thanatophobia the hunger games

00

A FAINT LIGHT BROKE through the cracks of the house's slatted wood walls as the sun groggily rose from its resting place over the hill. It was early enough that the mornings songbirds hadn't even awoken, leaving the golden grain covered district in an almost eerie silence. As the new sun began to rise higher into the sky, the once fast asleep farmers would've started to filter in, ready to start their monotonous day of work in the aureate fields district 9 was most known for, but unlike every other day of the year, today was reaping day which meant no work for the next 24 hours.

The light that poured through the interstices of the wood planks had now become my alarm clock, the once dark and small room becoming too bright to stay asleep in. Just like the groggy sun, I slowly and unwillingly opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling above me, too tired to actually get up and out of my bed. As I stared at the wooden beams above me, I came to the realization that something about this situation was off. My mind ran over the routine things of my usual mornings, until it found the culprit: my normally snoring and oversleeping brother was no where to be found; instead, his side of the bed was empty and quiet, leaving me slightly confused. The confusion however was quickly dismissed when my stomach growled, leading my short attention span to focus on my now growing hunger. As my stomach complained, I slowly pulled myself out of bed, now sitting on the edge, my feet hitting the dirt floor beneath me. I took an annoyed breath and resentfully stood up, my mind focusing on only one thing, which so happened to be my protesting stomach. With that in mind, I made my way toward the only other room in our small house, the kitchen. Well, it wasn't exactly a kitchen, more like a few small cabinets and a round kitchen table with two mismatching chairs on either side. I lazily walked over to the three cabinets and began my search for something to eat. Our food selection was bare, only a stale loaf of bread and a bag of oats in one cabinet, and a small wrapped up pastry that my brother had gotten me for my birthday in another. Most times our cabinets were less filled; money was a touchy subject in our tiny family since we never had enough to pay for basic necessities.

I sat on the floor and debated whether or not I should take the pastry or leave it for me and my brother to share, it was tempting, but I knew I would enjoy it more if he had some too, so instead I reached for the stale bread and took it over to the table. After unwrapping the cloth my brother had swaddled the bread in, I took off a small hunk of it and sat down at a chair to eat it. As I ate in silence, my mind wandered back off to the mystery of where Grist had gone. I knew he had been here last night, I remembered eating dinner with him and making up a story before we went to bed, but sometime between then and now, he had disappeared.

Before I had any time to think about it more, a knock sounded at my door. With slight hesitation in my step, I slowly got up and walked toward the door, my hunk of bread still in my hand. I peered through the planks of the wooden door before carefully opening it, fixing my dress and wiping bread crumbs from my mouth with the back of my hand. The man standing before me was tall, extremely tall, with bright blue eyes, messy brown hair and an obvious sheen of sweat covering his forehead. He looked shocked, and when he tried to speak, his voice came out in a broken mumble of incoherent words that I didn't understand. After a moment of standing in awkward silence, with the exception of his strange outburst, he finally seemed to get his words together.

"Hi," he began, looking at the ground with an intense focus. His hands messed with the collar of his faded plaid shirt as he seemed to deliberate his next words. With his next sentence carefully chosen, he looked back up at me with saddened eyes "I'm Alex- a friend of your brother's," he paused. "Grist, he's um- Grist's been reaped for the Hunger Games."

Sure, I'd heard of the Games, but a nine year old could never fully understand the meaning of the Games no matter how it's explained, but somehow I understood. Alex's face said it all.

After that small but extremely meaningful conversation with the brunette headed boy, I couldn't stop thinking about how someone so innocent as my brother could be thrown into something so brutal as the games; there was just no possible way. But no matter how I decided to look at it, it didn't change the fact of the matter: Grist was as good as dead.

Its not like I'm trying to sell my brother short or anything, trust me, he's stronger than he looks, but up against kids who knew what they were doing- had been training for this their whole lives? He didn't stand a chance, and it didn't take a genius to figure that out.

After that interaction with my brothers friend, my mindset completely changed. From that moment on, I lived, breathed, and ate the games, only ever taking my eyes off the screen to use the bathroom or get some food from the kitchen. Every once in a while, a neighbor would come by to check and see how I was doing; most likely worried that an eight year old was cooped up in a house alone, left to fend for herself, but I always politely shooed them away, not sure if I was capable of breaking down in front of them.

I was grossly obsessed with the games. I was horrifyingly, luridly plagued with the idea of watching my older brother, my only family be brutally murdered on live television. It's not like I wanted him to die, more like I felt a morbid sense of duty to watching his fatal end. He would be there if it were me. He would stay and watch as I died, never letting a single tear fall until it was over. Never letting anyone see his most apparent weakness. I wanted to be the one to watch him die, to watch a piece of me die on that screen. To watch my whole life shatter into a million tiny little pieces in a matter of seconds, minutes, days. The time flew by so fast that it had been nearly 2 weeks, and there I sat still waiting for Grist's undeserved murder.

But it never came.

And to my complete and utter shock, nearly 2 weeks later he stepped foot through the threshold. He looked like my Grist but he didn't. He was still tan, but his beautifully golden hued skin was littered in bruises and scars. He was still that toe headed blonde, but his light colored curls were gone, instead replaced with a buzzed haircut and a large red gash near his ear. His eyes were still that pretty shade of emerald green i envied so much, but that usual joyful spark was gone. His eyes were dull. In fact, his whole being was dull.

Grist Garner survived the 61st Hunger Games. Grist Garner murdered 2 innocent children. Grist Garner came back to me, alive.

But Grist Garner was dead

And though I watched it happen, it was nothing like what I expected