Disclaimer: I own nothing
So this is a somewhat sequel to my story "This Is How I Broke". It's a nice companion to this story, but it's not really necessary to understand this. But it'd still be a nice gesture if you read it... And remember, reviews are always appreciated!
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Of Sisters and Hope and Raining Death
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He walks along the well-worn path, trying not to think. He concentrates on breathing. He has walked along this path many times before, sometimes terrified, but most of the time, laughing and joking with his friends, carefree and under the delusion that they were safe. But he knows now. He is still not safe, even though he is now nineteen and too old for the Reapings. He is not the same anymore. Has not been the same since the day his sister died.
Before his sister died, he'd practically been the idol of his school. Son of the mayor, set to inherit the position, rich, with always a little bit of money to spare, and a huge ego to match. He'd taken everything for granted. Whenever the Seam kids sent him dirty looks, he'd brush it off and joke to his equally shallow friends about how dirty Seam kids were. At the Reaping, he'd thought, 'Of course I won't be picked. I'm the mayor's son.' Then he'd turn to his equally shallow girlfriend and complain about why he had to be here, and they'd both laugh derisively.
Now that his sister was dead, everyone sent him looks as if he was some sort of kicked puppy. And he couldn't tolerate his friends or girlfriend anymore. Make that ex-friends and ex-girlfriend. He wasn't the same. And he couldn't believe that he had once been so shallow and blind. He had a new respect for the Seam kids, because he started to understand the terror they had to survive whenever they experienced Reapings, with all those tesserae rations they had to take. He understood that they were right. The Reapings weren't just unfair, or unnecessary, or mean; they were evil.
His sister's death had made him think.
Kayla had been thirteen years old, young and sweet and innocent and safe. At least she should've been safe, with only two ballots among thousands. Two. It got him thinking. The odds should have been completely in her favor. Why had she, the mayor's daughter, of all people, been chosen? And that was when he'd come to the conclusion…
It'd been rigged.
The Capitol had rigged it to send the mayor's family, to send all of District 12, to its so-called right place at the bottom of the heap. The Capitol had rigged it to send a warning to District 12: None of you are safe. We are in charge. They were willing to taint their hands with the blood of an innocent little girl simply to relate that message. And they had all gotten it, loud and clear. Well, most of them. But to George, it had related a different message:
The Capitol was evil.
And no one else understood.
Not even his own parents. They'd thrown an extravagant funeral, and cried and all, and they were more sympathetic of the Seam after that, but they hadn't gotten the other message. And now, they were fussing over a trivial matter, egging George to get married, because he was nineteen and all. But he couldn't get married.
Because no one else understood.
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Now, he walks along the well-worn path to the town square, where in a few minutes they will start playing an episode of the 50th Hunger Games. It makes his stomach churn, but he knows the punishment for being late. So he runs.
He runs, and the 49th Hunger Games, or at least the important bits of it, automatically plays inside his head. He tries not to think, not to think, and concentrates on the rhythm of his legs, running, the sound it makes on the cement, but he can't drown out her screams, can't drown out her screams, can't… drown… out…
He's at the town square now, and the Hunger Games are already playing, but he can't pay attention to anything except his sister's scream.
This is how it is like at every Reaping, every Hunger Games now. He can't concentrate. Can't watch it. All he can hear is his sister's scream.
Then there's a scream, a real scream. Not from his sister. He, and everyone else in the town square, looks around until they find the source. It's coming from a town girl around fifteen, who looks slightly familiar, but he can't place the name onto the face. She's screaming, and at first he has no idea what's going on, but everyone else in the square is giving her that look, that look as if she's a kicked puppy, that look he's so familiar with. And he realizes that she's pointing at the screen, and he looks up to see a flock of pink birds skewering their beaks through an identical girl. For a minute he's confused, and then he realizes. That girl on the screen is one of the Donner twins. And the girl screaming is the other Donner twin.
And he hears agony in that scream, and fear, and heart-wrenching grief, but he also hears… anger. And that's when he realizes something else.
She understands.
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A year later, he and the girl, whose name is Melissa, are married. He's learned a lot of things about her, like the fact that she's broken. And some nights, he wakes up to her screaming her sister's name, and even after he calms her down, she still sits there, shaking. He loves her—her honesty, and how real she is, not fake and oblivious to the cruel outside world. And he knows she's good for him, because seeing her broken like that motivates him to face the world with new vigor and get over his depression. Looking at her reminds him that he has it so much better, and there are things in this world still worth living for. But sometimes she is so difficult to manage. She never laughs and rarely smiles.
