Rowan 'Red' Macdonald // Avoxe (Fin)

[Todd]

Rowan 'Red' Macdonald

Female

17 years old

FC:Scarlett Johansson

My life started in district 6, to the honourable family of the Macdonald's. Being the youngest of three meant, I was far from being considered to heir to the family business which both my parents work at. When I was born my oldest brother was already ten, and was coming to terms with the harsh reality of living within a powerful company. I never really got to see my parents much, my mother was a biologist at her husbands business, who was sometimes home early, but was drowned from reality with glass bottels. Staying out of their way was probably the first thing I ever learned, my mother running around like a busy bee and my father a unpredictable bear. My innocent youth was mostly spent with my youngest brother, Fin and sister, Fern, both kind and more patients with me, listening to me ramble on about facts and ideas I always learn or heard of in books or at school.

All I really remember in my early teens was the comforting smell of old books and oily paints. My oldest brother had avioded the hunger games and was destined to run the family business which marked the Macdonald clan as one of the richer families in the district. Fern had lost interest in listening to me ramble on about books and had retreated away from my life. With only Fin left, I found I wanted more attention, feeling ignored by the family I found familiar and comferting I began to get snappy with my sibling with clever remarks against them, being determined and strong headed just labeled me as a stubborn 5, 8". 

At the age of fifteen, a few days before the reaping, the Macdonald family fell to ruins. One night, three men came over from business, well that's what my sister said. They all looked like they lived well and comfortably, and seemed unusually calm when my father stumbled into the room with my mother at his elbow holding him up. Me, Fin and Fern stood out in the corridor out of sight, occasionally popping our heads around the corner through the arch into the sitting room where they were, my parents seated and older brother standing behind them. The talk went on for a while, things about medicine and oddly, I could of swared I heard district thirteen mentioned by the strange men. It happened so fast, when my father shook his head violently when something about rebellion was said, the men shoot out of there seats and slammed there hands down. My parents flinched, but my brother stayed still, always the brave one of the family. He must of seen it before it happened, for a small handgun suddenly appeared in his hands, but it was too late, my father lay slumped in his chair with neat holes in his chest before my brother got a shot. He followed suit and soon had a hole in his head, my mother only got a second to scream before she was cut off with a shot in the neck. My sister was pulling me up the stairs before i knew it, shouting my name in my ear, but i wasn't hearing her. Fin was just coming to the stairs when the two men, one being shot in the arm from my brother Good for him. I could tell the look on Fin's face he knew he would never make it up the stairs before they would be on him. He turned toward them and charged, only to be knocked down by a bullet in the stomach and finished off with one in the back of his head.

Fern slammed the door shut of her room and not very carefully pulled up the floor boards to revile three rucksack, and I knew she must of seen this coming. At this time my eyes were widen and searching, my breaths coming out in short, ragged breaths and adrenaline the only thing stopping my legs from collapsing in grief. A million questions entered my mind when Fern shoved the larger pack into me which I knew had been Fin's, but I couldn't find the voice to ask. A bang rang out as the men started shooting at the lock on the door, Fern grabbed a bag and shoved me towards the window "I'll be right behind you" She said in a whisper which made me have to strain to hear over the ringing in my ear. The jump was too high, but my gymnastic classes finally came to use as I remembered to roll when I hit the grass with a hard thump which i was to find out later sprained my ankle. A crash came from upstairs and then the shatter of glass which i knew at once was Fern's mirror, then the most dreadful gun shot, it was as if i could hear the bullet enter Fern's flesh.

I ran, and ran, and ran. My heart thumping in my ears and my mind scattered across the place like my oldest brothers brain. Before i knew it i was throwing my pack over the fence then not to carefully digging under. Why didn't I run to peacekeepers? Well I got this instinct they were involved some how and there was nowhere else to go but into the unknown.

A million feelings flooded over me when finally the adrenaline seemed to drain out, despair, hopelessness, grief, loneliness, all bombarding me. I walked until I could walk no more, and that was when I realised I knew zilch about the wild. Sure, I may be one of the smartest in my class, but they don't really teach you how to make fire or snares do they? The first few days I had to live off the cheese and bread rations in my bag but when they ran out I was alone. It wasn't long before hunger for energy took over pikyness and I was eating raw eggs with a half developed chick still inside. Yeah... I got desprite quick. I'm pretty sure I would have died out there if I hadn't been found by Nath. I had been sitting at a small sun warmed pond, trying to rest my ankle before I started walking again towards my invisable target, when a sound spooked me. "The woods aren't no place for a girl" A harsh voice came from behind. I spun around to see a filthy, sweat stained boy, with first glances saying he's a bit older than me, with a axe hanging over his broad shoulders. At first I was surprised, then a little self awear of myself, about a week in the wild left me with messy hair and dirty clothes that hadn't been washed in a while, but then I thought about all the shit i've been though and how much i wanted to see him be more depressed and angry than me. "Yeah, your right" I snap back not too harshly myself "You should be at home". At first the boys eyebrows drew together, as if he was having a argument inside his head, then he smiled, a crooked, imperfect smile that seemed to lift off all my worries.

