As promised, the first chapter. Update will be next week. I have not decided on a set day yet. Enjoy!

"Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well."
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

You can't help when or where you're born, I know that but it didn't stop me from wondering why here? Why now? But it's not a question I can fathom or ever answer. My mother always said that you are born when the world needs you most, and you are taken from it when your goal is accomplished.

I'm not sure if I believe that, but it's kind of nice to think that I'm here for a purpose. There is a reason I was born in Panem, in a world on the brink of Rebellion.

Long ago there was a place called North America and the United States of America. I've heard all kinds of versions of what went wrong, but they failed. They left us here to rebuild our lives in the smoking remains of their latest war. Somehow Panem rose from those ashes. They promised everyone safety and unity like the United States was supposed to have.

But all of it was lies.

They put us into Districts and made us work for little food. It was more than enough to get by on, but not enough to live comfortably. We were always told where to go and what to do. We had no means to better ourselves, we only learned what the government deemed right. There was no hospitals or doctors, not in the districts. Our death rates rose.

Before my mother gave birth to me, my parents buried my three year old brother. He didn't suffer long, but it was needless when medication could have saved him. He died two months before I was born.

I often wondered what life would have been like with him. My parents barely spoke of him, it was too painful. Ever since I learned the pain it caused them, I never spoke of Gabriel again—I was six then.

My father and mother worked in the mines while I went to school. Everyday, my best friend Alaric would come and get me and walk to school with me. He was the only boy who didn't think I had cooties. I was too cool for that he said, I was just too…Emera.

He's been there as long as I can remember. My mom says he was there the night I was born, and on some nights I shared my crib with him when there wasn't enough coal or wood to keep our home warm. We would go over to the Anders house and sleep on those cold nights because the Blacksmith's house was always warm. For me, it was like gaining back the brother I had lost before I was born.

Darren and Jeremiah, Alaric's older brothers, were my friends too but it wasn't the same with them as it was with Alaric. Maybe it was the age difference—they were five and six years older than both of us, or maybe it was just that Alaric and I were connected on some deeper level, destined to be friends before we were even born.

Alaric was what made me believe in fate, that there was a reason I was born here and now—to be friends with him.

I was nine when I held Alaric as he cried. I held his hand as they buried his mother and baby sister. I stayed all night long holding him in his bed when even his father could not comfort him. I stroked his cheek, and wiped away his tears. "I wish I could make it better, Ric."

"You're here, that's enough." Finally, he dozed asleep against my arm and I watched him peacefully as my mother and father comforted his father. His brothers weren't even home yet.

I remember the whispers of my mother trying to calm Alaric's dad. He was saying words that if they were overheard, would get him in trouble. He was speaking against the Capitol, against the way they made things so that couldn't help his wife when the labor lingered too long. He cursed them, but my parents muffled his cries to protect their friend.

For the first time, I really understood the cruelty of the Capitol.

When I was twelve, I had learned to dislike the Capitol intensely. I was careful to keep my tongue in check and my head down around the peacekeepers. If we just obeyed the orders, we'd be fine. Or so we thought.

One day on the way home from school, I saw a crowd gathered around the square. The Peacekeepers rifles pointing at the crowd. And there at the head of them all was a man speaking, covered in blood.

"Bring her forward, Ambrose."

A young man in a peacekeeper's uniform comes forward, about the same age as Alaric's brothers. But my heart stops as I see who he has in his arms, my mother. I push through the crowd, trying to get to her but it's so tightly packed almost as if they're trying to keep my back. Alaric is calling for me, but I don't listen. All I can hear is the thwack of the whip hitting skin and my mother's shrill screams.

I break through the crowd shoving, jostling and pushing to get my way up there. I try to dart past the Peacekeeper, but he stops me and pushes me down on the ground like I'm some dog.

I lunge forward to tackle him, but Alaric is quicker. His fist connects with the Peacekeeper's jaw, and he hits the man hard in the stomach again as he goes down. I run past them toward my mother as Ambrose brings the whip down again.

I don't know what makes me do it, only that she's my mother and nothing can hurt so bad as to see her in pain. I throw myself over her, my stomach and chest covering her head, and the rest of me covering some her back as his hand comes down.

