:| The Maze |: {Shrimpers!}

It’s reaping day and your seven year old hands grasp tightly onto your mother as you stare out into the crowd, searching for just a glimpse of the three that you love so dearly. Europa is either eleven or twelve – you really can’t remember at this point, after all you’re only seven – but she’s not with the family right now. Maybe she’s gotten separated from the three of you or maybe she’s standing in the front of the line, knees trembling and hands shaking and irises glancing back and forth wondering who will step towards that fateful death that all tributes from district five inevitably face. There hasn’t been a winner from 5 in countless years.

That’s the day that you lost one of your own, as mother gasped and father cried out no, no for his only son, for his proudest achievement, his proudest moment when he first gazed upon the young boy’s eyes and called him Storm for the strength in him was strong enough to outmatch anything. You saw him in that all-too familiar room with its wood paneling and uncomfortable couch and eerie silence as Europa cried in his arms and Sundra stood there silently and you stood next to mother as you felt yourself crying and you knew that you were supposed to cry but truly you did not know the exact reason. All you know is that once the two leave, they never ever come back, and you love your big brother with all your heart and want him to stay and want him to be with you forever and ever and ever but you’re too young to know that life doesn’t work that way and people die and they’re taken away before their time, even though you want one more day hour minute second moment with them to say “I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “forgive me”, “remember when we used to play in the meadow and lie under the lemon tree and watch as the fruit turned from green to yellow and they were so so so sour but we would buy some sugar from the store and put them in the glass and it would turn into the best thing in the world?”

You weren’t there when he died, struck in the ear, felled in one swoop by the eventual winner, the girl with no legs, the girl who betrayed Storm after all he did was take care of her and make sure that she was okay and that her legs weren’t hurting or infected from being lost from the hot hot hot fire that tore them from her body. She betrayed him, he trusted too easily, and he was dead. But you were too young to know that, you just knew that he wasn’t coming back, just like the rest of them were, just how life always was.

Things changed as the girl with angel-hair arrived and your raven-haired sister was reaped, being thrust into an icy arena with god-knows-what lurking in the tundra or the caverns as she escaped the bloodbath with only a knife, as she rendevouzed with the boy from six, as the capitol embraced their relationship with the portmanteau of Sundrop but you know that she won’t ever see a drop of sun again from their hometown because she won’t be coming home, just like the rest of them. Still, you wish she would; after all, if Lethe Turner could do it, Sundra, being strong and smart and loving and caring, could definitely do the same. This time, you were present as she died, your hands grasped tightly onto her ruby red (no it’s garnet) necklace, watching as the light seemed to fade out of it as the candles blew out and the tv was shut off and the room was wracked with sobs even louder than you remember. You know how Europa was never the same after that, how she always was so so so scared before the reaping, sure that she would be taken away in the same twist of fate that dragged her siblings into the deep, dark abyss.

But she was saved. When the names were drawn all those years later it wasn’t hers that popped up, it wasn’t Europa Wie who was sent to die in a world filled with blood and madness and even love, love love love that was fake or was real but existed in some semblance of the word. It was Europa Wie who escaped the curse, who would live to see another day, to hold someone else’s hand in hers, to be happy and healthy and grow and become successful and have kids and watch the process occur over and over and over again. You know this will never stop – neither does she, that’s why she’s lying here on the cold hard ground, shaking and trembling as she relives each moment, each death, each person who’s separated from her, never to return as the world grows darker and colder and lonelier with each passing day.

And all you can do is hug her and cry with her, wishing that it would all be over. Because you don’t know if you will ever see them again, you don’t know what happens after death, you don’t even know if one day you’ll be ripped from Europa’s arms and thrown to battle and die a horrible death that no one should ever have to face lest they be as monstrous as the acts committed. So you do the only thing that seems sensible right now. The two of you are locked in an embrace tighter than your bonds have been for the past few years. You only hope that it’ll be able to stand the test of time.