Crushed : A Hunger Games Story

Chapter 4

The day after, I stand in Glimmer's yard next to her crude coffin. Gemmine stands next to me, Sparkle on my other side, and Flicker next to his mom. We slowly open the coffin. It's Glimmer. The Capitol actually took time to at least make her look nice. She's wearing a plain white gown. Her hair is smoothed out, and she's lying with her eyes closed and hands folded. I'm not sure what they did, but any sign of her being attacked in the Hunger Games is gone. She looks just like the pretty girl I remember. I can't help but crying, and Gemmine is comforting Flicker. So I turn to the nearest available shoulder to cry on and sob into Sparkle's arms. Of course it's awkward, but I don't care. As soon as I can stop the tears, I murmur, "We should bury her here." Gemmine and Sparkle nodded, and Flicker just slipped inside, wanting to run away from his problems and emotions. Then we start digging. Not a big hole, but big enough. It takes a lot of effort, but we get it done. We slowly lower the coffin in, then cover it in dirt. Sparkle and I head to the marketplace to get flowers to plant over her grave. We would never let Glimmer be forgotten.

Sparkle's Perspective

I walk next to Crystelle, who looks beautiful, as always. But her beauty is tinged with sadness, and we get a bouquet of beautiful red roses. Courtesy of the shopkeeper, who knows we want to plant them on Glimmer's grave. One of the roses is broken off, so I tuck it into Crystelle's hair, behind her ear. She just smiles softly, because she and Glimmer would always have a flower in their hair when they could find one. When we get home, Mom and Flicker are off in their rooms crying, so it's up to Crystelle and I to plant the roses. The dirt is already loose, so it isn't that hard. But then we find a large slab of rock, and we place it in front of the roses. I want to write something on it, but we don't have anything to right. Crystelle, wiping tears from her face, takes a piece of charcoal from the fireplace. It covers her hands in a thick black dust, but works perfectly to write Glimmer on the rock. Despite her hand shaking with sobs, Crystelle manages to write in a beautiful cursive that Glimmer had always loved. She returned the charcoal to the fireplace, and scrubbed her hands clean of dirt and charcoal. 

A week or so passed, maybe even longer. The grief was slowly but surely dulling, and I saw more of Crystelle than ever. As I was carefully carving an elegant ring at work, the Capitol anthem suddenly blared overhead. "Attention, citizens of Panem!" Claudius Templesmith says brightly. "The victor," he clears his throat, "or victors from the 74th annual Hunger Games are Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!" There are murmurs from all around me, and everyone slowly trickles out of the building. We need to spend the next day celebrating another fabulous Hunger Games, or something like that. But what makes my blood boil is that it's the girl who dropped the nest on Glimmer than won. And not just that, but the Capitol let two tributes win! I ran home as fast as I could.

Crystelle greeted me at the door. I could hear Flicker screaming. "That filthy tree rat killed Glimmer, don't you get it?" He yelled, then I heard a door slam. Before the Hunger Games, Flicker had strong emotions, but usually not uncontrollable anger like this. He had been better the past few days, but hearing that the girl from 12 won... "Sparkle." Crystelle says, as if she were trying to get my attention. "Yeah?" I respond, looking into her sapphire blue eyes.

"I was talking to you. Did you see the Hunger Games?" I shake my head. She drops her voice to a whisper. "There was only supposed to be one victor, but the kids from 12 threatened to both eat poisonous berries if they couldn't both win. They won't show it in the highlights, but this could mean rebellion." She says. My eyes widen. A rebellion. I had always dreamed of one, but I never thought that one would actually spark.