Exa Behrens, 14, District 6

8 years ago

"I'll race you home," Anton Behrens poked his younger sister before he took off running down the dirt path.

"Not fair!" Exa yelled as she broke into a sprint. Her bag jumped across her back as she pushed off her little legs. At only six, Exa still had a lot of growing to do. Even with all of her might, she fell second in the stupid race.

"You….cheated…" Exa said in between gasps and coughs.

"You're….just….jealous…." Anton leaned his arm against the siding of their small house.

Exa believes "house" was too generous of a word for where they lived. Sat amongst almost a dozen duplicates, she was more comfortable referring to it as a hut. Groups of families, just like her own, barely making ends meet.

No one will be like my family. Exa hardly had to remind herself. She would have done anything for any one of them, and they would have reciprocate without any hesitation.

"Are..we going inside?" Exa finally caught her breath and pushed the loose hair out of her sweaty face. Her eyes started on her brother, who was still shifting between gasps of air and coughs.

He's coughing a lot. Exa watched Anton shift his body away from her, coughing into his hand. Again, and again, and again.

It's a wonder Exa's eyes didn't see the fluid dripping from his palm until it already started to collect on the dirt below him. Dark, red fluid.

"Anton!" Exa reached for her brother, but he pulled back. Blood painted the corners of his lips, and his usual dark skin looked gray.

"Mom! Dad!" Exa pushed the door open as she took her brother's hand, simply not caring about the red stains on herself.

She expected someone to come running. Their house wasn't that large, after all. But was silent. Dead silent.

Where are they? They should be here, they should be here with Elio and Julien. Where are her parents? Where are her siblings?

"Okay…okay…" Exa's panic rose.

"Exa…" Anton pulled his hand away to cough into it some more.

This is not good this is not good what do I do what do I do-

"Sit down. I…I will run into town and get some help." Exa threw her school bag onto the ground before she rushed back outside and down the dirt path they just traveled along.

The run felt longer than it was the first time. Exa's heart raced, pure adrenaline fueled her every step.

And just as she slipped to turn a corner into town, she saw three familiar faces.

"Mom!" She'd never been so relieved to see her mother. Elisabetta Behrens held baby Elio in a sling against her chest with her hand intertwined in Julien's, who had a small bag of assorted fruits and vegetables.

"Exa? What's wrong?" Her mom reached her free hand out to her daughter, but her daughter didn't take it.

"Anton is sick, he's coughing, and there's blood, mom he needs help." Exa's words came out in between gasping breaths.

"Okay, Exa. Deep breaths. Take my hand, and take me to him." She reached for Exa's hand again, but Exa's attention was still directed towards the town.

"He needs medicine, or a doctor, I can go get one-" Exa tried to push past her mother into the town, but her mother held her back.

"No, no let me check on him first, okay honey?" Elisabetta's smile was soft, but her eyes were sunken. Dark circles were permanently stained under them. The fear hidden between the words she spoke. Her shoulders were hunched, bearing the reality of a family of eight who lived in the poverty of District Six. A reality Elisabetta and her husband, Emmett, work so hard to protect their children from. Too little too late.

So the mother took the three children home, where Anton had just about passed out on the rugged couch Exa left him on. His mother moved him into the family's shared bedroom, which he became confined to as the days passed. Exa only left his side to return to school, not by her own will though. If there was one thing her parents refused to let any of the Behrens children do, was to slack on their education.

How many times did Exa ask, beg, plead for her parents to bring him to a doctor? She lost count. It took Exa some time to understand the reasons behind the hesitation. The one thing there was never enough of in the Behrens household- money.

Exa wasn't sure how many days passed in between when he fell sick and his last breath. Those days were long and hard, but what was worse was the days that came afterwards. Her parents continued to work, her brothers and sisters continued to go to school. They couldn't even afford a proper funeral.

Exa's walks home were lonely and quiet. As she grew, so did her awareness of her surroundings. Kids in her neighborhood falling to the same fate as her brother. Infants, toddlers, children, all ages suffered the same. Exa once made the mistake of asking her teacher if Anton could have been saved with medicine. She hadn't expected her to say yes.

6 months ago

Exa sat on the floor in the corner of the bedroom, aggressively writing away at her proposal. There was hardly enough light peeking through the windows for her to see the ink on the page, but she didn't care. She needed to draft this out now before she can sleep. She could fix it at school tomorrow, with the nicer paper the teachers kept in the classrooms.

'Thank you for considering my proposal for affordable medical care.' Exa stopped her pencil, her brain no longer producing words. She yawned.