The lash digs into the skin at the back of my neck, and it rips right through my shirt. I scream as the lash digs deep and peels off my layers of skin. I'm sobbing into my mother's back and she's begging me to go, but my arms are firmly wrapped around her waist telling her I won't go. I won't!

But despite my best efforts, they pull me off of her. She's a bloody mess. Her arms, back, stomach, and face are covered in lashes. She can't even lift herself off the ground, she can barely mumble as she begs me to go.

Ambrose jerks me to my feet and slaps me hard across the face, "What do you think you're doing? We should kill you for that." He raises the pistol up, and I feel all the anger in me surge.

That's when I knew I hated the Capitol, when I knew I'd make them pay.

I stare him in the eyes. I'm not ashamed of what I did, I'd do it again. Consequences mean nothing—I don't want to die, but it doesn't change what I did, what I would have done anyways.

He stares at me for a long minute. "Take the mother away," the Head Peacekeeper says to another peacekeeper. Whip the boy Ambrose, and then whip the girl too."

They hold me back and force me to watch as they pull Alaric forward. He's got a black eye and busted lip. They try to force him to his knees, but he pushes them away and takes off his shirt before he kneels. He's already six foot tall, as strong as some of them and taller than some of the men 20 years older than him. I watch as he kneels there, the muscles rippling in his back from long hours of helping his father. He is here because of me.

I watch as the lash tears across his unmarred skin. I watch it cut and mutilate him. I watch him as he kneels there, tears stinging his eyes and trying not to scream. Each lash is for me. Every mark on his skin is because of what I have brought on him now. I feel the specks of his blood fly up in my face and then it's over. They gave him ten lashes, far fewer than my mothers and I'm sentenced to the same.

I watch him struggle to his feet, refusing their help. But they hold him back as they push me to my knees. I grit my teeth and look at Alaric. He stares back at me, mouthing two words that I don't need to be told. Don't scream.

The lash tears into my shirt again and peels another layer of skin. I bite into my lip causing blood. The next lash, tears of the back of my shirt and I feel the ache of my skin splitting open deeper. My mother's soft whimpering fills my ears, but I bite down harder. Pain is temporary, I will not scream again. I won't give him the satisfaction. Four more lashes tear across my skin, each ripping deeper into the raw flesh like the digging claws of a ravenous beast.

My vision swims before me as the rest of the lashes happen. I want to scream, but I keep it in. Nothing good will come of a scream.

When the last lash lands, I feel them let me go. I surge forward barely able ot get my hands under me before I fall. The jarring ache of my muscles laid bare on my shoulders is excruciating, but I push myself up and Alaric struggles toward me pulling me to my feet so quickly that my head spins.

He moves stiffly and in pain but he puts his shirt over my tattered one and buttons it up so no one will see anything. He glares at Ambrose, "Can we leave now?" His hand is tight in mine, restraining me but also holding me up.

"Go, and take that—" He points to my mother, "with you."

Alaric stoops to lift her, but she cries. He apologizes in his quiet way and I pick up her feet though my muscles protest and tears spring to my eyes. We only make it just past the square when Alaric's family and my father and grandmother show up. Dad takes mom from Alaric and Grandmother checks on me quickly. "We've got to get your mother home, see if there's…something we can do."

"Is she dying?" I croak out.

She cups my face in her hands, "No, but she's probably going to lose the baby."

The baby. My mother was pregnant.

Alaric's father and brothers treat Alaric and I's back while my father and grandmother take care of my mother. I'm sleeping in painful jerks when my grandmother comes in. Her voice is quiet, and she's only there a moment. "She had the baby, a little girl. She lived only a minute or two…" Her voice chokes, "I have to get back. It's touch and go with Emmaline. She's bleeding a lot. Don't tell Emera yet, she's in enough pain already."

But I'd already heard. My body starts to shake with quiet sobs there in the bed, but then I find I'm not alone. Alaric has caused his wounds to bleed by walking over, but he's there and lying down next to me on the cramped bed. His hand reaches out and touches my face as I sob into his palm.

"I'm here now," he whispers.

"Don't leave," I beg through tears.

He drags my hand to under him and to his chest. He places my hand above his heart, where I can hear it's slow, steady rhythm. "I won't go anywhere. Just let it calm you. Just breathe, I'm here."

I nod my head, sending pain shoot up my raw neck before I sob again. But he lays there with me until we both pass away into slumber.