So he invites her parents over to live with them, at her request. He sees that it's good for her, and she starts wanting to live again. And it's good for him too, because his own parents had passed away a few months before, which had left him hollow for days. And that one cold winter day when they are all huddled around the fireplace, drinking warm tea, Melissa grants them with one of her rare smiles, a real one that reaches her eyes. And he feels like a part of a family.
Another year passes, and one day, Melissa tells him that she is pregnant, and they all rejoice. He, a father! But there's a nagging pain in the back of her mind, fear that the child will be Reaped. He can tell that the same thoughts riddle Melissa's mind. But today should be a day to celebrate, so he casts those thoughts out of his head and proposes a toast. And he hopes that Melissa will smile.
But she doesn't.
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When the baby is born, it's a girl, and they name her Madge, after his mother.
"My mother made me promise her that I would name my first daughter after her," he says in explanation. Melissa only nods solemnly and grimly, as if she's already choosing the flowers to put on her daughter's grave, and George bites his lip. He wants to make her smile.
"You can take her middle name," he says. "Make it long."
"Long?" she asks.
"And majestic," he says. "Like mine."
"Yours?"
He nods. "My full name is George Julian Christopher Romeus Elmer Brian Undersee."
She blinks. "George Julian Romeo, erg, Romus? Roman?"
"Romeus," he corrects. "George Julian Christopher Romeus Elmer Brian Undersee."
Her mouths twitch upward with just the hint of a smile. "That's long."
"Not as long as my dad's," he says with a large smile. "His was something like… Julius Andrew Fabian Gabriel Benjamin Joseph Alexander Undersee."
"Julius Andrew Fabian Gabriel… Gabriel…" She tries to remember the rest, but she can't.
Seeing her struggle with his father's name, he can't help but to laugh, loudly and heartily. It's a happy day; his daughter has been born, and it's as if his laughter is contagious, because the little baby starts to coo happily. And his wife cracks a smile and starts to laugh along. It's a gentle, tentative laugh, like she's afraid something bad will happen because she's laughing, but he thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard, and he decides this is officially the happiest day of his life.
"Then again, don't want to give her teachers a headache," he says when he catches his breath.
The baby coos, and her mother nods. "Madge Undersee is fine. She doesn't need all those middle names."
"Maybe she doesn't," he says, and he laughs again.
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Many, many years have passed. Now Madge is seventeen, and Melissa's in bed, clutching onto her painkillers. She hasn't laughed since the day her own parents died, fifteen years ago. Not to mention the recap of the 50th Hunger Games they showed during the same year. It's too much, and he can't manage her by himself, not with a young daughter on his hands. So he watches, helpless, as she slowly slips out of his grasp and into the world of her mind.
But whenever he loses hope, he remembers her laugh from that day so long ago. He tells Madge stories and raises her well, almost by himself. She's not like most girls from the merchant side, carefree and living in a bubble. After years of awaking to her mother's screams, she has gotten a hint of the message the Capitol sent to him when they killed his sister, so many years ago. He can't tell if this is a blessing or a curse. While he's glad that his daughter is not an airhead, he worries that she's not carefree enough for a simple seventeen-year-old girl of her age.
Of course, no one is carefree in times like this. Times of the Rebellion.
As mayor, he has done many things to make sure that District 12 is probably the least Capitol-dominated of all the districts. He purposely doesn't fix the electric fence that keeps them out of the forest. He purposely appoints Cray as Head Peacekeeper knowing that Cray isn't completely loyal to the Capitol. He purposely buys the strawberries that the Everdeen girl sells him, even when he knows they are poached.
But he has to watch as the district he has so carefully guarded is infiltrated by the Capitol, and his people suffer. He watches all the deaths that the Rebellion brings. He watches the 75th Hunger Games, another Quarter Quell, and feels like throwing up.
And he's tired of living. Tired of waking up to his wife's screams, tired of watching Madge age too fast, tired of watching his district suffer, tired of watching the deaths. Sometimes, his wife's screams mingle with the screams of his sister. And he worries that he too is going mad.
So that one fateful day, when the bombs fall from the sky, raining death, he welcomes it. And his last wish is that Madge will survive.
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Many, many years have passed. The Rebellion is over, a new era has started.
"It's finished," says Peeta, pressing the photograph onto the memory book page.
Near him, Katniss only nods.
On the page is a photograph of a girl, smiling, in her white Reaping dress with the golden Mockingjay pin fastened onto the folds of her dress. The caption reads:
With hope she is doing well wherever she is, dedicated to Madge Kayla Maysilee Donner Undersee.
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