideal you'd think it would be. You see, I should have been spending my early adolescence swinging on rope swings, laughing with my friends as the sun shined on our lightly freckled skin. Instead, we spent our days with the aching of hunger in our bellies and smog coating the viscera of our lungs. And yet all I could do is pray that each of my siblings made it through their prime years feeling that - instead of the incredible odds stacked against us that we instead would find our bellies full in the Capitol, creating a layer of fat in our skin before we were sentenced to our deaths in the Games.

fc: fabian gray