Special
As long as I can remember, I have hated my name.
My name is Special. Special. It is truly awful. Even here in the Capitol, where bizarre names reign supreme, I only know one person who has it worse than me, and that is my twin brother, Unique. There is nothing unique about my brother. He is just like everyone else in the Capitol.
My parents are wig makers, but that does not come anywhere close to accounting for their vast fortunes, which seems to the case with everyone in the Capitol. They fail to grasp the concept that if you must name your children Special and Unique for purposes of promoting their special and unique qualities, they are obviously neither special, nor unique.
I'm not any more special then the next person. I'm different from other people, but isn't everyone? The only special thing about me is that my differences are different from other people's differences. I don't think this makes me fundamentally different, which is, actually, a part of my problem.
I'm different because I hate the Hunger Games.
The first Hunger Games I can remember, I was about six. For months, everyone was looking forwards to it, so I was too. Mommy and Daddy liked the Hunger Games, so I did, too. I didn't understand what was going on. I just thought that seeing the pretty people in pretty clothes learning to do fancy things was fun.
Mother and Father threw a big party for their friends to watch the beginning of the games. Everyone else was excited, so I was, too. I remember clearly, all the grown-ups watching with bated breath as the tributes rose from the ground, as the cameras panned across their faces, as the countdown started.
It had happened that a few days before that, I had cut my palm on a knife, and in fact, I still have the scar. It had hurt like hell, and I was bawling and terrified, my palm bleeding, dripping blood on my dress. And that was a relatively small cut, treated quickly with ointments and bandages.
So imagine my shock and horror when the pretty people started doing fancy things to each other.
The first death caught clearly on camera was a tall girl driving a knife into the heart of a small, scrawny boy and twisting. Then pulling the knife out. Then driving and twisting again.
Unique was enthralled. He still loves the Hunger Games.
But I had what my parents later called 'a tantrum,' and had to be taken out of the room, forcing my Father to miss the first ten minutes. It was a massive and ongoing source of embarrassment to my parents, especially because it was the only thing their friends ever could remember about me, even when I grew into a teen who seldom smiled and even less frequently cried.
That's another thing that perturbs my parents – my infrequency in smiling. "Smile," Mother always says. "You live in the Capitol. What reason could you have to be sad?"
"What reason have I to be happy?" I always answer.
I believe my parents love me. But I think I'm a little more special than they bargained for. They don't know why I can't smile, and why I can't be friends with other kids. They can't understand why I don't relish clothes and make-up. They don't understand why I go out of my way to find clothes that are as simple as possible, quite a feat in the Capitol. They don't understand why I keep my pale blonde hair, long only at my Mother's insistence, un-dyed, my nails simple and short.
No one really understands me and very few even try. I've earned more than a few funny looks over the years. From my parents friends, from Unique's friends. From teachers, from classmates. From Unique. When Unique looks at me, it's more or less one constant funny look.
For as quiet and sullen and plain as I am, Unique is equally loud, extra-verted, and flamboyant. My polar opposite, really.
When we were twelve Unique walked in on me in my room, where I was sitting on my bed, crying.
On principle, I refused to root for anyone, on grounds that it was too much like betting, and betting on the Games is sick. But that particular year, I couldn't help but get my hopes up for a boy, just my age, from District Eleven. He made it to the top eight. I saw them interview his large family, him the oldest of five. And, against my will, I began to hope that he would win. It seemed that he could.
Which made it all the worse when the pack of kids from one, two and four killed him, slowly, oh so slowly.
When Unique found me while I was hugging my knees and crying. I had screams echoing in my ears, and I was already dreading the prospect of having to hear about it the next day. I don't know if it was by chance, or if he had sought me out for the purpose of rubbing salt in my wounds, but I would bet on the latter. He was always very perceptive. Too perceptive, for my tastes.
"What are you crying about now?" he'd said, disgustedly. "It's just a game. Anyways, he was bound to die anyways." He left then, before I could point out it was a game where every year, twenty-three people died.