That's how I met Nath, he seemed to like my sharp mouth and clever come backs. I had been very surprised when he said he was from district 7, had I really walked all that way? But still, he would bring me supplies and taught me a little about cutting down trees, how to make a shelter with them and how to make a fire with only some twigs. For the first time someone was being kind to me and helping, Nath was my only friend in this crazy world. But it was short lived, like everything is in this messed up place. I was found out, hunted down and captured. I don't really want to go into detail but they "interigated" me, and never once did I open my trap hole unless to give snappy remarks. When they were curtained they had got everything they could possibly squeeze out of me, they made me a Avox. Never once did I give them Nath name but I haven't seen him since. Now. Now, now, now I am shut up in my own body, unable to communicate with the world, it's worse than death. With each chance I get I make the Capitol's residence a living hell. My only escape from my new world is every book I can get a hold of and ever peice of paper I can draw on.

My living hell is your paradise.

Codeword: Odair

[Todd]

The sun always rises,  even if you can't see it. Only a few rays of sunlight were able to perice through the tiny slit they called a window, only illuminating a few words at a time. The air was a comfortable tempature, heated by the many bodies all crammed into the small rectangular dorm. There is four double decker beds, each pushed into the corners, each the same. The most powerful light source in the oily darkness was the blue glow of a clock that hung alone above the door way, the most inportant thing in the room for all the women that slept now, but not Rowan. Her pale finglers slowly swept over the coffee spilt pages, the words leaping out at her to greet her touch. This was her joy, this was her savour. Not the countinuing of time, or the hope that in maybe the next two minutes the world will say "Hey! You know what? We need to get out shit together and free all the Avoxes and stop the hunger games." But no, the simple book that was gently cradled in her hands.

A harsh poke on the shoulder brought Rowan back to reality, along with a gargling scowld in the ear. She shot up out of her top bunk bed, luckily for her the ceilings were much higher than any human was, shoving the old book under her plain, white foam pillow. If anyone found out she read or even had anything she could classify as hers, a beating would be at the other end of it. But a tall blond woman stared back with hard eyes, her brows drawn together as if permanently. This is Falon, the as if commander of our little group. She hates it when I read because if I'm caught, she will probably be told off too. But she would never tell, because if we all turn against each other, then we will have no one. 

The clock glows the numbers 06:00 and the whole room explodes with silent figures of all ages. With only two bath rooms between the two double beds on both sides of the room and eight avoxes, its a bit of a rush. But still Rowan lay in her bed, watching as Falon pushed her way to the front of the line for the toilet. Rowan was her mothers second name, as she had had firy red hair, which she had passed on to only one of her daughters. That messy too-curly red hair earned Rowan the nickname Red. Its not like that names matter anymore, because they don't, she only knew Falon's name because she had heard one of the Carers say it. Everyone else were just shadows in this too colourful place. When the queue had died down, Red swung her legs over the banisters that provened her from rolling off her bed in the night and dropped down onto the tile floor with a satifiying thump. This earned her a few glares from the avoxes who where already putting on their make-up and tiying their hair back into falutless buns. Everyone else in this flat were captol resisdents and where probable going to wake up around eight for the opening ceremony of the 66th hunger game tributes, but if they were desturbed by their slaves waking up, no good came out of that.

Slumping into the bathroom, my eyes lazily raises to see the reflection in the mirror. A hollowed cheeked girl looks back with a death stare, thin lips pressed together grimly and her yellow hinted green eyes lacking the hope and inspiration of everyone. Snarling at the image, Red sprayed her face with soapy water, brushed her corkscrew curls into a mass of fris so when she tired it back there wouldn't be any lumps. She had been chosen as one of the trubuites Avoxes, which was always better than being treated as a shadow by the capitol residents. But still they were warned that avoxes were only here to be commanded around and never to socialize with, if that was possible with a one-way coversations. Lonelyness gnawed at her stomach, making her feel empty and more not herself. Everyday she felt as if she was more and more an object, not worthy of being a human, not worthy of being her.

Tears welled up in her eyes, threating spill at any moment. Anger flooded her emptyness, making red mist to cloud over her vision. Gripping the sides of the washing basin to steady her racing heart, but only for a second. She wouln't give in, she wouln't let the capitol defeat her to tears. But they spilled over anyway. The capitol had defeated her, they had taken her family away, they had taken her friends away and they had taken away her voice. Everything went white, the only thing she could see was the reflection of the hollowed cheeked girl, her mouth gaping open to revile a wide open darkness of nothing. The only sound a high pitch scream, that formed no words or frequency.

[Gamemaker Lauren Kinkade]

ACCEPTED!