It stretches out endlessly. Creeping through the darkness, spinning and reaching like a monster from a child's nightmares. From our nightmares. It seems strange that it's only sound that makes me want to curl up and cry. But for us, the sounds aren't what they'd be to the innocent. We know that the wild hissing isn't just hot air through a pipe—it's the sound of gas being activated. We know that the furious cracks aren't backfiring trucks—they're the sound of a bullet leaving a gun. And we know that the screams we hear at night aren't some injured animal. They're the pain-filled screams of those who have no voices.
We are the Avoxes. We are the silent city workers, traitors and slaves to a merciful capital who have chosen to let us live. More specifically, we are the lowest of the Avoxes—the sewer workers. We are the people that even Avoxes pity. This place below is reserved for the dangerous, the treacherous, the insane. Take me, for example. I don't even remember my name—the other Avoxes when talking about me make a fist with their right hands, and swing it across to their left shoulder; a combination of moves that translates roughly to 'respected elder'. I still remember how I came here though. I lived in District 10 before. I had a job training horses for the Peacekeepers and the Capital. One of my horses got irritated with how the Head Peacekeeper was flogging it with a crop, and kicked him. The Head Peacekeeper came back to punish me for selling a dangerous animal. I lost my temper, and I punched him. For my punishment, I will be locked away from the horses and the sun until the day I die.
Do I regret it? Some days, surprisingly—no. I think that I would have gone insane, in that place above us. Starving, letting my children be slaughtered year after year, and being told to celebrate their deaths. At least down here, we are treated like what we are—slaves. That's not to say I would do it again. I have learned patience and gained the ability to stay quiet when necessary down here. It's a necessity. The loud and the vengeful die… and quickly. I have remained alive for quite a while now. If I am calculating right, it has been 12 years since I was lead into my dark prison. I am the longest-surviving Avox in my troupe.
The new Avox is working next to me, helping to shift a blockage that has cut water in one of the main lines. He is rather intelligent. He picked up the Avox spelling method—tapping your right forefinger on your tool once for A, twice for B, three times for C and so on—quite quickly. He's well on the way to learning the quick symbols for words that we created and passed down from Avox to Avox. When he arrived, the first thing he did with his ability to spell was to 'say' his name. I knew his name without him spelling it. His name is Cinna, and he was a stylist for the Hunger Games.
I haven't seen the Hunger Games, to be honest, not since I was taken. But the Peacekeepers down here talk to mask the sounds of our pain. They talked about the incredible entrance of the Tributes from District 12, with their cloaks of fire. They spoke about the dress that the girl Tribute wore, which seemed to be made of flames. Above all, they talked about the success of Cinna and how much their wives now wanted one of his creations for his own. But the next year, the tone was different. Apparently, he used some smoke and some burning cloth to slap in the face of the Capital. It wasn't until later that I heard the truth. He turned the girl—Katniss—into the figurehead for the rebellion that has been long time coming. I wasn't surprised when, less than a week later, his battered form was put into our quarters minus a tongue.
He was surprised when he woke down here in the darkness. He seemed to expect that he would be executed. I think it's obvious though. He's going to be the final blow from the Capital to the revolution that is raging above us. He is the man that lit 'the girl on fire'. He started the spark. And so, when she gets into the Capital like the guards speculate that she will, he will be taken back into the light. He will look at her one last time… and then President Snow will shoot Cinna. His actions started the flame, and his death will smother it. We know that this is the fate in store for Cinna and the so-called Mockingjay; just as we know that we cannot stop it. So we work on, forever in the darkness, with the sounds that stretch out endlessly.