The floors were swept. The kitchen was in array. Nothing had changed except for the missing sound of voices. The only evidence of haste was of the chairs in the kitchen toppled, it was the only evidence that people had been living there. No plates were strewn about for the simple fact that money was hard to come by. Clothing was folded neatly on the faded couch. Hettie trailed her aged fingers across the fabric, feeling the memories seep into her. The window was darkened, blackened at the edges. Still, she could see the empty house beside her. She had visited already, seen the destruction. Two lives in that house, one bright and one whom she had never gotten to see.
They were killed by greed. Her greed.
Her life had been repaid in the devastation she had returned to. When she had entered the other house, a shotgun had rested on his lap, carelessly thrown down after his life was sucked away. The babe lay in the makeshift crib. No one had come to bury her. There was no time. Hettie had stared down, wondering what would have been different had Esther not come to her. Her children, Esther's children, would not be parentless, would not be gone or forgotten. Time washes away the memories, but Hettie never wanted to forget any of them.
When she had meticulously searched their home, she had returned to her own. Walking among the ruins of her past life, wondering what was left. They still had not returned. Her footsteps pattered along the cracked tile. She opened the flimsy back door, stepping outside, the wind blowing through her hair which had not been cared for in several days. There was no point. The cameras had left now, and every day it was the same thing, the same routine.
She could still smell the char. Outside, tendrils of smoke still rose from far off in the fields, fires that had not yet been extinguished. If she closed her eyes, though, she could forget about that, she could imagine herself back where it all began. Still, the lingering smell of scorched field and scorched body inched its way inside her nostrils, filling her with heightening fear as she tore her eyes open. The image of laughter and tiny feet running around was shattered. Instead stood an empty field, scorched, burned away as though it was never there. In a same manner, she herself felt the same. She had not seen a soul in Eleven. During her Victory Tour she had been escorted away from the stage because the fire was raging.
She turned away, walking inside her home. She had told them she did not want the Victor's house. They had insisted, they always did. But a big house with no one inside it was too lonely, too useless, to Hettie. She moved into her tiny bedroom. She could smell her husband in the room, could feel his arm wrapped around her, resting his head on her shoulder. It was like he was there, so close to her. She begged him desperately to show her a sign that one of her babies be alright. He didn't respond though, and she knew he never would. It was the memories that kept her going, yet the memories that brought her down.
Her fingers trailed the thin sheets of her bed. Heat was a given in Eleven, the sheets were one thing people didn't have to spend much on. They weren't a necessity to many. Many a cool summer night she had given her own blanket to her children. Now, she wondered who was there to protect them, to shield them from whoever and wherever they were? Her fingers trailed the stitching, her mind wandering in forlorn abandonment until she felt something unfamiliar touch her hand. She pulled away the sheet, stripping it from the bed to reveal an unknown. It was folded, a single piece of paper folded into a square.
Hettie didn't realize her hands were shaking until she brought the paper to her eyes. Her heart was hammering in her chest. With careful, apprehensive, moves, she unfolded the paper, listening to the sound of it crumple against the stark quietness of the rest of the house. Her eyes scanned it, skimming the words, but there were only a few. Scrawled in a hurry, there were the names:
Esau Borden Zinnia. Gone.
Briar Huck Lucy. Run. Hide.
Briony Me. Hide.
All of a sudden, Hettie could feel her breathing obstruct. She could see the flames licking away at the fields and stripping away the sustenance while people ran. Their screams as the flames grew around them. Her son, strong and powerful, working in the field, taking care of Borden and Zinnia for his grandmother. The flames would have come fast. She could feel the heat beating down. It was dry, no doubt it was dry Maybe Zinnia and Huck were laughing. They were jokers. But then it came. The flames. They started across the field, a dropped match igniting dried husk. There was no time. They hadn't seen it coming until they were running and the flames were beating them.
Hettie wondered if their bodies were recovered. She doubted they were. Her memories were all that was left, and through the tears that dripped onto the page she felt her chest go heavy. Still, four children, now hers, may still be out there, and Hettie wiped away the tears. Crying did not solve anything, she knew that. It didn't help her in the arena, and it wouldn't help her now.
She blocked out any further thoughts of the past, of Dove or the games or anything related to the fire. Now, it was time to discover her children and her mother, the people most dependent on stability. She rose from the bed. Briar, Huck, and Lucy-they were not in the vicinity, tat Hettie knew. They were smart, partners in crime, and if there was danger, they would go to far reaches to escape it. Still, such devastation left Hettie wondering how. Maybe they were in the hospital, on their last dying breath, knowing that their mother was home safely. She shook the thought away, squeezing the paper in her hand.
It left Briony to be found. She knew her mother. She would never let the littlest go away alone, to run with the possibility of danger at every turn.
She'd be here somewhere, maybe there'd be food there, maybe she would be safe. Her mother was an intelligent woman, and Hettie needed to figure out where she would have hidden her child from the dangers of fire. There was no subsection of the house beneath the ground, nor at Esther's house. There was a cooler, of course, but it was hard to access, much less for such an old woman as her mother. But there was the possibility, and Hettie was filled with excitement as she raced out of the room, her breathing rushed as she felt elation soar through her veins, hope flooding her mind as she thought of reuniting with her child.She slammed the screen door open. Her mother would have known she was back, would've known the devastation left. Her mother always had the intuition, was always smarter than her opponent. Hettie had learned everything from her: how to be strong and resilient. The cellar was small, but there was a trap door around the side of the house. Hettie tore around the sparse grass, tearing open like a feral animal the trap door. It wasn't deep, and below she saw her. Matted hair and sucking her thumb. She had been crying. How long had she been down there? Two, three days? There were food crumbs around but there was nothing left.
Hettie felt tears stream down her face as she reached down to pick up hr baby, her child. She was okay, she was safe. Briony opened her large brown hair. She was not Hettie's child, but at that moment, Hettie loved her for all the world. Briony took her thin thumb out from her mouth. Her eyes were lazy as her breathing was shallow. She coughed.
"Mama?" The words came out small, like a mouse.
Hettie sobbed for joy. "Yes, Briony, it's me. It's me, you're safe. We're safe now." Though the fire had ruined nearly everything, ravishing through the grasses and fields and down the wooden houses, here they were: Hettie and Briony, safe.
"Mama? They're gone. Grammy an' sissy's an' 'em. All gone."
Briony closed her eyes then, her head dropped against Hettie's shoulder. She looked peaceful, so serene in her slumber. Hettie gently shook her. "Let's get us inside, how 'bout it, baby girl?" The girl didn't move. Hettie stared down at the sleeping figure in her arms, no larger than a toddler. "Briony?"
Hettie gently shook her. And then harder. And harder until she fell to her knees and sobbed. They were gone.Scorched bodies filled her nose, wrapped around her as though she could never escape. Life had dealt her a pack of cards and death had cheated. She had escaped him but he had taken his revenge. He had repaid her tenfold, the pain weighing down on Hettie as she screamed to the heavens. No one heard her, and no one would. Some people have happy endings. Some people don't.
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Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties
ActionWriter Games: Masquerade of Martyrs: last updated February 3 2015 Writer Games: Family Ties: last updated April 14 2015 Reuploaded with permission from AEKersey 2019