District Three Male: Siro Amherst

Talos was born blue. He didn't breathe for three minutes after he was born, I'm told, his tiny body shaking like a leaf as the midwife simultaneously tried to comfort my mother and beat the breath back into his body, slender fingers rapidly tapping on his weak heart. He grew up like that, skin always a strange color. First blue, then a jaundiced yellow, then a pallid white that slowly settled into his face and body like a powder. He's slowly begun to grow out of his sickliness, but it has taken its price. I always feel like the oldest brother, though Talos is quick to point out that I act years younger than him, with my surly temperament and bitter attitude. As usual, he's right, though I would never admit that to him.

Talos and I stand side by side, quickly and efficiently sorting through the electronic wires that coming down the conveyor belt. We work in silence, the protective goggles we wear inhibiting our sight as well, blocking our peripheral vision as our hands flash over copper and other twisted metals.

Today is the first day the Telecommunication factory opened for business again, as it was looted, bombed, and altogether destroyed throughout the rebellion. Hordes of people showed up outside of the gates today, desperately needing the wages. Our gaunt bodies often look as though we could be blown away in the harsh District Three wind. Though Talos oftentimes stays home, preferring to work odd jobs while keeping everything organized and tending to our abode, even he couldn't resist the allure of a factory job, at least for a few days.

"FIVE MINUTES UNTIL BREAK!" A harsh voice sounds over smooth hum of the machinery. Our boss, a short, portly man, was a well-known loyalist during the war, despite being an ordinary citizen. On the small, old television we have, Talos and I oftentimes watch propaganda from the Capitol about the unfailing loyalty of these mere District dwellers, and the blessings that have been bestowed upon them as a result.

He didn't used to run the factory or have that girth. But the rebellion turned many things topsy-turvy.

Talos and I peel off our goggles as the bell sounds for the end of the shift. Normally I would stay, working a double, but today is not normal. It marks the year anniversary of a peace treaty, and the beginning of a new system of government. A crueler one, though the Capitol calls it merciful. Of course they'd invent a pageant where kids fight to the death for entertainment just as I'm about to turn eighteen and nearly age out.

"Sometimes," I grumble lowly to Talos as we exit the factory, squished on all sides by a massive crowd of people. "I swear the world is out to get me."
Talos grins slightly, though there's nervousness behind that smile, as though he doesn't want people to overhear us. "You're so cynical."

"Just stating facts." I mutter, but let the subject drop.

Though the walk home is long, as our house is on the very outskirts, but the streets of District Three are mercifully flat. The wind whips at our backs, tousling our air and nipping at us through our threadbare clothes. My hand slowly begins to stiffen, the scar, the result of a factory accident, turning a light shade of blue. I flex and stretch my fingers, uncomfortable.

"Did you ask Mrs. Ackers about that laundry job?" I break the silence between us.

"Yes, Siro," Talos imperceptibly rolls his eyes. "You already asked me that."

"I just wanted to make sure."

"I'm a big boy, Siro. Nineteen. I can sort out my work."

"I know. Just sometimes you forget," I shrug.

"When have I ever forgotten?" he says, voice tense. "I get that you've been working longer than I have, but I've been keeping our shit together since Mom left. I can handle a little job."

"Okay, okay," I relent, backing off. Talos is the only person I would allow to win a petty argument like this. "Sorry."

We walk home together, the wind turning my brother's cheeks bright red, as though he'd been smeared with blood.

-:-

Our house is small and cluttered, but to me it feels empty, and that emptiness is a jab in the stomach. My mother used to fill up the space with laughter and light and kindness, but now she's dead, and Talos and I have thin frames and thin smiles that can only do so much in this dark little shack. Some days, I'll try a bit, cracking a few jokes when I know my brother is the only person around to hear them. Today, however, I don't feel like trying.

I stomp to my room the minute the door closes behind us, kicking aside a pair of my brother's shoes as I shut the door behind me. I'm constantly discovering his stuff in my room, as we only recently moved all his things to my mother's old bedroom. He wanted to give me some more space, something I'm not so sure I'm grateful for.

"Talos!" I yell. "Your shit's in my room again!"

"I'll get it later!" His voice is muffled through my closed door.

I stare at the shoes, a dark brown with holes and scuff marks, tossed next to my closet. I carefully fix them, setting them down gently by the door, where he can grab them easily. I then turn to my attention to the two twin beds with the thin, colorless mattresses. One is stripped of its sheets, the other messily made up.

I start at a knock on the window.

"Hey," Kline is standing there, his messy blonde hair streaked with dirt. He gives me a hesitant smile. I grudgingly open the window.

"What?" I nearly snap, irritated that he's here.

"Um, where's Talos?"

"I don't know, why don't you knock on the door like a normal person?" I roll my eyes, barely tolerating him.

"Just thought he might be in here," he says, defensive.

"Well, obviously you two aren't so close," I say smugly. "Because he moved into my mom's old room a while ago."

