𝗡𝗘𝗘𝗗𝗟𝗘𝗣𝗢𝗜𝗡𝗧, hunger games

𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗼, the shadow line

Back home, the citizens of Eight had come to refer to the peculiar time of day as the shadow line...

The purgatory interlude between
life
and
death.

           
So it was no surprise at all that they came at twilight. And of course, they should have seen it coming. He had always been too loud. Too overt. But recently, his heedlessness had reached an all time low.

    They should have seen it coming.

You see, you got away with things in Eight, so long as you were quiet enough to get drowned out by the noise. If your slur came in a whisper, or in a movement subtle enough to evade their wandering eyes, but only a fool would be reckless enough to raise their voice.

No, they should have seen it coming. And maybe he had, but Paisley would never know, because she had never gotten the chance to ask.

Preston hadn't seemed like he had known that night though, at least not from what she recalled. He hadn't acted any differently to his usual, explosively-energetic self. Over dinner, he had still quizzed Paisley about the facts she had been learning at school, and gorged on his meal so quickly that his mother had to tell him to slow down.

"Doesn't taste any better the slower it goes in, Ma", he had teased, the same words he repeated so frequently they had become an integral part of the Fawns' routine.

The six of them had eaten their dinner as normal, taking care to be grateful for their rations even if they were sparse. They discussed the usual things, like the fact that Polly was starting her first year of school soon, or the fact that Parker had aced another one of her tests. Lisle spent the entire meal anxiously tapping her foot underneath the table, and when he spotted his wife's unease, Burton had placed a gentle hand on the top of her knee. The pair had even bitten their tongues, when Preston had insisted that he couldn't show gratitude for rations when they were left to starve, and no matter how much they wanted to agree, they knew that the words he spoke were dangerous.

Things seemed... ordinary.

That was the first night Paisley had spotted the blurred lines of ink printed onto her brother's arms — blended with the blackened smudges of dirt that stained his skin. Constructing a bunch of words and symbols she couldn't quite make out.

She had wanted to question him, but she knew the dinner table wasn't the correct place to ask. She would ask him tomorrow, she had thought, when he picked her up from school.

Paisley was too young, but her brother still told her all of his secrets, if she only asked. She knew that he was mixing with a girl from across the bridge, and that he didn't do so well in school, and she knew that when he found the chance to whisper, he would organise secret meetings with his equally-insubordinate friends.

She knew that he hated it in District Eight, and that he wanted to put a stop to the way that things were.

He was like her favourite person in the whole world, and when she grew up, she knew she wanted to be just like him — unshakeable and kind and brave. She wanted him to be proud to call her his little sister, and she wanted him to know that he made the world spin around.

There were many things that she would have told him, if only she'd had the time. Things she would have questioned, if she had known how desperately time was running out.