Electric Heart (Coriolanus Snow)

7

Twenty years. That was the length of her exile to the districts.
In all honesty, it seemed like the best fit punishment. She had cheated, she had assaulted another student.

Her father was dead.
Sally hadn't had time to think about it much. She didn't even really know how to. All of the sudden, the person she'd spent her entire life with was gone. He was the only thing that had mattered to her, and now she had to find a new purpose in the districts.

Sally used to be able to close her eyes and see her future. Her at university, celebrating with Lucien. All of it was gone. Now when she closed her eyes, she saw nothing.

It didn't even matter anymore that she was exiled, there was nothing left for her in the capital. Nothing but pain and loss.

Sally pushed thoughts of her father and the academy from her mind and instead focused on what was ahead. She had much time to think on the train ride to District 5, and luckily Dean Highbottom had given her enough money to survive a few weeks.

It felt unreal when she arrived at the District five stop. It had been six years since she'd stepped foot on the grounds of her district, and immediately as her feet hopped from the train to the ground, it felt like home.

It was more comforting than she could've imagined. Sally looked out onto the horizon. Not much had changed. The mountains were still one of the most beautiful sites to see. The air felt crisp and real.

The capital air had never felt as authentic as it did in the districts, well at least in 5.

Sally looked to the left, where all the other passengers were headed, but stopped dead in her tracks. A pretty dark-skinned girl wearing a red shirt and a long brown skirt was ahead. There were tears in her eyes. She was surrounded by her family. A loving mother and father that Sally recognized well, and a brother a few years younger than she.

The girl broke into a sob and dropped her things, running towards Sally. Sally allowed her to fling herself into her arms, and she hugged her back tightly. "Elizabeth."

"I thought I would never see you again." Elizabeth cried. Now Sally felt her own tears flooding down her cheeks as well. She didn't bother to dry them off.
"Me too."

Elizabeth pulled back, the excitement on her face never wavering. "Sally, I'm so sorry about your father."

Suddenly, Sally was brought back down to earth, and the reunion was pushed to the back of her head. "Wait- how did you know?"

Elizabeth exhaled. "A man named Casca Highbottom from the academy. He told us everything, saw to it that we took you in for the time being. Of course, we are more than happy too."

Sally smiled. It wasn't fake. "We have a lot to catch up on."

They were driven by Elizabeth's parents in the same car they'd had when Sally had lived there six years prior. She let her eyes wander out the window as they passed the fields of solar panels, and then the many power plants, producing smoke into the air.

There were light towers almost every few yards. They were the tall towers that strong lines in between them which produced the electricity that District five was known for.

They were much more technologically advanced than other districts. More recently, they'd produced the force field that wrapped around the entire district, and if that wasn't enough, it was accompanied by electrically charged fencing. They were the only district with these precautions so far.

Sally found an uneasiness to it all. For outsiders, unless they were directly sent, there was no getting in, and for Sally, there was no getting out.

Despite being a district, which the capital looked down upon, District five was one of the wealthiest districts.