Silence [The Hunger Games]

Chapter One

I couldn't sleep. The howling wind reminded me of a Capitol mutation from a previous Hunger Games, and though it was a bitterly cold night, I was hot and sweaty. I slipped out of bed to open a window, and I let the rush of air bite my face and the wind claw at my hair.

It wasn't my first reaping, but that year was guaranteed to be the worst yet. The previous year my brother, Jonah, was sent to the arena like a lamb to the slaughter. He didn't make it out of the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. He was just thirteen, having celebrated his birthday several weeks before the reaping. The odds were certainly not in his favour. They never are for tributes of District 10.

I realised as I snapped out of the memory of my brother's death, that I had dug my fingernails deep into the palm of my hand and blood was staining my fingertips. I rushed to the bathroom and drenched my hands in water, washing away the blood and memories. With a sigh, I decided to face the fact that sleep had evaded me and would not return. Judging by the inky blue blanket of sky, it was nearing morning anyway, and so I ran myself a bath.

It still wasn't completely light outside as I dressed. My reaping clothes were a little ill-fitted, with me being so small, but I hoped I looked presentable. After all, if you are chosen to participate in the Games, you are being scrutinized from the moment your name is read out. 

I wore a navy blue dress that was once my mother's. She has no need for it anymore, as she barely moves from her armchair. I had flat shoes made of velvet - a gift from the mayor - in the same colour, and they had beautiful peacock's feathers on them to cover my toes. They hurt my cracked and blistered feet, but I didn't care. I had borrowed some of my mother's rouge and a few drops of her perfume. It was her favourite once, but she hasn't worn perfume in over a year. Not since Jonah died. 

Normally, on reaping day, she liked to help me with my hair, but of course, this was out of the question, and so my hair sat neatly on my shoulders like a dull curtain, straight and predictable as always. At least my green eyes made me look powerful as they stared back at me in the mirror. They used to sparkle once, my eyes. Back when I had my brother, and we fought life together, hand in hand. Back when my mother seemed wise and was the glue that held our family together. Before she slipped through my fingers and took refuge in a place inside herself that only she knew. Back when my father's laugh vibrated through the house and he whistled on his way to work. 

But as I looked in the mirror that morning, I saw a new person. My eyes burned with hatred for the Capitol, and how they turned my life upside down. They dared someone to challenge me. Bring it on, I thought.

I crept downstairs quietly. I knew where my parents would be before I even saw them. They would be in the front room beside the fire, my mother lifeless in her armchair, and my father smoking a cigarette. My father made more money than most families, as he worked as an assistant to the Mayor, and was able to afford the luxury of a cigarette on reaping day each year. For the occasion, he also bought a loaf of the bakery's finest bread and a small ration of butter and jam. He never ate it himself, and since my brother's death in the arena, my mother ate next to nothing. So that year, for the first time, it was all for me. Sure, it was a treat, but it didn't feel that way. 

I sat alone at the table to eat my bread, imagining Jonah sat opposite me, chattering and eating with his mouth open. It was something that had always annoyed me about him, but that I missed once he was gone. I took a few moments to observe my parents. My mother was once a beautiful woman, but she seemed to have aged centuries over the past year. Her brown curls which I had once envied hung limp like rats tails, and her face was creased in the concentration of holding herself together. How must it feel I wondered to be alive, but not living? To me, my mother was dead as I watched her stare ahead with empty eyes, deprived of the little happiness she once had.