Gold rush

Once Upon A Reaping (2)

I was running. My chest burning so much so that I feared I would be set alight. I had no time to form any coherent thoughts, one word drumming in my head, becoming louder and louder as my feet hit the ground keeping pace. Run. Run. Run.
I scramble through the mass of brambles, not caring that the thorns scratched my skin until I bled, desperate to get away from the last remaining tribute, a boy from District 1, as I knew that if he caught up to me I had no chance.
A glimmer of colour was my first indication that something lay behind the extensive brambles, and the sickly sweet smell of pollen hit me soon after. Stood now in a field of lushous flowers, every colour of the rainbow represented in the form of a perfectly placed bud, I had the sudden overwhelming urge to run through the field. To bathe in the petals and lace my hair with its flowers. I took a single step forward, a step that had been out of my control and simply down to a primal urge before I stopped myself. Something wasn't right...

I awoke with a start, clawing at my sweat covered bed sheets. I had grown to live with these nightmares over the last five years but with it being the day of the reaping these dreams were daring to become my reality once again.

I hurriedly threw some clothes on, knowing that I needed to make a visit to Cecelia before my glam team arrived to prepare me for the televised reaping. I swung my front door closed not even bothering to lock it, the whole town could ransack my house for all I cared, as I walked the short distance across the square to her house. Even though all of the houses in the Victors Village were built to look identical her house radiated a warmth that mine could only dream of. Where I roamed my house alone, hers was full of joy and laughter with three small children and her husband. I hadn't bothered changing the decorations within my house unlike her who had scrubbed the house clean of any resemblance to the capitol, instead choosing to paint each room a colourful shade and hanging her children's artwork on every wall.

Her door was also unlocked when I came to stand before it and so I didn't bother knocking as I entered, already clearly hearing the bustling conversation from around their dinner table. Closing the door quietly I waited a moment before announcing myself, simply taking in the family that perhaps I had grown to take for granted after all these years. After all it had only been a year since I finally moved into my own house for good, when I won my games Cecelia had taken me in and let me stay with her but seeing the inter workings of her every growing family had begun to be a painful reminder of what I could never have, and so I had made the move across the street to my rightful home. Alone.

"Hi," I called out as I forced a smile onto my face, joining them in their kitchen. Cecilia braided her eldest daughter Beth's hair at the table, a hairband in her mouth as she furrowed her brows in concentration at the elaborate plaits. Joney, their second child and only son, sat on the floor pushing a toy truck along the marble flooring clearly in a world of his own. Heif looked up from his toast flashing me a smile before he turned back to Kelia, their bright-eyed toddler, who was refusing to eat her breakfast. As he gently coaxed her to join him in eating their eggs I noticed that, unsurprisingly, Angus sat across from them at the table. Whilst in other districts Victors Villages its inhabitants avoided each other fiercely, we instead opted for the living on top another lifestyle. Angus, a greying elderly man who had no other family than the one gathered in this very room, looked up at me with a certain sadness in his eyes as if he could read my very thoughts.

"Cecilia. I was hoping to speak to you quickly, ya know before they all get here," I announced, willing that this conversation would go smoothly.

"Oh yes, yes. Can you give me an hour or so? So much to do and so little time," she half heartedly mused as she tied Beth's hair and stood back to take in her work.

"Well the thing is I was hoping to talk now. Well with both of you I suppose," I continued, now looking at Angus who only nodded his head in agreement.

"Ok..." Cecile said, grimacing at the scrap of Angus' chair on the floor as he stood up.