The streets we lined with early morning business as Katniss strolled along the coal-caked road towards the school house. Primrose, only 7 years old, skipped happily alongside her older sister, only stopping to giggle and point out a small herd of goats passing through the town square.
"Baa yourself, little goat," Katniss chided. Prim stifled a fit of giggles.
That day at school, an odd bell sounded from the square. More than half of the school was called out and released early. To their surprise, there stood there mother, who had come to fetch them. Her expression painted blank and draining to a ghostly white, she showed no emotion as they came. Katniss thought perhaps a fire had started in the distance, and she looked up in wonder as she watched smoke billow into the sky.
Taking both children by the hand, Mrs. Everdeen rushed them off. Past the cobblestones and shops lining the square. Past the coal-ridden roads of the Seam. No, they were not going home, only coming closer to the smoke, and something in Katniss' body filled her with such fear. She caught her brow as it furrowed. 'I must be strong. For Prim, for my father,' she thought.
Primrose, taking notice in both the look on her mother's face and the panic of those around, began to wail, but as they pressed on, Katniss released her mother's grip to hold Prim's hand.
The smoke was only over the ridge now, and a large crowd had begun to form. Ropes prevented the crowd from pushing forward and into the danger. Peacekeepers were guarding the mouth of the mine.
Katniss' stomach lurched, and before she realized what she was doing, she found herself running. Pushing through the crowd, through the cries and sobs of families, despite the protests and shouts, she found herself at the front of that rope. Falling to her knees, she stared. And stared. And stared. With strict determination, she would not look away from that opening.
The mine belched with smoke still, releasing workers to the relief of their loved ones. Her father would soon come. Out through the rubble and smoke, he would come and hug them and laugh in happiness, like those families around her as they reunited with their sons, fathers, and brothers.
But he never came. Her mind numb with the pain of loss and chest sore with a combination of inhaled smoke and heaving sobs. As the crowd thinned, the smaller group remaining hushed with the truth and realization of the event. Cries of pain soon filled the silence.
Katniss buried her face into her hands, and released a sound so full of pain, so full of loss and grief, it would echo in her memory forever. And at only eleven years old, young Katniss Everdeen would never forget the day she began to lose everything.