*Ash lives in District 2 with his life going downhill. He doesn't know where down will lead him, but he keeps going simply because he has nothing to lose.* Summary for you.
Chapter 1
*Ash's P.O.V*
The sonic boom, cracks through the air of the silent courtyard accompanied by a searing pain on my back. It was the fifth lash. Another sonic boom cuts the silence and my skin, my blood spilling onto the cold stone bricks. Then came the seventh, the eight, the ninth and then the final blow came. By that time the skin on my back was ragged and bloody. Two Peacekeeper undid the bindings on my wrists, exposing red raw skin that had chaffed during the whipping. The two Peacekeeper's then walked away, their boots making slight taps against the wet stone floor. Slowly getting on one knee, I stand up casting my head down to look at my blood seep between the gaps between the bricks, staining the stone a deep red, like an old scab. The Peacekeeper who whipped me, yell "Let this be a lesson! Any insult to any Peacekeeper will be dealt with, severely..."
With that the Peacekeeper walked away. It was difficult to tell most Peacekeepers apart as we - 'the peasants' - are not allowed to know the names of any of the Peacekeepers, the only way you could know was that if your friend or a member of your family had been 'recruited', taken from their beds at night and never seen again. I walk past the shops in town, the smell of yeast drifts into my nose as I walk by the bakers and the clatter of stone being worked in the masonry. I know District Two was better off than the rest of the districts... almost certainly better off than District Thirteen, demolished and desolate after the Capitol dropped nuclear bombs on the graphite mining district. every year they would show us the same footage of District Thirteen, I knew it was the same footage, I could tell because you can see a mocking jay fly in the corner every single time. Same footage, just a different presenter, projected into a false reality.
But why would the Capitol show us the same footage if District Thirteen was still in smouldering ruins? It was that I came to a decision. District Thirteen was still alive and well, secretly plotting, planning from the side lines and shadows. I was sure of it, although it was a hunch, I felt it was a solid hunch. Willow and I would tell stories to each other about getting past the borders of the suppressed District 2 and finding new life outside the poverty of Panem - the Capitol excluded, of course - but that dream was crushed to a fine powder that floated away in the winds. It was destroyed when Willow was shot. She was charged 'With the crime of possessing and practicing with weapons', but I knew there were no weapons to be confiscated, because I knew the truth. They had staged the crime and shot her as an example.
The sharp bang of the gun was quickly replaced by silence. Her blood ran through the cracks and dried on the stone floor. They carried her body away still with the drawstring sack over her head. I wished I could see her face once more. They had taken it off to prove it was her. She had pleaded for mercy and begged on her knees but still they shot her. Still they used her to install fear into the populace. To me she was everything. To them she was just another example, another device, another pawn.
A sharp pain delves into my subconscious, dragging me back to the present. I've tripped on a curb, and hit my head leaving a red mark on my forehead that I know will bruise. I open the rotting wooden door, to find two Peacekeepers standing in the one room house. One has their helmet on while the other has his helmet resting on his hip, letting a shock of blonde hair spring free in the wind and his eyes were a pale blue, like icicles glittering in the sun on those frosty mornings with clear skies. But his face was held in a grimace, like he was disgusted by my very existence.
"You will be coming with us," he told me. I don't understand what he means, have I done something wrong in between the whipping and getting here? No, I don't think so but I can't be sure.
"What is my sentence?" I ask like the many times before. Thankfully the Head Peacekeeper thinks the statues I make are beautiful, so therefore will not let me killed but will let me be whipped, beaten and put in the stocks. The man laughed a cruel laugh. "Oh no, no sentence. You're just coming with us." he says reminding me that I'm outnumbered, two to one. " Look, this may sound cliché, but we can do this the easy way or the hard way." I don't move at all, refusing to comply "Look at me!" he yells. I raise my head to look at the pale icicles, freezing me in place. He reaches a hand under my chin, and uses the other to cup my cheek.
"What is he doing?" I think to myself. I tell my body to move his hands away, slap him, kick him, but my body won't move; it's paralyzed by those frozen oasis's with ebony cores. I calm myself and detach myself from my emotions, trying to look at it as if I was a person about to walk into the room. Not that anyone would - I had no friends, who would care if I went missing, only grudging people I work with to scrape a living together with ; I had no family, my mother died giving birth to me, my father was killed in the Hunger Games on his final year, getting my mother pregnant with me and the only cousin I knew was shot two years ago. Two years ago exactly on my fourteenth birthday. Suddenly I found my emotions. That's right, today is my birthday and for my present I get a lovely whipping wrapped up in the lie of a Peacekeeper. The man said something.
"Sorry, what?" I ask politely as I could. The man laughs another horrid laugh.
"I guess it's the hard way then." he says as a hand with a sweet smelling rag clamps over my mouth and the world goes black...