Worth it | F.O.

I

Her story began like many others did their end.

Technically that was not actually where it all started seeing as she had to have been born at some point, November 27th 18 years ago to be specific, but it was when the moment finally arrived. For her to even refer to it with such excitement was, quite frankly, disgusting. This day was one family's all over Panem feared down to the very core of their hearts and a day that never failed to prove that fear right with the insurmountable anguish it brought with the calling of some young victim's name. No one was spared fear on this day, despite maybe her.

Young girls or boys not yet 12 years of age feared for their older siblings, adults woke weeping and forced themselves to help their children look nice for their public call for execution, and the children wished they had never woken at all. On such days the burning sun threatening to melt them where they stood seemed more overbearing than usual. Its heat breathed down their necks, causing sweat to bead on their skin and only joining the already existing from the fear and nerves and that of the tears slipping from terrified eyes.

There was no such thing for or from her. Even in the face of this moment she remained impassive to what was to soon pass. The young woman couldn't find much to fear as all she would ever love had died before she could and she had been chosen for something bigger than herself, sent off into the world to fulfill that.

She could only hope that she did fulfill it as was expected.

That was why, instead of failing to throw a knife correctly that morning as she had for nearly two years, she was digging through her very limited closet despite the riches she owned compared to many others in the district. With a careless hand she tossed her usual dress to the side and that was when she saw something. It wasn't a dress - that she was sure of, seeing as there was a very clear parting of fabric in the middle - but it also seemed to fit the part she wanted to play perfectly.

The woman pulled it out and tilted her head, cold brown eyes studying every stitch to see if the jumpsuit was suitable enough for her needs. Eventually, she decided it was and kicked the heap of clothes she had tossed out back behind the rickety doors. Soon enough she stepped into the rough black fabric she would certainly regret later when the sun had taken its toll on the choice of color that worked wonderfully with her tanned skin.

Her fingers then worked nimbly to work her brown hair into a braid she had once been told had both been her mother's specialty and greatest wish to pass on to her daughter when she grew. That day had never come, seeing as she was referred to in past-tense, but a friend of hers had cared enough to learn it and pass it along as wished just before she was abandoned once more.

She, as calm and seemingly emotionless even in a moment of pure agony for anyone else, felt a spark of simultaneous content and sadness light like a sputtering ember as it did every time as she felt closer to the mother she had never known, dying off quicker than she would've liked.

The woman was in her own little world, eyes staring straight ahead at the dull wall before her. Her mind was, however, the opposite of her current demeanor as it usually was. In place of the usual terror and hope for the best as she was certain all others in the correct age range felt in her district, there was only hesitant apprehension.

She hadn't felt fear in quite awhile but no could be without true hesitation or some kind of negative emotion when they were in her shoes. For, as she had known her whole relatively peaceful life despite the classic repression she faced daily, from there on nothing would ever be the same again. But she was okay with that.

A single thought cancelled out that apprehension and filled her with a kind of confidence she found she adored, For the better g-

A knock shook the walls of her rickety room. She stood fluidly, as she had been taught, from her bed and crossed over to the door with that apprehension flooding through again despite the newfound confidence. Her hand settled on the doorknob and, after taking a deep breath to calm the nerves of facing the one person who could ruin her with a single word, she opened it. The woman did not smile - not that she ever did - and she most certainly did not offer any semblance of warm greeting, merely blinking at the man she cared not for.