BORN TO DIE | CLATO (THG)

ONE

CLOVE KENTWELL

The sounds of wailing and crying pierced the early morning quiet of the house, rousing me from my sleep. I sit bolt upright in my bed, chills running down my spine. Fear grips me like a vice and I'm sent flying from my bed, and to the opposite room, where Leo and Ember sleep.

Awful thoughts run through my head as I cry their names out in desperation. I'm convinced something terrible has happened to my siblings this time. Maybe one of them has been stolen away from the safety of their bedroom somehow. Maybe Leanore had another one of her episodes. Maybe the Capitol had really decided to pull a stunt and harm my family because of the crimes my parents had committed.

I soon find out this is not the case. I sprint into the room and fall to my knees next to the tiny bed that Leo and Ember both share. Leo is curled up beneath the covers, writhing and yelling out in terror. Tears leak from his closed eyelids, streaming down his ashen cheeks. My heart squeezes. Of course. Today is the day of the Reaping. Small wonder that he's having nightmares again.

I reach out and gently shake him awake. "Leo. Leo, it's okay. Wake up, it was just a dream." I whisper, trying to be as comforting as possible. It takes me a few more minutes to finally coax Leo out of his nightmare. When I do, he leaps up from the bed and throws his arms around me, his bony shoulders wracked with sobs. I feel a pang somewhere deep in my chest. I hold him, stroking his dark, tangled curls and whispering in his ear. "It was just a nightmare. You're okay. It's okay." Our little sister, Ember, looks on with bewildered eyes, unsure what to do or say in this situation. I give her a smile that I hope is reassuring.

But Ember doesn't need to be reassured. Despite the fact that she's nine, three years younger than Leo, she seems a lot older than him sometimes. Leo is as fragile as a butterfly's wings. He's the type that wouldn't dare to even harm a fly, the type who cries when Ember cries, who cries whenever Leanore loses control of herself again.

Ember, despite her young age, is the complete opposite; I think she turned out more like me than Leo did. The only times she had ever cried were when she was born, and a couple of times since then. Ever since, I'd never seen her shed a single tear. She was brave, the one who put her arms around Leo and comforted him in the late nights when they were alone in their cold, dark bedroom, where the only source of light was the pale silver moonlight filtering in through the gaps in the moth-eaten curtains.

She had claimed she wanted to volunteer to partake in the Games once she was eligible to do so, which meant the moment she turned eight, she had begged me to bring her to the Training Academy along with me and Leo so she could start training for the Games. I had no choice but to do so. On the days where I got to watch her train and observe her progress, I couldn't help but see an uncanny resemblance of myself in my little sister. A vicious, determined fighter despite only having a year of training. She's small in stature, but moves so quickly that even if you so much as blink, she's up and ready to attack you. The only difference between us is, while my talents lie in knive-throwing, hers lies in archery. I can't help but to feel some odd sense of pride in her.

Leo, however, is an entirely different story. He isn't like me or Ember in the slightest. He has his own strengths for sure, but none of them were the strengths he's technically supposed to have in our district. He leans more towards the arts, and in healing. I'm not sure how he picked those interests up, considering how absolutely non-existent that is in our district. The children in Two are trained to be dangerous, skilled fighters, whose sole purpose is to train, volunteer, and then win the Games. To bring honour and pride to our district.

Training for Leo was one thing. Having to participate in the Games was another. It would crush him like a bug. And despite all the love and pride I had for him as my younger brother, I knew that if he was sent into the Games, he would have no chance of winning. Even despite all the training he had undergone in the Academy. He was incompetent in dealing with most weapons, whether it was hand-to-hand combat, sword-fighting, spear-throwing, archery. He couldn't do it. The only thing he was even slightly capable of, was throwing knives, like me. Probably because it was in his genetics, and maybe because those little throwing knives were perfect for the way he was built. And he was a pretty fast runner too. But other than that, the Trainers in the Training Academy had pretty much given up all hope on him. They hardly ever paid attention to him anymore, firmly believing that he was a failure, someone unworthy of their time and effort.