A Story from District 4

Prologue

Isla

I lay in bed until the sun had risen and became too bright to ignore. A thin beam of light came through a small opening in the curtains and illuminated the room with a crimson, amber and peach dawn glow. The air was warm and subdued and still: you wouldn't have thought today was a bad day, perhaps the worst. Today was the day of the Reaping.

Despite the heat, I feel myself go cold, and my heart enters my stomach. I launch myself out of bed in an attempt to quash the negative thoughts in my head: visions from nightmares and of previous Hunger Games. Of weeping families and dying children.

I dress soundlessly, my swimsuit under my blue sundress, and pad barefoot out of the house.

It was warm, but not late enough in the day to be considered humid. The palm trees stood vast and looming in the dawn light, casting lean, lengthy shadows across street, which was covered in a thin layer of sand. Yet so was everything, the roofs, the boats, the windowsills, the soles of your shoes and in your hair at the end of a long day. But this was so familiar, so consistent, that imagining a place without it seemed alien.

So much so, I can't imagine living in a place without the lullaby of waves to rock you to sleep, without the heat of the omnipresent sun and the spindly trees and plants that make luscious fruit and offer shade. I have seen it on television, at previous Reapings, and in schoolbooks, the dense forests, the freshwater lakes and the snow on top of the towering mountains. So foreign, so strange, but I know I shall never see them with my own eyes. District 4 is my home. There is no getting out.

I lick my lips. They taste of salt, summer and of home. I sigh, and breathe deeply, allowing the sea breeze to clear my sinuses and my head. I begin walking north, climbing steadily up the rocky crevice to where the small tree stands beside the edge of the cliff. From there, the waves stand about 10 meters below. The perfect height to dive from.

When I reach the small tree, I pull my summer dress over my head and hang it off one of the lower branches. I square my feet at the edge of the cliff, close my eyes briefly, before launching myself down, down into the waves.

And I feel at home. I feel weightless yet strong, and for the first time that day I felt as though I could breathe properly. The sea felt like bath water. It smoothed out the stress in my shoulders and the aches in my neck, as a result of the nightmares that had plagued me the night before.

I always got nightmares the day before the Reaping. I suppose everyone did. Normally of my name being called, or my sister, or my best friend, Hector. My Mother distraught, my father crying.

Or sometimes just waiting. The woman from the Capitol walking toward to bowl, plucking a single envelope from the the rest, then walking toward the microphone. And she just stands there, looking at me, staring at me with her hollow eyes. The anticipation is enough to kill you.

I swim for a mile or so before stopping to stare at the sunrise until was full in the sky. The birds were awake now, and singing a beautiful melody. The waves caressed my skin. Pooled around my feet.

I felt the water beside me ripple, and I could sense that someone was behind me. I turn to see my sister, who had appeared at my side as quietly as a whisper.

At 14, Pearl is 2 years my junior. Her slender form is a few inches shorter than mine, her hair sun bleached and falls down her back in waves. Her eyes are a magnificent blue, like the sea in July. I call her beautiful.

People in town call her different names. Mad. Sick. Ill. But she's not.

When we were younger, a few days after Pearl's fifth birthday, our father took us out on in the fishing boat. It was a warm day in April, the air was still, the waves quiet. We spent the day eating bread and jam and and our father taught us how to cast a line. I caught a fish, a large one.

But later in the evening the weather became unsettled. The sky turned from clear blue to black. The clouds swirled, the waves thrashed, the boat rocked, twisting and turning in the strong undercurrent. The boat jerked. My sister fell beneath the stormy surface of the water.

My father dived in after her. He swam down, down, down, until he could no longer be seen. I waited, waited with baited breathe for a sign that my sister was safe, a sign that they both were safe.

It felt like several days before I saw him, my sister, sodden and shaking, draped over his shoulder. By the time we returned to shore she was blue, and shivering.

The Doctor said it would be a miracle if she survived the night. The cold had reached her chest, her breathing became shallow, her brow hot, but her tiny body lay freezing beneath the many layers of quilts piled on top of her. No one slept that night.

But by morning she began breathing normally, and within a couple of days she opened her eyes. We waited for weeks for her to speak, for her to tell us she was feeling okay. It took the Doctors a while to realise that she couldn't anymore. The cold that should have taken her life took her voice instead.

But still today I can't get over how lucky she was to survive.

After the accident, I became her voice, and at nearly ten years on I can read her better than I do myself. The slight movement of her eyebrows, the quivering of her lip, but most of all her eyes. Her eyes are so expressive.

Today, she had never looked more beautiful. But her brow was taut, her mouth tight, her face pale next to the golden waves of the hair.

'You okay?' I reach for her hand, and squeeze gently.

She shook her head, her eyes welling up. Her fingernails bit into my palm.

'It won't be us, Pearl. It can't.The chances are so unlikely. Think about all the people in this District, about half of the children claim the Tesserae. Some of them have been entered fifty times. I'm only in five times, and your only in three, Pearly, so basically...'

I knew I was rambling, using brave words to try and screen the fear inside of me, but Pearl saw through me as though I was transparent. She drops my hand and looks directly into my eyes. Her face looks a hundred years old.

'It has to be someone' she signs, her hands shaking.

I close my eyes, and nod once. Panic and fear courses through me, running through my veins like ice. I gaze out at the horizon, long and hard.

Then, without signal, we both start to swim. We dive, fishing for clams and scouring the ocean floor for pretty rocks and shells. We race one another through the waves, and after an hour or so, we lay upon the warm sand, allowing the heat of the sun to dry our bodies. We stay together, hand in hand, enjoying our last few pre-Hunger Games moments as one.

'It can't be us' I think, looking out at the reflection of the sun in the shimmering ocean, 'but if it is, I'll fight. Because this is worth fighting for.'