❛ HOPE ISN'T SOMETHING GIFTED TO YOU
IT'S SOMETHING YOU ACHIEVE. ❜
in which a small girl from district ten must
protect those she loves, or die trying.
𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙋𝙇𝙀𝙏𝙀𝘿 (UNDER HEAVY EDITING)
― oc x...
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IN THE OPEN SQUARE, Silver felt as if she could hear every sound in existence all at once. She could feel all the heat of the District's sun, even behind a thick smog of cloud, burn against her skin. She could see every eye in the whole of Panem forced upon her face — two blades for each person, forged in flames and spite.
In the confines of the Justice Building, Silver experiences the opposite. Once there was everything and now there is nothing at all. There is not even a silence — the ticking of a great clock, larger than any she has seen before, that sits upon a plain wooden wall stops any comfort of silence from filling her ears. Instead, each tick tries to sync with her pulse, drilling every second into her mind.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
James is ushered into another room too similar to the one she's in before they have the chance to talk. A Peacekeeper severs their ties prior to any pitiful smile either of them can provide for the other and Silver's heart pangs when a family of four follows behind them, a much younger child sobbing into its mother's shoulder.
Alone, she has the time to think, but the smell of thick antiseptic and cleaning solution spread across the rich furniture and paintings only reminds her of the few times she has visited the District medical centre with her father. She scrunches her nose whilst her fingers pick at the tear stains on the hem of her blouse.
Looking above, lights hang from the ceiling like tiny fires suspended from the sky, mystically connecting one to all the others as if something completely invisible on the ground strings them up. Silver's eyes take attention to the details of the room, wandering across the carvings into the windowsill and the mantelpiece resting atop an unlit fireplace. The curtains are made of the finest silk — most likely to have been imported from District Eight — and the soft rugs brush against thinly soled shoes, likely made from the produce of District Ten's very own fur farms. To her, she had never seen anything quite like it.
Her eyes move away from the ceiling and back to normality when the door to her holding room creaks open, a pair of footsteps following. She pivots, her neck craning down in anticipation of another District official giving orders, but instead finds the solemn figure of her father. His arms stretch out and reach for her body, dismissing any ideas of summoning some stoic refusal of a soppy goodbye.
She could have seen that sorrowful look from a mile away, moist with old and new tears and raging from a clashing mix of frustration and depression. When she accepts his embrace, he stands there and lets his arms wrap until she is safe within his touch. Perhaps this is the last time they will do so and, when Silver lets her fears cascade from her lips, he tries to promise that it will all be alright in the end. His words don't quite make it. Instead, they tumble out of his mouth and miss their target entirely.
