oliver vos | district nine. [ 1st games ] fin.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

oliver vos | eighteen | district nine tribute in the 1st hunger games

[🌱 kaitlin.]

“…carrying a rage, a leftover rage I cannot undo.” — Anne Sexton

[🌱 kaitlin.]

[atrb=border,0,true] "What's wrong with dad, Olly?" It's Clara who asks me first, looks up at me with her wide eyes and her wide-open heart. She's the youngest of us, but cleverer than the lot put together, that much I'm absolutely sure of. I don't know what to tell her; I only know I have to say something, but I don't know how to lie to her and don't know how to tell her the truth. I'm not even sure what the truth is anymore. "He's just not feeling well right now, Buba," I reply, something tight in my chest and thick in my throat. "Is it because Mama is gone?" I look down at her with sad eyes and wonder where she got it all from, wonder how she could possibly be so smart already at only five years old. I'm more than twice her age, but she's twice the person I am already, and I'm not sure if that makes me proud or ashamed or scared. Probably all three. "Maybe," is all I know how to reply at first, the only thing I can think to say. "He'll get better though." It's the truth, I think. I hope. I pray.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

[atrb=border,0,true] "I swear, babe, he's like, fucking heartless." "Whaaaat," the other girl replies, drawing out the 'a.' I can feel when she glances over to look at me, but I have no interest save for wishing they would just keep my name out of their mouths. "What make you say that?" Their voices are conspiratorial, whispers without being whispers. Daring me to hear, daring me to react, wanting to see who I am behind the paperback book I have tried to bury myself in. "Babe," the other girl says again, and it grates. "Where the fuck you been? Everyone knows. Don't waste your breath on him." I hear the second sigh and hope that's the end of it. It never is. "Think it's because of his mom?" "What, cause some rebel shot her by accident?" "Yeah, I, like, totally heard his dad lost it after." I swallow. Breathe, one, two, three, four. They don't know the half. I turn the page, and if I didn't have the thing memorized cover to cover I'd have no idea what words were in front of me. "Fuck," the first replies. "Ya, maybe." "I just wanna save him, you know?" I walk away.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

[atrb=border,0,true] "Do you have to?" It's Clara, once again, asking the hard questions. Because a rebel got Ma killed in the crossfire. Because Dad can't get out of bed for work anymore, so I have to go instead. Because you're going to starve if I don't. Because all of you are going to starve. Because you'll die. "Yes, Buba, I have to," is all I give her. "But why, Olly?" I should have known it wouldn't be enough. She's seven now. I'm fourteen. Officially twice her age. When she turns eight in a couple of months that won't be true ever again. I hate that. I can't patronize her with silly answers or lies, but I can't tell her the truth either, so instead, I wrap my skinny arms around her neck and pull her into my chest, hug her as close as I can without suffocating her. Sometimes I think that I do anyways, think that I need her more even than she needs me, and that's a horrifying thought that I run away from every time. "Because I have to," I say. She doesn't sigh. She doesn't cry or ask any more questions. She demands no answers. She understands.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

[atrb=border,0,true] "No, not like that," my new supervisor says, and I have to grind my teeth. "Again." I can feel every vertebra in my spine tingle, electric and alive, the current begging to dance down my arms and lash out. I've taught them so well, forced them to learn what it is to lay a wet compress over a feverish forehead, forced them to not shake every time they stir a pot of water over flame to make a warm breakfast for everyone in the house. I am well versed in the art of taming myself. That does not make it hurt less. "Yes, sir," I reply, disassemble the gun parts that I have already put together. They are in perfect order, cleaned exactly right and screwed in all the right places. But I am young, and he's doing me a favor by letting me take my father's job in the factory instead of reporting him to the Peacekeepers for abandoning his position, so I bite my tongue. He watches over my shoulder, hovers until he claps me on my back, full palm to spine, hard enough that it might have even left a mark. It wouldn't be the first. "Better."

[🌱 kaitlin.]

[atrb=border,0,true] I hear her scream best. I love the twins, but I have never been any good at lying to myself about which of my siblings was my favorite. I wish I had now. Clara sees me in chains, and her wail pierces the quiet of a revolution's end. "Shut that one up," the Peacekeeper fastening my cuffs says to one of their fellow silver-suited clones. I snarl, snap my teeth at him, but that only makes Clara shriek again. I tame my anger and desperation as best I can. For her, I'll be strong. "Move it," the other says to me, and I do nothing real to fight back. There are too many of them, and an army to back their line, and so I know there's no point. Instead, I search for the twins' eyes. "You can do this," I say to them even though I've been hiding 'this' from them for the last half a decade. "I love you guys!" I shout, the Peacekeeper knocking into my back with the brunt of a gun that I probably built. "Move," he says again, and this time jams it into the back of my head. I don't look back again.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

a few 200 word short stories for u, queen witch L△LIA  

♡♡♡

[L△LIA]

Bahahaha the end of the second one made me cackle despite how the rest of it is SAD Y'ALL ARE BREAKING MY LITTLE HEART OVER HERE. I love all the sibling interaction and the twists about each of his parents. The little mini stories are such a great way to show his life.

ACCEPTED!