Into the Flames [Watty Awards 2012]

Chapter 3

I was silent while Coelia lead us to the train. I could see Mist out in the crowd. I didn’t turn to look at her. Looking would only make it worse for both me and her. Coelia told us we weren’t going to say goodbyes because she didn’t like the water. I wasn’t a very big fan of her.

The train was a gleaming white. There were no spots of dirt anywhere. When I stepped onto the platform, I shook the water off my shoes so I wouldn’t get the train too wet. My shoes squished against the wood leaving a trail of brownish water.

“Please take off your shoes before getting on the train. I don’t want any of those muddy footprints in it.” I slipped off my shoes and stepped into the train. The carpeting feet like pillows and fluff. “Waterlily your room is the first one. River, yours is the second.” I walked to my temporary room. We wouldn’t be here too long. We would arrive early in the morning. I pressed a button on the wall. The doors to the closet opened. I rummaged through the rows of clothes until I found a comfortable looking pair of short and a t-shirt. I pulled of my dress. I don’t like dresses. I only wear dresses for special occasions. I had worn this one only once before, my father’s funeral last spring. I started to worry about Mist. She was home all alone. She now held the whole leadership in her hands. I would no longer be there to lead. Our father had been the rebel leader, but when he died of an unknown disease, Mist and I were put in charge since we knew all of his plans. Mist was more of my helper than my co-leader, but she worked hard. I wasn’t sure if she could actually lead the whole rebellion or not. She would have to lead around a hundred men plus a few women. I was glad though that I was reaped and not her, at least I had a chance of winning, she probably wouldn’t. I heard a knock on my door. “Come in!” I called toward the door as I hung up my dress on the closet door. The door opened and a young girl in a plain red dress came in. She looked around the room and picked up my dirty shoes. “Oh, I was about to go wash those.” She gives me an odd look and shakes her head. She opens the door and disappears down the hall. I run after her. “Really it’s okay, I can wash them.” But, she is nowhere in sight. I walk back to my room. Then I remembered what some of the tributes had said in the past years about things like this. She was a traitor of some sort. An Avox.

I lay down on my bed and starred at the ceiling. I laid there for hours. I heard a knock on my door, almost silent. I sit up, “You can come in.” I expected to see the Avox girl again, but instead I was face to face with my district partner, they boy from the warehouse.