Whistle- Chapter 10
I walk home after work, rather then going to the hall with Emmer. I haven't told her why I am worried about Ed, or what happened the other night. I can't add yet another person to my list of people that Coin can use against me.
My threat wasn't empty thought. To save my family, I'd kill myself. Without a doubt. And even Coin knows that. But there would be ways to stop me, I need to think of a better plan. If they lock me up in a padded room, keep me knocked out, I wouldn't be able to do it. If they just need to alive then that would work. If that happens, I have to hope that Thresh or Ed would know to end it all.
Ending everything can't happen right now. I die, then Coin will kill Thresh and Ed. She never wanted Thresh to be alive anyway.
I pace up and down the living room, head down, waiting for Thresh to come home so I can talk to him. He'll understand, he might even be able to help me.
After a lifetime of waiting, he walks through the door, immediately looking at me with worry.
"Ed had to go see Coin today." I speed out, stopping pacing.
"I just saw him, relax. He says she just wanted to make sure he hadn't told you anything else. He's fine. But he did tell me to tell you, you can't go round. Not today." Thresh assures me he is fine and I take his work for it, he wouldn't lie to me.
I don't answer. Thresh might not lie to me, but Ed does. Consentingly.
I take a new sheet of paper and think back a few days when we were locked in the room, with Coin standing above me. I start to draw, scribbling away at my paper. I haven't got colours so I can't show the red blood. That doesn't matter, I can remember it.
I trace the stitches on my face, black and horrible. The doctor didn't do a very good job at all. Coin might have told her too make it look bad, everyone was told different stories about my cheek. Unsurprisingly, none of them were right.
Thresh goes to get some dinner, I politely decline his invitation, caring on with my work. They just gave me a huge piles of paper work, over a thousand pages. All their files about the Hunger Games. All the names, all their information and what happens to the Victor. I don't read the names as I write them, so many children who died. So many who were as scared as I was.
I try to remember what it was like before the Games, before they ruined my life. The Capitol destroyed everything. The day of the reaping I remember, hearing my name get called out, saying goodbye to Mum, singing to them all. It hurts to remember, more then it did the first time.
It's not getting any better, now I know they're alive. Now, I just have another 7 people I love that I can't protect. Nightmares haunt my dreams and real life. It's hard to tell which one is which. Even dreaming about eleven, playing with Fluer, singing with Lily, fighting with Felix, working with Cassia and Tacitus. All of it seems like a horrible nightmares that makes me hurt, makes me want to hide and cry.
Tears slide down my cheeks. All of that seems so far away, all of it is like a memory of when I was a child, distant and murky. When I was a child, I feel so grown up now, like my childhood is gone. No parents to tell you when bed time is or tell you what to eat. I get to make most of my own choices now, and I really hate it. I want my Mum to sing to me when I have bad dreams.
I don't want to grow up.
The 56th Hunger Games
I take in the title, 56 down, only 18 left to go. Every name is a pin in my chest, I'm struggling to breath. Each sheet of paper has a picture, name, age, district, training score, kill list and death written on it. I have to copy it all out.
Name: Gemma Willow
Age: 12
District: 11
Training score: 6
Kills: X
Death: Starvation on the sixth night, she was trapped in a hole in the ground for three days. She was mad before it happened.
The girl has light brown hair and bright brown and gold eyes. She's very skinny, like most of the others and has a sweet smile. I push away the paper again. I know she is still there, eyes full of life. She might have still been alive f the Games hadn't chosen her, had children, gotten married. She was only twelve, only a child.
She's not the only one I've read, once I got working on the whole thing, I started to read everything. Each name means more to me now, another story. I dream them every night, how they might have died. I know what they all look like. Each Games is horrible, but I don't want anyone to forget the name.
Thresh tells me to stop it, tell Amy I can't finish the work because it upsets me. He comes in and I'm crying after reading another story. The Victors have horrible stories too, most of their family is killed in an 'accident' or they are tortured. These stories are the real things, no Capitol lies mixed in with them.
All of them are real.
It's taken a month to sort out all these so far, the Victor's stories are long, sometimes over ten pages, if a lot has happened to them. Each visit to the Capitol, each close death to them written in detail. Most pages have faded and worn from all the year, making them harder to read. I fill in some of the easier gaps, and ask Amy about the few others. Some times, she can find out what happened to them, by asking older people or looking through other records, other times, she just tells me to leave them blank.
This month has been one of the worse months since I got here. I've been in and out of hospital because of my cheek and other cuts Coin inflicted on me, Coin also told Ed he isn't allowed to see me any more, we try to meet up in our old places but it's much harder now. We lose our comfort with each other, it's harder to talk to him. Our meetings are brief and rare.
It sucks.
Thresh isn't around a lot, he got a job as well as schooling. So he's gone pretty much the whole day. Marcia moved departments so I never get to see her much any more.
Today, I am going to go and watch them show the photo shoot of Katniss' wedding dresses with Holly and her Mum. It was said last night that they would be one. I'm excited to see Katniss again, after reading all the stories about previous victors, I'm really worried about Katniss. What if they kill her family? Her little sister Prim?
But if she's getting married, she must be alright. I watched Peeta proposal, it was amazing. It's nice to see Peeta on T.V too, after watching his pale, dying face after he was cut, it's lovely to see the better fed, happy Peeta I see on T.V.
I walk down to the main room, with the big, if slightly battered T.V. It crackles occasionally but it's good nevertheless. I see Cinna, Katniss' amazing designer, the one who set her on fire, talking about different styles. I watch some of the dresses, they are beautiful but in a Capitol kind of way. All very poofy and over the top, with too many thrills and pearls for my liking. Katniss does look breath taking in them all, I can't pick a favourite of the six.
Caesar carries on after the wedding dresses are over, announcing that it's time for the reading of the card.
"On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the repels that their children are dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote of the tributes who would represent it."
That must have been awful, knowing you sent two children to their deaths. Someone called Callie Thorn won that year, 18 and a Careers from four. Her father was murdered in a accident with machinery, her Mother died of grief. Callie died in her sleep a few years ago, all alone, never married with no kids. No twelve year old were chosen that year, most of them were eighteen.
"On the fiftieth anniversary as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes."
So many children were sent that year, that was the year Katniss and Peeta's mentor won, Haymitch. His Mother, Father and his sweetheart were murdered a few weeks after he got the crown. He's a drunk now, all alone still.
"And now we honour our third Quarter Quell."
A boy steps forward and I wonder why he is there, a winner of some prize? A punishment? He could just be a server to the President.
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."
I can't hear what everyone else is saying, over the sounds of my own screams.
Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but thanks for reading! :)
~Lottie