What is Dying?
I always thought dying would feel like morphling. A slow numb warmth spreading through my body, paralyzing me so that I couldn't move, I could only relax and stare or maybe nod off to sleep as death overtook me. I've seen it happen enough in District 6; the old and the wasted, the starving and the sick, they save up enough coins to buy a lethal dose of morphling from the pharmacist's son who sells suicide doses on the black market. Sometimes someone will take pity on them and buy it for them. It's a peaceful death, they just drift off to sleep and stop breathing. Painless, fast, and then peace. But death is nothing like that for me. Oh I've been poked by needles alright-but not the little needles full of morphling that bring about an end to pain and a peaceful floating. Oh no, I've been pierced by the stings of dozens of Tracker Jackers and the pain is so intense I want to scream but I can't. All I can do is lay there and watch the trees and grass and animals turn into a psychedelic horror show as the swelling cuts off my airway and I'm ripped away from my body with a pain that burns more than I ever imagined the flames of hell could. Even the devil couldn't create a torment like this, it took the evil of man to create the venom running through my body. Even as I draw my last wheezing breath I feel pain. Quite a change for a girl from District 6 where morphling was so plentiful that pain was almost nonexistent; I was wrong death is nothing like morphling, death hurts.