It's time to call it. She quietly placed the papers in her backpack and crawled into bed alongside her sister Liza. Fortunately for her, Liza is the heaviest sleeper of her five siblings.

It should be six. Anton will never leave Exa's heart. He was the family member she was closest with, and that still held true.

She didn't expect sleep to come so quickly. Granted, she had no idea how late she stayed awake. It didn't surprise her when her sister shook her awake that she didn't feel rested.

"Come on, come on." Little Quincy moved Exa's arm as she begrudgingly pushed herself out of the worn down mattress.

"Five minutes." Exa stumbled towards the closet of shared clothes and tried to pick something out that would make the mayor take her somewhat seriously. It's hard to tell, sleep deprived, if she succeeded. Regardless, she changed quickly and made good on her promise to Quincy.

Breakfast conversation was quiet and the words exchanged weren't memorable to Exa. It had been eight years, but the wound Anton's death left still hadn't healed.

That's why Exa needed to go through with this. Anton's death was not the only one in the district, let alone her neighborhood, that could have been prevented with simple medicine. Medicine that too many people had to pass on simply because of the cost. She wondered if the mayor even knows about this problem. If he did, Exa didn't think it would be a problem.

So when the Behrens children head to school, all of them attend their regularly scheduled classes except Exa. She headed straight into the small art room, grabbed a nice and new piece of paper, and transferred last night's scribbles into a beautiful, legible plea for help. After she finished, she folded it neatly.

Hoping she'd be back before her teacher notices, she snuck out of the school and half walked, half skipped to the square. The Capitol Building sits guarded by two Peacekeepers as it usually did. But the rest of the square was void of people otherwise. She wasn't surprised, with most preoccupied with school or work.

"Hey! Shouldn't you be in school?" One of the Peacekeepers shouted her way, making her jump.

You can do it. Exa smiled at the Peacekeeper, and held the folded paper in front of her.

"I have a proposal for Mayor Delvac." Exa held her paper out to the Peacekeeper that spoke to her. He glanced at his friend beside him, then back at Exa.

"Mayor Delvac doesn't take proposals. Now get to school," he snapped back.

Exa felt her heart deflate inside her chest. She rattled her brain for the words to convince them, to allow her seven seconds to deliver the letter to the mayor, or a secretary, or whoever.

"Please, it would only take a moment-" she's quickly interrupted.

"Kid, don't make us repeat ourselves," the Peacekeeper kept a tight grip on his gun. Exa took a step back, carefully raising the letter a second time.

"Can you please put it on his desk? Please. I'm begging." Exa's voice cracked and she felt the tears start to form behind her eyes. She expected to be rejected again, to be threatened, but it didn't come.

Instead, one of the Peacekeepers grabbed the letter and nodded his head for her to get out before he changed his mind.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." Exa backed away from the two guards and started moving in the direction of her school. She felt her anxieties dissipate.

Until she made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder and saw shreds of paper leaving his hand. The picture wasn't clear at first, possibly out of denial, but once the realization hit her, it hit hard.

She looked away and continued back towards her school. With each step, her vision got blurry with tears. Her hands clenched into a fist, the ripped up pieces of paper engrained in her brain.

She didn't know what's more upsetting: knowing she let Anton down, or realizing she has zero idea how to make a difference. And, worst of all, knowing children will continue to die day in day out until something changes.

And nothing ever changes in Panem.

Owain Fairburn, 18, District 7

7 years ago

The snow fell gently on the small village Owain Fariburn called home. It's a tight knit community, settled in the outskirts of Seven away from the hustle and bustle of the main district. Peacekeepers hardly patrol the area, allowing the seventy or so members to live in quiet harmony. Since they didn't pull resources from the district, yet provided food and medicinal herbs when requested, they're left alone. For the most part.

Owain didn't grow up in luxury, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. He was taught how to hunt and grow by village elders, how to sew and mend by his mother, and how to treat wounds or bites from his father. He had a best friend, a boy his age named Roscoe. His father was the town's only apothecary. Owain loved learning from him almost as much as he loved spending time with Roscoe. Since they spent endless amounts of time together, their respective parents were comfortable referring to them as brothers.

So when Owain saw the light dusting start to gather around his house, he was eager to run to Roscoe's house. He already had the whole day planned. They could create snow art, throw snow at each other, clear pathways to ensure other's safety, the opportunities are endless.

He dressed appropriately, a woolen jacket with leather gloves and a wool scarf he made for himself just last week.

