Nothing Lasts Forever

Chapter One - Overcoming Terror.

Cold feet. A cold nose. The sight of frosted trees outside my window. This is what i wake up to this morning in district five. My neighbours baby has been uncontrollably whaling all night. Again. I hate most children. Whats the point in them? I'm never having kids. I couldn't live with myself if i brought someone into this world knowing i would also be bringing them into living in this messed up country, where they could be taken away from you at any moment. And anyway, all they do is cry at everything. Can't they just suck it up like the rest of us? 'Oh stop being so horrible, Finch!' I curse at myself. Babies are pretty cute I suppose.

When I've properly woke up I slowly creep into my little sister, Eve's room to check on her and not to my surpise, she's lying clean out on the floor, cover less. I really wish she wouldn't do that, she could crack her skull on the hard floors if she went off the wrong way. I carefully pick her up and place her back in her small, single bed.

I then go into my younger brother, Jasper's room and find him lying awake staring at the ceiling. He was the closest out of all of us to my grandmother and when she past away he's never been the same. We took him to the doctor but all he said was that he 'wasn't quite all there' and that there was nothing he could do about it. "Hey." I say quietly, trying not to give him a fright. He looks at me and squints his eyes "oh, good morning" he replies. "Want breakfast? Most important meal of the day you know." I ask. He shakes his head no and I don't bother trying to convince him into eating. I know there's nothing I can say to convince him.

I go to scrounge around the kitchen for some food and find my father lying passed out on the floor - predictable. He doesn't usually work on sundays so he wastes all of his saturday nights entoxicating his liver with alcohol. As I step over him I 'accidentally' kick him in the stomach. "Oops." I whisper sarcastically to myself. I do love my father very much, just not when hes drunk. He can be the most violent, imbecile ever when he's had alcohol. Most people in the district think he's a waste of space and how he has failed as a parent. Maybe he has, but he's still my parent and I can't afford take that for granted.

I find a slice of bread and scrape out the last of the jam I made last week. Perfect! I could have toast and jam! I walk over to the fireplace, bread on stick, ready to toast but of course - no firewood. I eat the bread and jam, get dressed, attach my knife to my belt for protection and head off. The forest is quite a walk from my house, I live nearer the centre of the disctrict, beside all the shops and the square where the reapings are held, and the forest is at the very edge of the district. But luckily I've had breakfast today and hopefully won't pass out on the way there.

I arrive at the edge of the woods but the two lumberjacks, Mace and Phillip are no where to be seen. Ah well, ill get a head start on collecting some berries. I dont like to go in the woods alone so I stick with searching the bushes outside of the forest. I get bored of picking the same boring berries and decide to just go ahead without them. I've been in the woods plenty of times before and nothing's happened, just because I'm alone doesn't mean something's going to occur now.

I get deeper in the woods and spot a bundle of nuts a squirrel must of stored up a tree. I'm about to ascend the tree when I hear a strange, unfamiliar squeal. I look down to my feet terrified incase I've stood on something and find a bird lying on its back. I crouch down to get a closer look at the bird. It has a khaki coloured body, with brighter green wings and a red face, oh my this bird is beautiful! I don't know why or where but I'm almost certain I've seen this bird before. I study it for a while and then it hits me... It's an American Gold Finch, the bird that I was named after!

I'm so busy gazing at this bird's good looks that I almost forget why I even looked down in the first place, this poor bird has large gash exposed on the side of its stomach! I squeak. I hate seeing things hurt, or even worse, dead. I presume it's been attacked by a wild dog of sorts or fell off the tree and landed on something sharp. I don't know. But what I do know is that this bird isn't going to survive for much longer. I close my eyes and grit my teeth as i slit the birds throat, and I admit, I shed a small tear. I dig a hole near where it's lying, pick up the bird with the sleeves of my jacket, and place it in the hole. I sigh and slowly start to cover the bird with the mud I dug out. I'm almost done burying it when I hear a pack of wild dogs coming straight towards me from forty meters away.