Flares | Johanna Mason

VIII. Written In The Scars

Ayla

Ayla Wynters sat in her room, holding a decorative seashell. The midday sunlight rays eked into the room and she had been contemplating on current events as well as those of the past. Ethan being shipped off to the Capitol and forced to participate in the Hunger Games. Ella's illness developing further, making it harder to treat her. Ethan's constant nightmares and him not being the young boy that she used to see. It had seemed a lot for her to take in.

She continued fiddling with the seashell as images of her only son flashed before her eyes.

"Mama!" called a smiling 3-year-old Ethan.

Ayla stopped tracing her finger across the shell as soon as old memories were coming, smiling at one of her earliest memories she had with Ethan.

"Look, mama! Look what I did!"

"Mama!"

"I love you, mama."

Ayla sighed and shook her head. Why was this happening to her now?

"Mama..." whined a sickly 4-year-old Ethan, coughing when he became ill with the dreaded fever that nearly took his life.

"Don't go, mama... Please..."

"Where's mama?"

Ayla felt her hand beginning to tighten its grip on the seashell, not caring if the edges were digging into her skin.

"My friends... they're all... gone. Every single one of them," said a rather despondent, emotionally broken 8-year-old Ethan after his friends parents had been involved in the riots 10 years ago and the Peacekeepers didn't hesitate to make an example to the rest of the Districts.

"Why? Why did they do this?"

"I hate them, mother! I hate the Peacekeepers! I hate the Capitol! I HATE THEM ALL!"

Blood started to seep from a cut caused by the jagged edges of the seashell but she couldn't feel a thing, too caught up in memories from the past.

Parts of District Seven were on fire. Ayla could smell and see the smoke billowing in the air. The citizens were rebelling again after a controversial end to the most recent Hunger Games after the District Seven tribute was killed off by the Gamemakers leading to a pompous 14 year old from District 4 to win the Games.

Ayla and Cillian turned the corner into the central courtyard of District 7 only to find her 11 year old son slumped on his knees barely conscious, held up only by the ropes that tied his wrists to the wooden post. Glass shards stuck out of his knuckles while a discarded Peacekeepers helmet that had part of its visor smashed laid next to him. Ethan's back a bruised and bloodied slab of meat and the jacket that Cillian gave him for his 11th birthday, the one that was a few sizes too big for the boy but what he still wore anyway flung to the side, next to another body laid out on the ground.

Alesia. Her pregnant daughter.

Alya seemed to be rather motionless as more and more flashbacks including her son presented themselves within her mind.

She had watched for months as Ethan didn't allow himself grieve his sister's death. He did everything he could to avoid slowing down and letting his mind process what had happened. He had been unconcious from blood loss while Alesia was forced to have the baby early so he had missed the birth of his niece Ella and the final moments of his sister. Alesia had been the one to drag him out of the hole he had found himself in after his friends had been killed. Now, no one could get through to him. The only time he slept was when he passed out from exhaustion.