The piano gives a musical sigh as I open the cover and sit down on the piano bench that has

molded itself to the shape of my bottom over the years. Throughout the years of my lonely

childhood, when the silence and the oppression of bad memories' hauntings had threatened to

smother me, I have climbed onto the piano bench and buried myself in my music.

I put myself through a series of drills. First finger warm-ups, then etudes, then my scales. It's

tedious, dragging these all out drills when I could play them in my sleep, but I want to disappear

into the notes, the way I can if I sit long enough at the piano and concentrate on the music.

My fingers traverse across the beams of black and white, hitting the four sharps of E Major

flawlessly across six octaves. I imagine with each rendition of the Major scale, my life, my

troubles and worries, are all being lifted and carried away on the wind, until there's nothing left

but the music. I admire how the piano can sound so many different levels of volumes—from

pianississimo to fortississimo. And that's before I've added in the dimension of the damper

pedal, blurring notes together and letting them hang in the air like soft sighs on a summer

evening.

The pieces I've memorized until they are a part of my soul sound out under my fingers. My right

hand flies over and back over my left hand, plinking out notes before a heavy sforzando on the

left side of the piano, then a swirl of an appoggiatura, all the while the left hand playing out a

steady bass. The piece progresses from Major to minor, before a series of chords swirled by

the damper pedal indicates the left hand bass changing to a bouncy staccato of chords. Then

for the finish. I pound my fingers into the keyboard, mixing my chords and damper pedal until

the final three chords in fortississimo. Each one pounds in my blood, as I finish the finale with a

flourish.

I sit back, my heart pounding. I stare at the piano, remembering the afternoon following my first

day of school…

Eleven years ago

I sighed. I was through with this. Living my life in a silent home, with caged-away parents and no

answers. I wanted to know what bad memories haunted my mother. I marched into my father's

study and asked him, "Father, will you please tell me what bad memories haunt Mother?"

I wasn't going to settle for evasion or ambiguity this time. I stood with my arms crossed, waiting

for a proper answer. Father sighed, and then sighed again. "Okay. Get a chair, because it's a

long story."

I sat down, and Father began. "You see, when your mother was a young girl, she had a twin

sister. Her twin sister was named Maysilee. Your mother, her sister, and Mrs. Everdeen were

the best of friends. Then one day, Maysilee went to the Hunger Games."

"What are the Hunger Games?"

"That's another long story entirely."

"I want to hear it."

"Okay. Over sixty years ago, there was a Capitol and thirteen districts. The districts rebelled

in what was known as the Dark Days. The Capitol defeated twelve of them and destroyed the

thirteenth. In punishment for the rebellion, every year an event known as the Hunger Games

would be held. Each district would send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and

eighteen as tributes. The twenty-four tributes would participate in a fight to the death. The last

one standing was the winner. The winning tribute's district received food and money for life."

I sat in my chair, horrified by this. "Your aunt Maysilee was chosen as a tribute for the Fiftieth…

She went there and… well, you know that the Hunger Games are on TV each year, right? Your

mother saw her twin sister there… and the memories she has of that are so horrible that your

mother is still in bed, fifteen years later."

"Did Aunt Maysilee win?"

Father sighed. "It was a District Twelve victory… but not by your aunt."

"The boy tribute won?"

"Yes."

A long silence passed. I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer, "Father… what happened to

her in the Hunger Games? Did she—"

I faltered at the look on my father's face, a twisting of his features into a grim mask of pain,

showing scars many years deep. I backed away, and fled the study without another word.

The rest of the story filled itself in for me over the next few years. Our educational curriculum

being saturated with the Hunger Games, of course, I learnt that the victor of the Fiftieth Games

was the local drunk Haymitch Abernathy. Did he kill my aunt? I wondered, fear bubbling in the

pit of my stomach. I also found out that the year Maysilee went, twice as many tributes went in.

Which meant she faced 47 competitors, not 23. No wonder she died in there.

And I watched the next Hunger Games in secret, despite Hestia and Lyre's best efforts to keep

me out. That was the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games, the year Finnick Odair of District 4 won. I saw

the extraordinarily handsome boy rained down in sponsor gifts, saw him mangle his victims with

his trident, saw the Capitol slobber over him in the weeks afterwards. I wondered if my aunt had

been killed that way, with a trident.

And finally I understood why my mother was in bed. Watching the Hunger Games was enough

to make me want to hide in bed all day. But I had to be strong for my mother. And so I was.

Since then, the question has haunted me. How did Maysilee die? Every Hunger Games, I watch

and add more gory images to my mental catalogue of the possible ways she suffered and died

in the arena. Strangely enough, there are never any replays of the Fiftieth Games, despite the

fact it's the year our own victor won. I'm glad for this, since Mother doesn't have to relive seeing

her sister die, but at the same time I want to know how she died.

I can't explain why I want to know this. To bring an end to the constant worries that plague me?

I don't know. It wouldn't make me happy, knowing the answer. But it would end my gruesome

imaginings… bring a sense of closure.

But I've never had the courage to ask anyone. I stare at her portrait on the mantle, wondering

how this girl who looks so much like me died. I sit by my mother's bedside, injecting a dose

of morphling into her bloodstream. I watch Haymitch Abernathy dragging himself drunkenly

through the streets. And the question torments me, like a fly attacking the strawberries, how did

Maysilee die?

Present Day

Looking back on my childhood, I don't think I ever really had one. I practically raised myself, in

my silent somber home with ghosts of past memories, watching my mother suffer and seeing

my father so distant. I didn't laugh or run with joy. I may be the mayor's daughter, but my life has

been just as hard as the lives of those who live in the Seam.

In this way, we're all equal, I suppose. None of us have escaped the oppression of the Capitol.

Katniss and Gale lost their fathers in the mine explosion five years ago and were forced to begin

feeding their families. I never knew my mother, lost in trauma from the Hunger Games. Even

other townies, like Peeta, Delly and others, who always have enough to eat, grow up in the

reality of starvation and watching the annual Hunger Games.

What I think is that the Capitol has arranged it so carefully, with tools like the two-faced gift of

tesserae, so that we only see our own differences. Differences between those who manage

to get dinner on the table on a regular basis and those who go to bed many a night with their

stomachs rumbling. Differences that divide us, make us weak within. Differences that if we set

aside, who knows what we could accomplish?

I never understood what good comes of the merchant and coal miner division. All it does is

infuse hatred into people's everyday lives, into their deepest thoughts and feelings. Hatred

that simmers in the gray eyes of Seam people and in the blue eyes of townies. I hate that the

Capitol influences every bit of our lives. It's bad enough that they kill our children and starve us.

But what I always thought is that despite oppression and cruelty, people's hearts remain pure

even in the darkest of times. Apparently not, though. As seen in the fight I had with Gale this

afternoon.

All of it does nothing, however, but ensure that the odds of establishing a unified rebellion

against the Capitol will never be in the districts' favor. In the end, the class differences and

internal hatred that contaminate our lives only benefit the Capitol even more. No matter which

way you look at it, the Capitol always triumphs.

It doesn't have to be that way, though. I stand before Maysilee's portrait and whisper, "Things

could be different. The Capitol doesn't always have to win. Could it all be different?"

There's no answer, but I desperately need one. The ridiculous question flaps against my soul,

the fleeting thought I've buried deep within myself, the naïve fantasy I tried to quash long ago

but has persisted on. The hope has burned in me as long as I've known that the Capitol is evil.

It's a foolish wish, an idealistic wish, a quixotic wish, but it continues to burn with a passion

unrivaled by any other: Could things be different?