I don't know why I kept running. My chest ached, I'd left my breath at the ground some way behind and no one was following me, but I couldn't stop feeling that is wasn't them I ran from. I made those apples explode in their faces. They were practically circling the tree, a death was inevitable. I'd killed. Again.
A scream rose to the air, quickly followed by the great BOOM of the canon, and I froze. The one who had screamed couldn't be far away. My wand risen in front of me as a sword, I took eleven, slow steps and peered around the corner.
On the ground lay a dead girl, thirteen years old, at most. Terror was painted in her face, and there were so much blood in her cloth that it was impossible to judge where her wound was. But that wasn't the part that made my eyes widen and my feet stumble back. It was the tear stricken boy, standing above her, pointing a tiny knife towards another boy with blood on his hands and his back towards me.
"Are you going to kill me with that?" the boy, whom I assumed had killed the boy, said. His voice was shaking.
"I wouldn't hesitate." Though filled with hatred, hesitating was clearly what he was doing. But I certainly wasn't.
One whip with my wand and the killer fell to the ground, stunned. I didn't lower it when I turned towards the other.
"Why do you cry? She's one less obstacle between you and life," I said, almost terrified by the cynical tone in my own voice.
"Why haven't you killed me?" Quite a fair question, come to think of it. Why hadn't I?
"I'm no part of this. You are."
"You claim to be different, yet you have just killed."
"He's not dead."
"Oh, really?"
"This is pathetic. Answer my question," I ordered him.
"No."
"You asked for it, then. Legilimens."
Our minds collided immediately, making the boy jump backwards, terrified, but I had it under control. It was a strange sensation. I clearly saw the street in front of me, but on the same time the boy's past played like a Muggle movie inside my head.
He's eight years old and surrounded by grain fields, a straw in his hand. "Dad," he shouts. You were right. It's time for the reaping." He isn't talking about the annual reaping of one boy and girl to the Hunger Games.
The scene shifted.
He is eleven, and a little girl is beaming at him. He has just given her a little, red button he found in the fields.
The scene shifted again.
It's the same girl looking up at him, only older, andnow tears are running down her face. They sit on the bedside the body of a woman. He puts his arm protectively around her, and she sobs, his cloth getting drenched.
The Justice Building of District 9 replaced the bedroom.
"You killed her!" his dad shouts at the building, throwing rocks through the windows. "You could've given her medicine, you bastards!" The fifteen-year-old boy tries to pull his dad home, but it is too late. Two Peacekeepers come towards them.
This time the place didn't shift, but years had past.
It's reaping day, the little girl's first one. Though she's far away from him, he keeps looking at her, telling her with his eyes that everything is all right. But then her name is shouted, and shortly after so is his. Everybody would be believe it to be a cruel coincidence, but he knew better. He knew it was his father's fault, and he hated him, and he hated him.
I pulled out and lowered my wand.
"She's my sister," he whispered, stroking her hair gently.