I need to finish up the matching one for my mom! He promised himself he'll get to it this evening. But first, he braved the winter weather and traveled to Roscoe's house.

There was something peaceful about the village. The singing of the birds, the friendly smiles of all his neighbors. Owain had never known anywhere else, but he simply couldn't imagine it. What he had was perfect.

When he arrived at Roscoe's house, his friend had already gotten started at digging through the snow. With Roscoe not noticing his friend's arrival, Owain made the most of it.

He quietly collected and compacted enough snow to form a ball, and without a second thought, he threw it at Roscoe. It exploded against Roscoe's back, and he screamed.

"Owain!" his friend yelled before even placing him in his sights. Owain, in all his childhood glory, pointed and laughed.

Roscoe wasted no time forming his own snowball and throwing it back at Owain. The two played like this for quite some time. Owain didn't know how much time passed, but he didn't care. If he could've captured this moment and lived it on repeat again and again, he would.

Especially when the yelling started.

Owain and Roscoe froze, each with a snowball in their grasp. Their eyes fell towards the center of the village, where the noise originated from. Where a few villagers rushed towards.

Roscoe and Owain dropped the snow and followed their neighbors. As they do, they hear unrecognized voices getting louder and louder. They stayed out of the way of the adults, but close enough to just see what's transpiring.

Two Peacekeepers stood over an older man Owain didn't immediately recognize. A group of villagers stood behind the man, one kneeling down to help him up. There's yelling and shouting from both sides, moving so fast that Owain couldn't make out what the problem is.

He fixated on one of the Peacekeepers, who leaned down and spit at the old man. Then, just when it looked like a fight was about to break out, the Peacekeepers turned around and walked away from the situation they had created.

"What just happened?" Owain asked Roscoe, his eyes fixated on the Peacekeepers as they disappeared into the woods.

"I don't know…" Roscoe's eyes darted around. For what, Owain didn't know.

The yelling. The spitting. The tense faces of those from his village. Whatever just went down, Owain didn't like it.

Little did he know, it would be the start of something much worse.

It only took a week for shit to start falling apart. Everyone seemed to be coughing, their skins decorated with inflamed spots. Another week, the coughing turned bloody, the inflamed spots turned purple. Another week, and the sickness claimed its first victim.

No one knew the name of the disease the Peacekeepers brought into Owain's town, but someone called it the "Spotted Sickness" and it stuck. It spread like wildfire, no one in the town had any immunities towards it.

Roscoe's father, Sandoval, was at a loss. It was nothing he had ever seen before. Still free from illness, Sandoval sent letters all across the neighboring villages he knew of, desperate to save his own. But no one could help.

Owain hadn't fallen ill right away, but his parents caught it almost immediately. They begged him to stay away, but he simply couldn't. He sat beside Elowen Fairburn as she laid in bed, her skin devoid of all its normal color. He took one hand while her other gripped a blood stained tissue.

Please, please recover, mom. I love you… Owain doesn't remember if his thoughts ever made it out loud. He doesn't remember many details of his mom's last days. He just remembers the pain.

Oliver Fairburn fell shortly after. Like his wife, he became bedridden. And like his mom, Owain was by his side every day.

"Stay…strong…son. You made us….very proud…" he said between coughs.

"Pull through, dad. Please. Please don't die." Owain's tears left a stain mark on the bed's comforter.

"I love you." His father didn't lie to his son. He tried his best, but the sickness took him too.

By the time Owain started showing symptoms, he had lost all hope. Body bags decorated the front lawns of the houses he could see through his window. And when he crawled into bed, he thought it would be for the last time.

Owain wasn't sure when the man in black arrived, but based on Roscoe's account, he and his father were near the edges of town, gathering herbs to use for an experimental treatment when he showed up. Fully cloaked in black on the back of a tall gray horse, Sandoval was left in shock at the newcomer's arrival. According to Roscoe, Sandoval hadn't said a word when the man rode over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and told him everything would be okay, for he had a cure.

Sandoval was in disbelief, but between the three of them, they traveled to every single house with afflicted patients and offered them all a serving of panacea. He came to Owain's bedside himself and offered it to him. Owain took it, half convinced it was a dream.

"Why are you doing this?" Owain remembers asking the cloaked man. He remembers the melodic laugh that came from him.

"Our supplies are inadequate to pay for this. What payment are you expecting?" Owain pressed. The man gently placed his hands on the side of Owain's bed.