He moves away from the window, and I snap it shut, watching as he walks over to the door. I used to like Kline. Look up to him even, like another older brother who might actually take care of me. But he turned out to be a coward, too scared to break a simple curfew law to help me with Talos, who was dangerously ill. I stopped looking up to him that night, resented him for leaving me alone to deal with my brother's vomit and coughing and high fever. He abandoned Talos like my mother abandoned us.

I change quickly, well aware that the ceremony everyone is required to attend begins in an hour or so. If Mom were here, she would force me to shower, hand me clothes that she had just washed and dried and ironed. But she's not here; instead, she's in an unmarked grave somewhere in an outer district. Maybe even district thirteen. All I know is that she isn't here, choosing instead to run off and chase her dreams for a better life.

Look where dreaming has got us.

-:-

"Where's Mom?" I ask, as Talos steps through the door. I've been standing, waiting here, for nearly an hour. Though our house is extremely far away from the city, I can see the fires and the hovercrafts from our living room window. Sometimes, I imagine, I can feel the house shaking.

"What, you mean she isn't here?" His voice tightens, anxious.

"No!" my own voice rises. "I thought she'd be with you!"

Our mother has been more and more distant lately, returning home at odd hours, buying expensive loaves of bread, only to refuse to give us any.

"Special bread," she'd say, voice distracted. "It isn't for you."

And now, it appears, she's completely missing, during the first real conflict in District Three.

Talos begins pacing back and forth, eyes flashing with worry. I knead my hands together, twisting my fingers to the point of pain as I sit, shaking my leg. "She was here earlier today," I say. "Because I saw a new loaf of bread on the counter."

"Where?"

I point to the kitchen, and Talos disappears. When he comes back, he is brushing bread crumbs off a sheet of yellowed paper. I jump to my feet.

"Where the hell did you get that?" I yell, running over to my brother. I stop abruptly as I realize his eyes are swimming with tears. "What's wrong?"

"Read it," he shoves the letter at me, shaking his head. "It was hidden in that bread."

The ink stretches across the page, in spindly handwriting I recognize as my mother's.

Dear Talos and Siro, it reads. I've known this day would come for a long time now. I hope someday you two can forgive me for the damage I'm about to inflict. Know that I love you both with all of my heart, and that I hope someday I can make it up to you.

I am a key part in District Three's rebellion, and I can no longer sit back and do covert operations while children, mothers, fathers, and everyone else in this horrible nation suffer at the hands of the Capitol. I have to go. To fight, to lead, and to achieve the dream I-

I stop reading here, throwing the note to the floor. Of course she left us. Bitterness coats my tongue like grape medicine, sticky, disgusting, but strangely good. I stomp on the paper, trying to keep the tears away with anger and disgust. My heel grinds the note into the floor, erasing my mother's words and final apologies.

"She left us," Talos's says.

"She left us." I repeat. If Talos's voice is deep and reverberating, holding space for his sadness and confusion, mine is tight and flat, with no space for anything but anger and bitterness.

Outside, the world quakes and shudders with the force of a hundred bombs and a million screams from dying citizens.

For a moment, I wish my mother was among them.

-:-

We walk to the reaping quietly, as do most other citizens. I give Kline a sarcastic wave as he falls into step beside us, but don't break the silence. Neither does he, and neither does Talos, who normally reprimands me from being so cold to Kline. Today, he simply reprimands me with a stern look that I promptly ignore.

As we near the town square, I gape. It has been completely transformed, a stage erected, bright lights shining down on colorful banners emblazoned with propaganda slogans and images of the Capitol seal. Capitolites man cameras and stand onstage, their bright clothes and hair and, sometimes, skin, standing out against the drab backdrop of the city.

We quickly file into the crowd, Talos bidding me a short farewell. As he goes to stand with the adults, patting my back and messing up my hair.

"I'll see you soon, okay?" He says, giving me a gentle smile. It's meant to be encouraging, I think. I simply shrug.

"Okay," my voice is listless. That same bitterness begins to coat my tongue and throat like medicine.

He and Kline disappear, and I am alone in the crowd, finding the other seventeen year olds. I nod at a few of my classmates, but don't join in their nervous whispers. I simply stare straight ahead, ignoring the things that go on around me.

"WELCOME!" A shrill voice snaps me out of my daydream. "Welcome, to the drawing for the first Hunger Games, a pageant of glory and triumph! Who will be our first two lucky winners?"

I roll my eyes. The bitterness has spread to my chest and stomach and every part of me. The only thing that would make it worse would be-

"Siro Amherst!"
Of course. I nearly laugh, an angry, sarcastic sound that chokes and dies in my throat. Inwardly, I sneer. Of course it would be me. Of course life would decide to fuck everything up even more and send me to my death. I clench my fists, knuckles white. Somehow, I make my way up to the stage, glaring as I go.

I'm doing to my brother what I was always worried others would do to me. What my mother did to us.

I might die.

I am leaving.

Hello everyone! Thanks for reading another fuckin lit chapter!

If you would be so kind and answer some questions:

1) favorite and least favorite thing about Siro!

2) favorite tribute thus far?

3) what can I do better?

love you all ! thanks!

xo ethereal