Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 2 ▵ The Fall of Icarus [EEK]

She'd been six years old when she first saw a man die in her mother's home.

Sure, she'd often hear of deaths in the streets, raids and riots with casualties, even shooting outside her window, a constant drumming pop-pop-pop her father would always hide her ears away from. They never came inside. The Capitol soldiers were the only ones who did, and they always had their guns strapped to their hips, hands more occupied with the wooden bowls of soup or stew or beans that her parents had made extra of specifically to account for any Peacekeeping visitors. They often had their visors laid to the side, and despite the dried blood on their uniforms and chins, they'd crinkle their eyes and smile at her as she talked away with them, rambling on with no filter. They really got a kick out of the things she'd say. They were kind.

Usually, she'd retire to bed and sleep clear through the night (unless a shooting broke out, of course, but in their corner of the quarry village, those were only a once a week thing, and after a while she learned to sleep through them like Six probably slept through the constant trains). It wasn't bullets that woke her. It was voices. Like any weary-eyed child, she'd slipped out of bed and rubbed her eyes through the house, bare feet pattering over the wood. She remembers hearing her mother's voice through a door left ajar, the door linking their house and the blacksmithing business her mother ran.

When she stuck her face in the crack, the cold was clear, crisp, biting. The front of the blacksmith shop had a liftable sliding door, like the garage doors they kept government jeeps in. The open wall gave her a solid look at the rocky mountains outside, at the patches of snow reduced to slush from marches and tussles, at pine needles wriggling under the weight of the wind. It blew in and dried her eyes, made them icy in their sockets.

The eyes of the three raggedy strangers seemed just as raw from the air as hers felt. Two men, one woman. The latter had a smooth machete in her hands, and with her fingerless gloves, she ran a fingertip over the flat edge. "This is good work, Kovach," she said, hushed, hoarse. "And the knives?"

Her mother nodded and grabbed a black roll of cloth from a table. It looked thick. When she shoved it into one of the men's arms, the contents clanked and clattered inside. "That's everything you asked for," Theia Kovach had said, "and I hope you decide to pay up unlike my last customers. They raided everything and this is all I have to give you."

This much was true. Her parents had woken up one day to find their shop completely ravaged and devoid of inventory. These people seemed decent; the other man drew a hand from his pocket and counted up coins carefully in his open palm before dipping them onto her mother's table where the bundle once sat.

"I have to thank you for your interest in my work," her mother'd said, scooping the change into her hand. The glow from her forge still burned and illuminated the room in hellish orange. "There's nothing I enjoy more than serving rebel customers. I love showing my support." She crossed the room and handed the money to her father, who Ellie had just noticed leaning up against the far wall. After counting out everything to double-check, he lifted his chin and released a three note whistle.

It happened quickly. The men who ate soup with her came crashing in, visors down, guns removed from their hips. There were five of them. The rebels knew what was happening and immediately lifted their hands in the air in surrender. The man dropped the bundle of knives but the woman kept a tight hold on her machete. They forced everyone down by the shoulders to their knees. When they made an attempt with the woman, she swung out. Her blade lodged in the armor of the soldier, but never cut any deeper. She didn't have any time to pull it out because they shot her, point blank, in the forehead. When she fell, it was like she had no functioning muscles anymore. She slumped and bled.

The man who'd held the knives tried to make a break for it, but they shot him too. The last one stayed where he was, but when a Peacekeeper twined gloved fingers through his oily brown hair and yanked his head back, he began to cry and sputter. "Please, please. Let me go. I didn't even wanna fight. They forced me to help, they'd kill me if I didn't. Please. Please!"