Go rogue: to start behaving in a way that is not normal or expected, especially by leaving your group and doing something dangerous.
That morning Madge wakes up earlier than usual with a gloomy feeling hovering in her stomach. It is reaping day. She sighs while her eyes get used to the darkness in the room while she tries to vanish her nightmares from her mind. The light is barely announcing a new morning, dark blue shadows looming around her. It doesn't matter how much she dreads it; the day is going to continue its way, she thinks. With another sigh, and the resolution that she would rather have an early morning than going back to fighting her own mind, she goes for the bathroom.
A look at the mirror is all it took to regret her resolution. Purple circles beneath her eyes, hollow cheeks, dry lips with chunks of dead skin that would be too hurtful to peel off and greasy hair stare back at her. She splashes some water on her face and looks again, knowing that would only make her paler. She considers taking a shower, but the thought makes her shiver. The chilly air of the night is still lingering in her bedroom, since she had decided to sleep with the window half open to try to escape the feeling of confinement the previous night. That is not the main reason why she is reluctant to shower though, and she knows it. She just could not bring herself to it, as many other days. Lately, she barely made it out of her pajamas to go to school. Containing another sigh, she starts using one of the expensive creams she saved for using only during Capitol events where it would be improper to look like a ghost. When there were not a thousand cameras near her face, no one would notice anyway.
Stop this self-compassionate shit, Madge, she says to herself. She never cursed in public, but there was no need to be the perfect mayor's daughter when she was all alone in her room. Everyone must have had nightmares yesterday, many of them with way worse odds than you, and yet, here you are, feeling sorry for yourself because people have better things to do than paying you any attention. Pathetic. Her nightmares were not even about the Games this time, nothing too gore. She dreamt her father was dead, and then she had ended up like her mother. Her ghostly reflection was heading in that direction, she notes. Usually, being a ghost suited her just fine because she preferred to be invisible over the rumors and resentment that people throwed her way. Today, though, is not a common day.
She takes her time to transform herself from ghost to happy, composed, maybe even pretty merchant girl. The daylight is already bathing her wardrobe when she goes to get her outfit for the day, a white dress instead of her usual school uniform. Her mother, through one of her rare episodes of sanity the previous week, had it selected for her, and then had proceeded to drown in a morphline-induced dream that would probably last for the few weeks spanning the Games.
Once ready, Madge leaves her room to head towards the living room, where maybe playing the piano for a while would calm her. However, the voice of her father coming from the studio stops her on her tracks.
"Madge, can you come here for a second?"
"Yes, Dad," Madge answers softly. She followed the voice and let herself in, worrying for the solemn tone of her father. She takes a look at him, sitting behind his desk with clasped hands and balding head, and cannot help thinking that he too looks like a ghost. It seems it is a family thing.
"Mother wanted me to give you something for today," he says, unclasping his hands and revealing something golden in between them. Madge approaches the desk to look closed and then immediately recognizes the pin that her father holds from old pictures where her mother was not completely lost in a world of migraines and morphline. It was the pin her aunt used as token when she died on the Games. "You don't have to wear it," he says hastily when her expression becomes clearly pained.
"It's okay, Dad," Madge replies composing herself. "I'll do it for Mother, and for aunt Maysilee". Even if neither of them will be there.
Her father leaves his place behind the desk and pulls her into a tight hug. He's usually too busy to spend time with her, but Madge thinks one more time, today is no ordinary day. She knows there are not a lot of papers with her name, she knows the odds are in her favor and still… her aunt had the exact same number she would have today.
"You will be okay," her father whispers, as if he had read her mind, although maybe he was just reassuring himself. He pulls away and attaches the pin to her dress. "My little mockinjay", he says so faintly she is almost sure that she imagined it. Considering the accidental origin of the hybrid bird, it was not something that the Capitol was proud of, and therefore not a word that should be spoken in the mayor's studio. Madge leaves a little confused and resumes on her original plan of playing the piano. Not long after she has played some notes, a knock in the back door interrupts her.
She moves to answer the door, guessing who is behind. There is only two people who would be standing in the back of her house this early in the morning. When two sets of Seam eyes fix on her once she swings the door open, her suspicions are confirmed: Gale and Katniss, with a bunch of strawberries and their hunting clothes. Gale, sporting the characteristic scowl that saves for her, gives her a once-over.
"Pretty dress," says Gale. Madge stares at him and thinks why, from all the days they could come, they had to come on reaping day, when everybody is already feeling terrible. She knows why, of course, she knows they come whenever they have strawberries because her father gives a good price and they have a family to support. Madge also knows he resents her, but she resents herself enough and stubbornly refuses to appear weak in front of him. She decides to fight back this time.
"Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?" Knowing that she doesn't look like a ghost this morning, she even adds a playful smile. If she ever went in as a tribute, she would be dead so fast that, indeed, looking good would be her only and last worry.
"You won't be going to the Capitol," Gale voices his resentment. Of course he would get railed up, Madge thinks. She should not have tried to get under his skin on a day like this, instantly regretting her words. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old."
Madge, quickly forgetting her regret about bickering with Gale, opens her mouth to tease him a bit saying she would hope that he at least felt guilty if her name was called, but Katniss spoke first.
