Catching Fire Essay

Hi this essay for Catching Fire Essay, i wantered to enter it but we unfortunately missed the deadline, so I thought that I would put it on here so at least someone could read it. I hope you guys like it!!!!! XD

March 13

To whom it may concern,

                If you are reading this, then it means that my brother’s plan worked and time travel is possible. My name is Sira and I’m sixteen. I live in what was once America. I’m not sure what year this is but I know that America fell in the year 2022 to the Unus Mundus Terrorist group. No one knows who started this group or why. All we know is that they were out for blood. I think it might be 2065, but I’m not sure, and I have no one I can ask. America is now a place full of fear. The ozone layer is so bad that we have to live underground. There are not a lot of us left. There are about one million Americans now. Most of us died in the war against Unus Mundus when they came and bombed all of the most populated states. Since then, they have kept us in the dark. We have no contact with anyone outside of our little town. I’m not sure exactly how bad it is anywhere else, but everyday here is a living hell. My brothers and I live in a tiny apartment by the market place.  Every day at five in the morning, we must wake up and stand outside on the street while the Prefects inspect us. We have to be completely silent as they make their way down the line. Every once in a while they will stop and look at a chart that they carry with them and grab someone and take them away. My father was taken away before Tanner was born. No one knows what happens to them, but we all know that once you’re taken, you won’t ever come back. After that, the men all go down to the mines. The Prefects don’t tell us what they’re looking for, but that doesn’t stop them from making the men dig everyday for twelve hours. If you stop working before the bell they will kill you. I go to the Prefect Merino’s house. He is about twenty-four, tall with dark long wavy hair and he is beautiful. Every time I see him I lose my breath for a little bit. After I’m done cleaning his house I go to the Arena, everybody does. Once we get there we choose a number and then the Prefects choose two numbers. The two people with the numbers chosen are then put into a room until the bell rings. Once the bell rings the, doors open and they step into the arena. They have to fight against four Prefects with guns. They have five minutes to hide and arm themselves before the Prefects start to search for them. The entire thing is disgusting, and I get sick every time I watch the fights. The Prefects always win and the two families of the people in the arena get five days off from work, but during the five days off the Prefects come and take their children under the age of five. The children are then moved to live with a Prefect and raised as their own. This is to ensure that there won’t be an uprising, because their sons and daughters are on the other sides of the guns. After the fight is over, everyone goes back to work, the men to the mines, and the woman to various different places. Unfortunately, there aren’t any current jobs available for me, so I am forced to...have sex with men so that I can buy food for myself and my brothers. I am not proud of it and I only get paid ten dollars, but it’s enough to get all the food we need for a week, sometimes. The Prefects are horrible and if I were ever to get caught then they’d be sure to cane me sixty-eight times for prostitution. Every day I live in fear, afraid that one day they will come to me and take me away like they did my mother two years ago. So far they haven’t, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t on to me. I’m sixteen and I’ve already been warned that if I’m not married by the end of the year then I will become disposed of. Obsolete. Hopefully Timmy will agree to marry me even though, unlike most girls, I don’t really have anything to bring to the marriage, should he agree. For now, though, I try my best to stay out of all of the Prefects ways. Whenever I see them, I turn down a corner and try not to be caught by them…I think I hear someone coming. I have to go before they get here and realize what I’m doing. The punishment for treason is death. Slow painful death.