"My child, I do not expect anything in return except your good health. I work to help." His words were dreamlike and Owain would not believe it was true, except for the fact the cure worked. By the next morning, Owain felt all the pain and pressure inside his body lift. By the second, he felt like a new person.

To this day Owain regrets not getting the name of the cloaked man. He couldn't believe someone like him existed. He couldn't get his image, his good deeds, out of his head.

Those thoughts are what kept him going when the village got together to bury their dead. Sandoval later told Owain that they buried around twenty of their own, but Owain could have sworn it was more. The sight, the smell, the ache in his back from the digging and moving and burying, it was the second worst day of Owain Fairburn's life.

Things never fully returned to normal, but the villagers did their best. Alone in his house, Owain didn't even remember the day of his own birthday until Roscoe was at his door with a gift basket of apothecary books, tools, and herbs.

"You're all alone?" Roscoe had asked his best friend. Owain nodded his head. And that was the last night Owain spent alone, in his family's house.

Sandoval took him in, making Roscoe and Owain officially brothers. Owain wanted to thank Sandoval for his generosity, but Sandoval only ever asked Owain for one thing: to learn.

And learn he did. Owain absorbed every ounce of knowledge on medicine and healing he could from Sandoval. The face of the cloaked man and the generosity that he spread lives engrained in Owain's memory, encouraging him when times get hard.

Owain learned and learned and learned and by the time he was seventeen he had made Sandoval proud. He had planned to start traveling after he was past reaping age, but unfortunately tragedy struck yet again. This time it was not a contagious plague, but a stroke that fell upon Sandoval. Owain had found his body too late to do anything.

With Sandoval buried, Owain decided he needed to embark on his apothecary journey now. Leaving Roscoe as the village's head apothecary, Owain left the only place he had ever called his own and traveled throughout the district. Finding villages in need and caring for the sick became his livelihood, one that he was proud of and frankly good at. He relied only on tips, but he had no reservations about his lifestyle. Maybe one of the children he healed will look at him the same way he looked at the cloaked man, and they'll be inspired to help.

Maybe, just maybe, Owain Fairburn can bring positive change to the district.

Astel Norwood, 17, District 7

1 year ago

The Norwood family made the mountain their home and their livelihood. Settled during the Dark Days, the Norwoods made something of a "vacation" spot for Capitolites searching for "unique experiences". The Norwood Resort was a popular destination spot all year around, as it offered both guided tours through the beautiful scenery of District Seven along with a resort filled with luxuries such as heated tubs, masseuses, and pampering akin to Capitol standards.

Astel grew up intertwined with this lifestyle. As a child, she wanted nothing more than the freedom to fly amongst the mountains. And fly, she tried. She learned the area around her home and her family's resort like the back of her hands. She knew every turn, every secret path, and every hidden gem. At least, she always thought she did. As the landscape shifted, and snow came and went, there were always new treasures being unearthed.

As a Norwood, Astel was ingrained in the family business from birth. She was only given small tasks at first, simply assisting with cleaning the rooms after a client departed, or assisting with the check in and check out process. She struggled to work inside the resort, as there was so much beauty in being outdoors, so her family trusted her with more of a "maintenance" occupation. Astel found pride and joy in scaling the mountain, building up fences along the tour paths, creating boards and signs engraved with the history of the land. Some days, she worked at the resort fixing simple things like windows, or the plumbing. She was a jack of all trades, happiest when the air was blowing on her skin.

Which meant as soon as she was older and more responsible, she volunteered to lead guided tours.

One particularly warm day, Astel led a new group of Capitolites around a guided tour of her mountain. It was a relatively standard tour, they asked the same mundane questions and smiled despite their clear unappreciation for the nature that surrounded them. The Norwoods were always worried that giving Astel her own platform to speak, especially in front of Capitolties, would get her in trouble, but she'd actually become their best tour guide. No matter what her feelings were for the people around her, it was more important to stay connected with the air around her, for that's what truly mattered.

"Over this ledge, you'll see a rockier slope. This is actually not a natural occurrence. During the Dark Days, the Capitol became alerted to a rebel base in the area. What you see is the remains of the bombing that ensued." Astel gestured towards the slope, watching carefully to ensure no curious tourists tried to hoist themselves higher on the fence.

"Are there rebel remains?" a blue haired, middle aged Capitolite woman asked. Her friend, also with blue hair, hit her side.

"Yes, it's likely. No one has excavated their remains. They're one with the mountain at this point in time," Astel explained as her eyes wandered to the site.

"That sounds awful," the woman with the question said, moving along so the next tour attendant could see.

