I'm a couple days into my suicide now. I sit listlessly on the floor, waiting, as I have for weeks for news of my fate. I run my hands under the thin carpet on my floor. It's a good way to occupy myself, so my brain doesn't think of Prim, Finnick, Boggs, and my other dead companions and loved ones. I have been running my pink fingers on the carpet underneath when my fingers touch something. Paper.
I pull the scraps out from under the rug. They appear to be fragments of kitchen recipies, a few lines of poetry, other general papers. The handwrititng on these in neat, a woman's writing. Scanning the papers I recognize a few words, Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, Quarter Quell, avox. Looking over a little more carefully now, I see my own name and Peeta's. Then I sit bolt upright. The name of someone I knew both here and in 12 is written on these raggedy papers. The name of a peacekeeper, Darius.
More interested now, I find what looks like the first page, and read the first few words. The story of an Avox, Lavinia Crane. Lavinia. The red headed avox girl. Something about her last name sounds vaguely familiar, I think. Then, I curl into a more comfortable position and start to read:
The story of an Avox
Lavinia Crane
I've had it better than most Avoxes. Waiting on tributes, year after year who go to their deaths is probably better than shoveling sewage or working in the underground tunnels of the Capitol and never seeing sunlight. And I do prefer having a miniscule smidge of freedom to slaving away underground and never seeing the sun. Waiting on 12 is probably the best too. The tributes are the kindest, a difference like day and night between them and the harsh, spoiled residents of the Capitol.
I was one of those harsh residents too. Years ago, I lived in one of the higher-class homes, as the daughter of a Gamemaker. When my best friend Alynna was killed for crimes of her parents, my brother, Cadmium, and I rethought living in the Capitol, and stowed away in the train going to District 8 after the Games. I learned later that it was because of my father that I was an Avox and Cadmium was dead. He thought it would be fitting to have me serve for the rest of my life, as I had had Avoxes myself, and hated work. He thought it would be better to kill Cadmium on the spot. The next year he became head gamemaker.
Honesty, though, I mostly liked my silent servitude, because, I couldn't hate those I served. I remember cruelly punishing my Avoxes for trivial things. Most of my masters were tolerable, and I even liked some of them, until she came along.
Katniss. I suppose she wasn't so bad, seeing as the only reason she was here was because she volunteered for her sister, and was going to almost certain death. I resented her though. I did so because she could have saved Cadmium and me. Could've come to our aid, instead of watching as Cadmium got speared and I captured. She and the boy she was with would've probably become avoxes too, but I still resented her.
The day I first served her, she recognized me almost immediately. I knew who she was when I watched 12's Reaping, having had nightmares about her for years. She stared at me for a moment, and then cried out "I know you!" The others around the table looked bewildered, I shook my head franticly. I had hoped that she wouldn't recognize me, but she did, and to cry out so was worse. I hastily retreated back into the kitchen. Through the doors, I could hear the adults ask Katniss how she knew me, and heard the boy tribute say I was a "dead ringer" for someone named Delly.
Nevertheless, I avoided her in the next couple of days. I didn't need her to try to talk to me. Our lives didn't really mingle afterwards, until the day she threw her dinner around the room and screamed. I was sent to clean up her mess, and we sort of became friends. Then, she went into the arena, a month later emerged alive. Alive, but with the Capitol furious with her. I thought I would never see her again.
Six months later, she came for a week while on her victory tour. A week later, a new avox joined our ranks. This one, though, I knew. He had been a friend of Cadmiums, years ago, before he entered Peacekeeper training. Darius, the once loud and jovial boy my brother knew, now a robot, and a silent one at that. In writing notes on the few scraps we hoarded, I learned that he had been working in 12, he too knew Katniss, and he told me my father was dead. When Katniss held out those berries, Seneca Crane should have blown her to bits. His last mistake cost him his life. Apparently, they had aired an interview with the new head, and Darius had figured that my father was dead.
Eventually, Katniss came back to participate in the Quarter Quell. On the third day, the games took a twist, and Katniss was taken to District 13. 13, where Cadmium and I had once sought shelter, were the enemies of the Capitol lie.
I am writing this to make sure the person, you, who is reading this will not doubt the cruelty of the Capitol, a place where if you make a mistake, you die. Where leaders slaughter their nations children every year. Where 80% of its citizens go to bed hungry every night. Please. Remember what you read here and rebel. Help kill Snow and the other officials. I can't because; by then I'll be dead. They will torture and kill me and make Peeta Mellark watch. But I cannot wait to leave this cruel world I know, to see Cadmium, Alynna, my mother, the tributes I liked. So please, fight back. Rebel. For Cadmium. For Darius. For anyone you know who has died or been tortured at their hands. Thank you.
I put the last scrap down, my hands shaking. I had had no idea who Lavinia really was until I found those scraps. Peeta had said she was dead, probably died the day she wrote this. I hadn't known who she was and had been. Hadn't known she was the daughter of a man I hated. Hadn't known she was the daughter of a man I despised. Hadn't known how much she had really suffered.
Then I do something I haven't done for weeks. I use my voice. I begin to sing.