The Beginning
Mercy awoke to the cheerful sound of birds singing to each other; back and forth through the dence trees of District 11. The sun had not yet even begun to rise, but Mercy was on her feet in seconds, tucking her hunting knife into its holder on her thigh. She spent a few minutes clearing away any evidence of her stay; scattering the ashes from her fire and covering any tracks she may have left in the dirt with a make-shift broom of fallen leaves. Having to do this exact thing every day at three in the morning may become a little tedious after a while, but not only was Mercy used to it, she kind of enjoyed it. In her exact words- 'I have always gotten out of bed before the sun rise, even when I had a home, if that is what you can call it; and the simple task of clearing up after myself forces the blood to rush to my brain, effectively waking me up for the long day ahead'.
After that was done, she clambered nimbly up the closest tree, and, leaping from limb to limb, she almost flew through the District 11 fields, reaching the towering fence just as the sun was beginning to show its head. There were already guards situated at the different look-out points, but they gave Mercy little to worry about. Despite the deadly spikes covering the wire, she wriggled through one of the larger gaps, emerging on the other side with only a few cuts to her arms and legs.
She knew that to avoid capture she would have to take extra care not to be seen; this proved a little bit more difficult than expected, her waist length white hair shining like a beacon in the morning light. As subtly as possible, she began rubbing mud into her white locks, until eventually her whole hair appeared to be brown from a distance. To be sure, she applied mud to her exposed skin and clothes also, until she blended perfectly with the ground. Painfully slowly, she began crawling along the ground on her belly, sticking as close to the fence as possible, freezing whenever she thought she was being watched.
After hours of this, night finally fell. Knowing that it was not safe to fall asleep, Mercy continued on, using the increasing darkness to her advantage. She gave up crawling on her stomach, and took off running, her bare feet hardly even touching the ground. She carried with her nothing but the clothes on her back and the dagger at her side, so she had nothing to weigh her down, and she flew through the night, as silent and unseen as a shadow.
She carried on into the early hours of the morning, and thanks to her uncanny speed and grim determination to live, she had reached the small train station as the sun was coming up. She was exhauted after all that running, and hungry, but she had to find a safer place to hide away before she could even begin to relax. So she continued on as she had before, only this time, with no look-outs to be seen, she tried her luck at running from bush to bush, tree to tree, checking that the coast was clear each time before sprinting to the next temporary shelter.
Before she knew it, Mercy spotted the outskirts of the small town that was District 12. A smile teased her dry lips and a short sigh of relief escaped before she could stop it. There were a few people wandering through the dusty grey streets, and a worrying thought crossed Mercy's mind- How was she going to get through their town into their woods without being spotted? She sighed again, the sigh of one who's had enough, and is ready to just colapse in a heap on the floor and sleep until the mockingjay's song wakes her. But she was stubborn, and clever; so with one last sigh, she began the long walk around the town, made longer by her having to hide every so often from a stray person going about their daily business, blissfully unaware of the girl with the wild blue eyes caked in mud, mere metres away.
A small beaten up goat bleated as it watched Mercy approach the fence separating District 12 from the towering trees, lush bushes and fearsome animals of the forest. She listened out for the tell-tale hum of a live electric fence, and when she heard nothing but the wind whispering in her ear, she looked once more behind her, making sure no-one was around, and dropped to her stomach once again, wriggling easily under a large tear in the wire.
As soon as her tiny toes sunk into the thick grass, yet another sigh escaped her, this time mingling with a very quiet moan of pleasure. It had been so long since she had felt grass between her toes, and she had never stood on grass as soft or cushiony as the grass on the other side of th District 12 fence. Mercy let herself indulge in that small luxury for only a second, however. She knew she needed to get to the shelter of the forest, only then would she feel even slightly safe. Taking off yet again, she did not stop until she found a small pool of crystal clear water. She was deep into the forest by that time, so she wasted no time in removing her well-worn, mud-covered black pants and chocolate brown skivvy, dumping them uncerimoniously into the water to wash. When they were cleaned to her satisfaction, Mercy spread them across a nearby rock to dry off in the morning sunlight. Next to go where her undergarments; these did not require a wash, so they were thrown on the ground beside her clothes and forgotten for the moment.
Placing her dagger on a smaller rock closer to the pool just in case, Mercy waded in until she was waist deep; the water went no higher than that. Taking in a deep breath, she plunged her face into the refreshingly cold liquid, scrubbing the mud from her porcelain skin. When she straightened up, she looked almost like a completely different person altogether. With her small fragile frame, large hypnotising blue eyes and skin so white it seemed to shine despite spending almost every day in the sun for more than nine months, Mercy had completely transformed herself by simply removing a few layers of mud and grime. Reveling in the moment, she allowed herself a single burst of laughter; an extatic sound of freedom, oddly resembling that of a small bird's chirp.
Letting her guard fall a little momentarily, she stood in the middle of the small pool, her palms flat on it's still surface, her eyes closed despite her very soul screaming against it, and she began to sing. Quietly at first, to dust away the cobwebs that had formed on her vocal cords, then louder and clearer, as her memories of singing as a little girl came flooding back to her, bringing a tear to her eye and causing her voice to falter for a second.
The birds were frozen in the branches, mesmerised by her haunting, unearthly singing. Unknown to both the birds and Mercy however, another person was glued to the spot where he was waiting patiently for that large stag to step into his trap.