Price of Rebellion (The Hunger Games)

Chapter Seven

It thunders that night, and Rose sleeps close next to me on the cold basement floor. I actually sleep, which was nice. I dream about how that first day of school could have been like any other day. I walked down the familiar halls, reuniting with my friends, talking about our summers. I came home that day with Alex, and we had no homework so we went to the park. Then I woke up.

I look at the time, ten o'clock in the morning, and sunlight shines through the half underground window. I turn over and open my eyes slightly. My parents are talking quietly across the room. My mom is showing him pictures, but he looks confused as ever. I shut my eyes again. Maybe the goal of the attack was to wipe out their memory and transform the men into one of their own. I saved my dad, or else he would've been dead or a white armored soldier.

"Emma?" Hope asks and taps me on my shoulder.

I turn around and look at Hope who looks tired. "Hey, here lay down." I say tapping my other side.

"What happened to dad?" She asks quietly while snuggling next to me.

I sigh, I can't sugarcoat this situation any further. "He can't remember anything."

"Why?" Hope asks me.

"The bad guys threw something at him." I explain very faintly in detail. "Everything's going to be okay." I kiss her forehead.

"Is it?" She asks.

"Yes, I promise." I whisper. "Everyone is here and okay. That's whats important now."

"But what about after the fighting, what will happen next?" Hope asks.

"I don't know." I say honestly. "I really don't, no one can possibly know. But we just have to hope for the best."

"But what if that's not good enough. What if the bad guys are here to-"

"Hope, please don't think that way." I say, sitting up against the wall.

"I'm not saying it will happen, but if it does-"

"What did I just say?" I stubbornly say. She sighs and leans against the wall right next to me. I look across the room, where my mom is waving me over. "Be right back." I say to Hope as I start to walk over. "Hi." I simply say.

"He remembers." My mom smiles.

"Everything?" I smile and kneel down in between them.

"Most things, but I want you to try one thing." She says.

"Me? Why?" I ask. I look over to my dad, who is basically studying a photo album.

"Ask him what happened yesterday." She says, looking into my eyes. "You were there." She's right, I was there and the only person who could possibly understand what he would say.

"Hey dad." I say.

"Oh hey Emma, how was your sleep?" He asks me, not a hesitant in his voice.

"Good." I say. "So do you remember anything from two nights ago? At Dan's house?"

"Mmm... No, not really. That night is really fuzzy." He says.

"But what about the white armored soldiers? Do you remember them?" I ask.

"Only when we were running here." He tells me. "Sorry sweetie."

"It's okay." I say as I snuggle in his lap. "I'm just glad you are okay and-" Boom! All of us jump from the explosion upstairs. Hope, Rose, and Alex run over to us and we all sit a corner.

"Is the basement door locked?" My mom asks my dad with Hope in her lap.

"I'll go check. Just stay calm everyone and be quiet." Boom! We all are shaken with another shot. The power that we still had goes out and we are left in the dark, minus the window halfway in the ground.

My dad runs up the steps and locks the basement door. He runs back down to us and puts his arm around my shoulder. We all stay silent as the battle above us begins. Every second a shot goes off and someone collapses to the ground. They broke into our house and it will soon look like Rose's first floor. Suddenly, I am filled with relief that I took my valuables out of my room yesterday before these attacks.

Rose sits in my lap and I lean against the wall. I watch the door like it could tell me what is happening upstairs, but of course it can't. Another shot is fired and I hear something, or someone, fall to the floor.

That was the first of many. Almost like a siren going off continuously, I get used to the gunfire above us. Alex had already given up and put a pillow over his head, and Hope is in my mother's lap trying to stay calm. Rose is doing okay, but she holds on to my hand and shuts her eyes closed. My dad is trying to call Dan on our emergency phone, but by the way he looks, I bet it isn't working.

When the action stops upstairs it's sundown. I grab some muffins from the closet and pass them out. It's basically our dinner, and only meal of the day. We have to save the food and water we have because we have no idea how long this will go on.

As it gets darker outside, I lay out a blanket and put my pillow down. I put another blanket on top of me and lay down. Rose shares this "bed" with me because we don't have that many blankets, so she places her pillow next to mine and lays next to me. She falls asleep instantly, but I can't. Instead I flip over on to my other side and look at Alex next to me on his "bed". He's awake also, reading a book by using a flashlight for light.

"Nice book." I whisper. He looks up from his book and shines the light in my face. "Oh thanks for blinding me." I say as I blink away the floating shapes in my eyes.

"Sorry," he whispers as he lowers the flashlight slightly. "How's your arm?"

"Better, but still sore." I tell him. "What book are you reading?"

"An old one, the front is ripped off." He says as he shows me. "It's really good though."

"Ah, maybe I'll borrow it when you're done." I say.

"If we survive through this..." I hear him mumble.

"We will. Just get some sleep, okay?" I say as I smack a pillow at his head.

"Okay, okay. You should get some too you know. Even heroes need sleep." He says.

"Good night Alex," I say as I turn my pillow over.

"Night." I hear him say as his flashlight turns off. I stare at the halfway underground window, the only thing connecting us to outside. Our basement is completely underground, except for the window.

I wonder what's going on out there. I wonder why the districts even rebelled in the first place. The Capitol is the nicest place in the country. One time my family and I went on a vacation to the Capitol. They are just like us. They dress like us, they talk like us, they live like us. The only thing that differs is that they live in a huge city and that they are a little bit richer than us. But then it hits me, they are the ones that control the government. The only say the districts have are when the mayors attend meetings a few times a year. But what went so terribly wrong? So wrong enough that we had to rebel?