But that's the whole problem. The Hunger Games are just a game to the people of the Capitol. An exciting sporting event, where bets are to be placed, and any losses are inconsequential.
Essentially, they're brainwashed, but, somehow, I'm not. Maybe it was the slice on my palm when I was six.
That's when I adopted my personal philosophy of, 'don't cry, not ever, no matter what.' I haven't either, since that day.
I see the reapings of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. I see Katniss Everdeen volunteer for her sister. Her voice as it says, "I volunteer, I volunteer!" will haunt me forever. The fear, the raw desperation, saving the life of someone she loves the only way she can – with her own.
I'm there on the streets when the tributes make their way. My parents can make me be there, but they can't make me cheer along with Unique, for the tributes, all but one of whom will be dead within a few weeks. So I stand there, my expression sullen, my arms crossed.
I see Katniss Everdeen make her fiery debut. I can see, beneath her smiling exterior, how she hates this place. How she hates the people. They're cheering for her now, but tomorrow, they'll be betting on the odds of her survival past the Cornucopia.
There is a moment where I believe her eyes meet mine. And I allow myself to hope that she will win.
Ultimately, Katniss Everdeen is the one who helps me makes my final decision. That night, after my family is asleep, I slip downstairs, to my Father's desk, where I chop off my waist length hair like I've been wanting to do for years, leaving it in a pile on the desk.
After that, I pack light. Into my non-descript backpack goes: a map of Panem, pilfered from my Father's desk, an antique from before the Dark Days. A change of clothes. Water and as much light, non-perishable food as I can find. Matches. Bandages, disinfectant. A kitchen knife. And finally, a picture of my family, because the truth is, I'll miss them.
It's not a very good photo. Right before it was taken, me and Unique had been squabbling about something, and we're looking pointedly away from each other, and our parents are smiling too hard to make up for it. I stick out like a sore thumb, because I refused to dress up. But perhaps that's best. A reminder of my family, and a reminder of why I'm leaving.
The last thing I do before I walk out the door of the only home I have ever known is write a note.
Mom, Dad, Unique,
I'm sorry. I love you. I'll miss you.
-Special
I am the daughter of my parents. I am Unique's sister. I am the sullen girl in the background. I am the girl Katniss Everdeen made eye-contact with once. I am Special, and I might even be special. I am sixteen, the same age as Katniss Everdeen. And if, at sixteen, Katniss would volunteer for the Hunger Games, then I would leave the Capitol.
I know the risks. I've seen the avoxes, and I know that some of them ended up that way because, like me, they were Capitol citizens who thought they could leave. I don't have much knowledge of survival skills, outside of Hunger Games I was forced to watch.
But I do have some things. I have a new, short haircut, and my head feels new and strange now that it's free from its burden. I have a clue – District Thirteen. I have definitely seen the same clip of a mockingjay wing more than once. And I have a fervent desire never to see another Hunger Games again.
I will never see Katniss Everdeen's Hunger Games, and I will never return to the Capitol, and I will never be ridiculed for hating the Hunger Games, ever again.
I may not make it far, but I'll be damned if I don't die trying.
I walk through the dark streets of the Capitol until I come to the end of the last paved road. I turn around. The Capitol is a glowing, shining beacon in the dark, which only goes to show that light does not always equal good. But from here, this God-forsaken place could be almost pretty.
I turn back, the lights at my back casting my shadow in front of me. My toes are at the very edge of the pavement.
Logically, I know that the concrete will not act as a physical barrier. But it seems that once I take that first step off the safety of the sidewalk, I will never be able to come back.
I stand there for a moment, poised between a safe, predictable and brainwashed past behind me, and an uncertain future ahead of me with no guarantees of anything, not even the freedom from the Hunger Games and refuge from the cold, unfeeling Capitol that I seek.
I take a deep breath, and I step off the path, into the night.