Silver ↠ Catching Fire

prologue ━ inherited misfortunes

PROLOGUE;
inherited misfortunes

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     Her parents aren't coming.

     Reagan doesn't know what else she expected. They never promised anything; her mother and father made that quite clear when she told them she was pregnant. It feels just as cold in this empty room as it did on that darkened, rain-dampened doorstep. Why should she have thought that it would be any different? They had made their stance on how little they cared already.

Still... she had held out some hope.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Reagan starts picking absentmindedly at a scab on her shin. All of a sudden she feels like a child. A lost, helpless child caught in a snare she cannot escape. She cannot remember the last time she felt this aimless — maybe when she had gone looking for the boy, the one she had met that fateful night in Permetior which had changed their lives forever. It certainly wasn't when she held Vesper for the first time. No... that was complete clarity in a single, loving look.

     She needs to see her. Reagan needs to see her daughter.

     Out of the grimy window of the Justice Building, she can see floods of citizens leaving the square, safe in the knowledge that their child was not picked this year. Reagan knows that somewhere, surely, her real family will come to find her. To say goodbye, before she is sent to be District Six's female tribute for the Fifty-Second Hunger Games.

     Next door, a sobbing howl is muffled by the wall. It must be the male tribute's mother. What was his name again? She will have to learn it.

     At long last, the door handle clicks. Reagan stumbles out of the window's alcove she had been sitting in, standing paralysed on the spot as she waits for her visitors to walk in.

     The first is Apollo's mother — Ximena Alfaro might as well be more of a mother than Reagan could ever have called her blood mother. Short and round-faced, she is filled with tough love from head-to-toe. Upon seeing her, she feels a violent twist in her stomach, a lump lodged in her throat that is the only thing blocking her tears.

     "Oh, morra," Ximena shakes her head. She is trembling with what looks like quiet rage.

     Holding out her broad palms, she beckons Reagan closer. The girl paces forward and slips them into the comforting wrinkles. Reagan used to worry about getting older; now, all she desperately wants is to know years beyond her own.

     "Thank you for coming," she croaks.

     Ximena gives her hands a tight squeeze, trying to be stoic. "I am... so sorry."

     "... Me too."

     A beat passes, where Reagan can hear herself swallowing thickly.

     "Are they here too?" she asks, tears stinging her eyes.

     "They are outside," Ximena nods, "the Peacekeepers can only allow so many people in the room at once."

     Reagan exhales a shaky breath. When she sniffs, it sounds congested with fear. "I... I don't know what to do, I—"

     "Stay strong. There is nothing else you can do." Then, in a lower whisper, the older woman adds with loathing: "If I had things my way, I would have volunteered myself in your place."