memento mori.

chapter one

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THREE DAYS BEFORE THE REAPING.

NOTHING made me feel as good as the way sitting in my room did.

Maybe it was because of the way the scattered candles bounced and lit up the corners of my room, enclosing me into a cozy box filled with old memories and bright colours. The candles didn't smell of anything, even if they did, it wouldn't be enough to kill the permanent stink that clouded my home of district eight.

Out of nervous necessity, I get up and check my appearance in the long, cracked mirror once more, my bloom of freckles, my loosely curled hair, my smeared eye shadow. I looked the same as I did five minutes ago. I looked fine.

When I turn, I notice the blanket at the end of my bed is askew.

It was green, a bright crocheted green, made by my mother and father as a present for my twelfth birthday. Most of the presents we give each other for birthdays are handmade, it's a blessing, Lennox had told me years ago, to be able to create something from nothing with just your hands.

"Bee, it's ready!" My mother yelled, presumably from the bottom of the stairs.

Before I left my room, I blew out the candles and swiped my cowboy boots from the floor, carelessly hopping on each foot as I slid them on. Once I reached the bottom of the stairs my mother tutted.

"You've got the stop doing that, you'll break your neck one day." She tutted again, walking into the dining room turned sewing room.

I stood waiting like an excited child, my hands firmly clasped behind my back as I watched my mother carefully pick up the cranberry red sweater, sprinkled with dots of white and grey. I breathed out a sigh of awe. "It looks the same it did when you first made it. It's perfect."

My mother smiled, holding the sweater by its shoulders, the mixed stains of dirt and blood had been seamlessly washed out, the tears and holes completely hidden. I began to rapidly blink when I felt a tear hit my cheek.

"Oh, Bee..." My mother frowned, placing the sweater over the back of a chair, she pulled me in for a tight hug. "I didn't mean to upset you my dear." My arms slowly snaked around her waist and upper back, I let out a shaking but slowly steadying breath as I stared at the sweater, my eyes wide. I refused to let any more tears fall.

"I'm not upset." I said with a cracked voice, I wasn't sure what I was feeling. A concoction of grief, anguish, nostalgia and love, swirling inside me at such an unrelenting pace it made my chest tighten.

We hugged until I felt my body shift back to normal, whatever that word meant now, I then heard a dog bark from outside. I pulled back first, my mother rested her hands on my shoulders, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't read, maybe I didn't want to.