"That's not her fault", she says rolling her eyes. Madge smiles. Katniss is probably her closest friend, although many would not call what they have a friendship at all. They pretty much just hang out at the school. In silence. However, they both seem to be fine with that. Madge didn't need fake town friends or resented Seam enemies like Gale, and Katniss had too much on her plate already trying to survive. Neither of them bothered with bonding with a lot of people.
"No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," says Gale, though his tone might hint otherwise. Even though it is the only thing that brings her a little out of her boredom and she hates feeling judged, Madge decides she won't argue with Gale anymore when she catches him staring at her pin with disdain. She knows his stakes are higher, and she doesn't want to be the privileged brat that everyone (except maybe Katniss) thinks she is, so she chooses to ignore him.
"Good luck, Katniss".
"You too", she replies. Madge closes the door. The idea of relaxing playing the piano is not right for her anymore, and her stomach could definitely not hold a single bite, so she goes to her room and writes while she waits for the moment when she will have to go to the square. She finds writing to be a therapy of sorts, sometimes it's stories, sometimes poems, sometimes just her thoughts. Today, though, she cannot focus. After a few attempts at starting something, she closes her notebook and stares at the ceiling.
Sometimes Madge wanted it was her name on the reaping and be done with it, get herself a quick death and not spend another year of her life fearing the day of the reaping. Sometimes she imagined, at least for a little while, people would be nice towards her. Gale would have to swallow all his stupid remarks about her money. But then, everyone would forget about her once she died, and her father would be destroyed. Maybe being forgotten was worse than being resented.
Madge decides to go to the square early to try and soothe the feeling that she was a pig waiting to be slaughtered. No pig would rush to their deaths. Plus, it would be better than walking in painful silence along her father. As the Peacekeeper checked her name, she notices she is one of the first kids in the square, the clock in the Justice Building signaling 1:30pm. Standing in her allotted section, a feeling of gloom creeping up her spine, she realizes that being early was actually making it worse. She will not repeat the strategy the following year. If I am here the following year.
The sixteen-year-old girls start surrounding her as they arrived at the square. The other spaces were slowly filling up as well. Madge could see her own hopelessness and frustration in many other faces. With the difference that most of them have way worse odds, she reminds herself. As if she could forget, as if anyone would allow her to forget she was the most privileged kid in the district. It was all they saw in her, but there were worse labels to have.
Soon enough, Katniss arrives with her sister, Prim, and stands a few rows behind Madge while the latter goes closer to the stage, with her group. When Madge sees Prim walking through the crowd, she turns to find Katniss glare and give her a reassuring smile, which she returned with a nod. Outside of the allocated space for the potential tributes, the rest of the population, mostly parents, is gathering. Not everyone in the district could fit in the square, the rest would watch the reaping from the huge screens in other streets. Her family is not on the other side of the ropes, however. Turning her attention to the stage, she could notice her hands shaking a little. Her father is sitting next to Effie Trinket, as every year, looking as tired as ever. Haymitch, only alive victor and mentor of District 12 is nowhere to be seen. Probably drunk again.
At two o'clock sharp, the mayor reads the history of Panem, and how the Hunger Games were our deserved punishment. Every year Madge grew angrier with this story. She could be the most privileged kid in the district and, still, there was absolutely nothing her father could do to stop slips of paper with her name to be thrown into the bowl in the stage. She had asked as soon as she was old enough to understand what was going on in the square, only to receive probably the saddest stare her father could give. And she had understood through the years, dying wasn't enough for the Capitol, it had to be spectacular, dramatic, and humiliating for the districts. It had to deepen the inequalities and fuel the resentment and hate within and between districts. It had to make comments such as "pretty dress" a vehicle of that resentment.
Haymitch appears, clearly drunk, at the mention of his name in the short list of victors of District 12. Madge resists the impulse of rolling her eyes because she can't possibly imagine sending two kids to their deaths year after year. She doesn't know a lot about Haymitch, only that he was a victor the year her aunt was in the games. They were allies in the arena; her father had said once. She sees him at her house every year for the Victory Tour, but she can't recall him being sober, and her father routinely keeps him away from her.
Madge knows Haymitch is embarrassing the district and, from the look on his face, also does her father. District 12, the poorest district, the most neglected and despised, also the most overlooked. Thanks to her ghostly abilities, she knows that being an underdog had its perks. It drives the attention of the Capitol far from the district, and her father can buy illegal strawberries. It its not exactly the strawberries what her father wanted, but to prevent some of the horrors of the Capitol such as whippings, death sentences and even deeper inequalities. He couldn't stop the games, but he and the Peacekeepers could look the other way with this stuff if the Capitol wasn't watching. Under that light, Haymitch is pretty much being helpful. Madge doubts the two kids going to the Capitol today would see that, though.
"… and may the odds be ever in your favor!" says Effie, bringing Madge out of her thoughts. This is it. "Ladies first!".
The crowd is silent, and Madge can hear her heartbeat throwing inside her head. She could have puked if she had eaten something for breakfast. She knows she is more nervous this year because of her aunt. Effie grabs a slip of paper. The odds are in her favor, she tries to repeat to herself. Effie goes back to the podium. Maybe it's her name she will hear next, and then it is the last time she will have to worry. Effie unwraps the slip. Maybe it is a pretty dress to walk towards death.
"Primrose Everdeen".