"And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love. Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above, but if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you've been here before?"
~Bastille, Pompeii
Innocence Lost
It was like any other night when the bombers came. Most of Twelve was asleep, the few that were not sat glued to the screens, watching Katniss Everdeen fight for her life. The night was quiet and still, warm, balmy almost. There was nothing remarkable about it.
Terra woke up thirsty just after midnight, and rose from her bed to get a drink of water from the rain barrel. Quiet, so as not to wake the others, she crept out the front door and eased it open, taking care not to let the hinges squeak. She held a glass cup in her left hand as she closed the door gently behind her and twisted the knob back to hold it shut.
Nothing moved in the shadowy streets of the Seam, not even a stray cat or dog. Either they were asleep, or they sensed some hint of the terror to come and had already fled. Terra was simply glad to be alone, and did not question their absence.
Padding across the cobblestones, still a little warm from the day's heat, she raised the lid on the wooden rain barrel and dipped in her glass, watching the ripples spread through the water in gentle rings. She took a long drink, and dipped the cup back in for another. The stars twinkled in the clear sky, winking, or perhaps nodding a warning.
Finished, Terra moved to the stairs in front of her door and sat down, pulling her knees to her chest to bundle them under her nightdress. No longer thirsty, she felt too awake to go back to bed just yet. She watched a few fireflies lazily circling a guttering streetlamp.
Suddenly the lamp went out.
In the distance, there were a few shouts. Perhaps someone stumbling in the dark, or a jaded spectator annoyed that their channel to the Hunger Games had been cut along with the electricity. Terra shook her head. In the Seam, they had learned not to care if the power ran or not. The Games were a punishment, not a privilege, and most were glad of an excuse not to watch.
The first wave of bombers hit without warning. One moment the skies were clear, the next they were swarming with angry hovercraft. One moment the night was dark, the next moment it glowed to life as buildings leapt into flame. Terra was thrown off her feet. She heard the sound of breaking glass, and the screaming began. Faster than a thought windows and doors opened and people ran from their houses, running and shrieking in their fluttering nightclothes.
In the distance, over the screaming, someone was shouting.
"Get to the meadow, get to the meadow, everyone run to the meadow, there's nothing to burn there! The power's off, we can get to the woods! Run to the fence!"
Head swimming, tired and shaken, Terra pulled herself to her feet and ran after that voice. She forgot about the others, still in the house. She forgot that she had no shoes and was wearing only a thin grey dress much too big, when the ground shook and heaved under her feet she ran with no thought but to save herself.
The air grew hot with the burning and smoke stung her lungs. People shoved and jostled; she fell. Still the voice, ragged with smoke, called: run to the fence, run to the fence!
Terra ran.
She ran until the smoke gave way to pine and the screaming to silence, she ran until the horrible flickering flames were behind her. She ran until her legs dropped her to the ground, panting, great dry sobs that shook her chest. There were others who ran. There were others who lived. But without looking back, she knew the truth. Twelve was gone.
She had thought everything would look better with the sun, but it only showed the scope of the devastation. A smoky haze hung in the air, flakes of ash drifted like the ghosts of snowflakes.
Among the rubble and the devastation fires still burned. The cobbles were roasted black, still radiating heat. Not a house stood as far as the eye could see. Even the Justice Building was a cracked heap of broken stone and twisted metal. Everything was either blasted or baked frozen in its last position. Bushes with black, lifeless leaves. Flowerpots, cracked and filled with fine gray ash. Ovens and fireplaces only hardened puddles of melted steel or bronze.
Broken glass littered the paved road, crunching under Terra's borrowed shoes. Eddies of fine dust swirled around her feet.
Worse were the bodies. Stacked like charred cordwood, sprawled among the wreckage, roasted statues and fragments. The faces bloated and unrecognizable. Most of them she would have known, if anyone could know them now. Many more would never be found. A great, choking weight of outrage at the savageness and senselessness of the bombing filled her.
Destroying Twelve had been a statement. Instead of a written declaration of war, the Capitol had declared in fire and retribution. The bombs signed in red ink what everyone already knew, what they should have known. The Capitol would stop at nothing unless the whole world consented to lie down in its iron grip. They should have known this cruelty would come. It had happened already, in Eleven, in Eight. Terra wished now that Twelve had fought, that those who now lay in the streets had died bravely in battle instead of in this senseless rout.
War would come now, nothing could stop that. Nothing would have ever stopped it as long as the Capitol continued in tyranny.
Terra's hands balled into fists at her sides. She wanted to show the Capitol that the people of Twelve might be slow to anger but that in rage they were terrible! She wanted to storm the very gates of Snow's mansion and tear his smug smile from his face, and then grind that proud face in the dirt, in the ashes, until he tasted the death and the terror that he had brought upon himself.
The war had been far away. It had not belonged to Terra or to Twelve. Now it was personal. The Capitol would stop at nothing, and Twelve would throw that same implacable drive back in their faces.
Snow had stirred a hornets nest the moment he deployed those bombers. Now the war had a face. Every man, woman, and child that lay dead would be avenged ten-fold before Twelve would rest, and rebel soldiers would stand atop the presidential balcony and claim it for their own.
Terra would do her part. She would spend her strength, her wits, her blood, her last breath, to avenge this outrage. She would follow the boy that had shouted, the boy that led, she would follow him to Thirteen as he had said. She would learn to use a gun and to fight and to defend herself, and she would give a voice to those that now lay voiceless.
The Capitol had stolen the innocence of a people.
Now they would pay.
On this date, 1941, the innocence of a nation was stolen and its people called to war.
~Dedicated to those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor and on all the fronts of World War II. May they rest in peace.