It sounds wonderful, Astel thought. As she looked up to the higher slopes of the mountain, she could only stare in awe at the freedom it represented. With the temperature so cold that high up, anything that died there was never lost, their final forms preserved by the cold conditions. It was a beautiful thought, to be so connected with nature and preserved within it for eternity. When her time came, decades from now, she wished for the mountain to be her final resting place.

"Let's continue our path down, watch your step." Astel went through the motions of the rest of the tour, but her mind was stuck at the rebel ruins. The area looked slightly more accessible than the last time she tried to scale down there. This might've been a better day.

"Thank you all for embarking on this tour with me today. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget, the diner will begin serving food at 6pm sharp." Astel was thanked by every tour participant, she even received a few pieces of gold for her efforts. She secured them in her jacket, and made a mental note to turn them into the register later this evening.

First, I need to attend to this. Astel waited until no one was around before taking off down the trail she'd just walked through. Reaching the spot of damage, she looked over both shoulders before hopping over the fence and carefully, so carefully, climbing down.

Astel knew the rules her parents enforced. Stay on the safe paths, leave any ruins alone, and report any findings to the Peacekeepers. But she actively broke each of these rules, starting way back when she was fourteen. Her and her cousin were playing around in the woods, definitely breaking her parents rules, when they accidentally stumbled across strange gear and weaponry, clearly from the Dark Days.

"Ah, if only these pieces were functional. We could make a killing," he had said to her once. Having dabbled in the "illegal sellings" within the district, Astel knew he was onto something. And it inspired an entrepreneur spirit in her she didn't quite know she had.

So she spent a decent portion of her maintenance time searching through these ruins for any functioning weaponry, ammo, gadgets, whatever to give to him. Her cousin made true on his promise, and soon they were both doing incredibly well with their less than legal side hustle. This particular location was one she'd had her eye on for some time, but the terrain has always been a little too dangerous.

So she was extra careful as she traversed down the mountain. She reached the furthest area visible from the ledge, and carefully, carefully continued her trek. She hadn't made the quarter of a mile trek in quite some time, mostly because of the danger, but she hadn't exactly made any alternative discoveries in a while. She needed to sell something soon.

Minutes passed and Astel moved very gingerly. So carefully she wasn't too surprised she was able to make it to the bottom without too many stumbles.

The base looked bigger than it did the first time she saw it in the distance. That was what, two years ago? She was younger and less experienced in climbing then, and there were easier spots to loot from back then. Every area she found had been further and further away from the last, and she wondered how much longer she'd be able to keep up this game.

With little time to spare, she got to work searching for an opening into the base, if one still stood. She moved shattered pieces of metal around and revealed some broken weaponry and old shell casings. Worthless.

She pushed it to the side and continued scavenging. She was not sure how long she kept at it, but it must have been at least an hour based on the ache in her knees from her constant squatting and bending. She was about to give up and return to the resort when her foot came in contact with something hard.

She kicked away the foliage and revealed an opening covered by fallen branches. She assumed it used to be covered by some kind of door, but alas, she climbed down the questionable stairs and into a small underground storage unit of sorts. Rust, dust, and bugs covered every inch of the place. But Astel pushed through it all, with herself in complete shock.

The metal shelves were patchy with weaponry, old tech, and boxes of ammunition. Examining it, the materials looked too high tech to be a full set from the rebels. No, Astel thought some of these supplies belonged to the Capitol.

What a score. Astel didn't bring anything to carry the technology to her cousin, so she left everything as is, ensuring to cover up the opening with the same branches as before.

She scurried back up the side of the mountain, anxious to return to the resort before she could get caught in the open. Not that there was too much danger of that. Her tour participants were almost guaranteed to be resting before their big dinner. Astel knew, for most of them, the tour was the most exercise they've ever gotten at once.

Before long she found herself back at the family resort. She looked up towards the top of the mountain, a gentle breeze blowing past her. She held out her arms, wishing she could just take off into the sky.

One day, Astel will be able to fly above the clouds. Today is just not that day.

Welcome to Extinguished, Astel (Nemris), Owain (geologyisms), and Exa (Professor R.J. Lupin)! I hope you all enjoyed meeting them, I know I certainly enjoyed writing them.

Huge huge thank you to rising-balloons, Nautics, and District 11-Olive for beta'ing this chapter! Y'all rock.

My plan is to update every two weeks on Sunday/Monday hopefully I can stick to it.

Anywho, thank you for reading! You're all awesome.

~Moose