emmi coulter | district 12 | fin

[d7m fraser birk ♚ frankel]

EMMI COULTER

thirteen | female | district twelve

[d7m fraser birk ♚ frankel]

”What is a little girl doing down here?”

”Working harder than the big men!”

My brother always says to stand up for yourself but it is not easy when I barely reach five foot on my tip toes. It is not always easy whenever I speak back, I bite my tongue as punishment. Momma always says be kind to everyone, even the wicked but it is not easy when the wicked pray on my feelings, a little girl too soft to be in a big man’s world.

They had me down the mines at seven, another body to be buried in the rubble of a collapse…truthfully that is all I dreamt about for the first year but opening the little doors for the coal trains to move through each chamber became just another thing I have to do.

They had me playing nanny at nine. Another love child during a rebellion, my momma and papa really did not have their priorities set straight.

They had me being my brother’s nurse at twelve. Too much strain on the open cast mine. Everyone came back from the war, chambers full of bodies when they were once sparse…a collapse so predictable. He lives…barely.

Now I am here just living. Bringing up an infant and keeping an adolescent alive while their parents are out…doing something. Ever since the treaty was signed both have hung up their pickaxes yet food is still fresh on the table…they must have found better jobs.

I try to cleanse the soot from my skin with sunshine and daisies; whenever there is a chance to be free. For six years I have barely seen daylight and it is no wonder my height only improves by a quarter of an inch every year.

Everything around me is changing, all I have known is a life of conflict. Half of my childhood consumed by a rebellion but now it is over. Two years and little improvement is beginning to show itself. Although a big one is the hours I work, from eleven to eight. Yay! Outside of the winter months the sun can now rinse my cheeks with its warmth. Freckles I have never seen before are beginning to show and the flames in my hair are beginning to burn again. I can smile.

Except the curse of worry still bites at my skin. Why do they think I am so worthless?is now joined by am I going to be in the next death festival? Middle child and I am the only one eligible. Middle child and I am the only one who keeps us all alive. I worry for them. I worry for me.

”Little girl, you need to work faster.”

”Big man, you need to talk quieter.”

They are just words and yet it feels like I have swung my fist at a brick wall and the bruises on my knuckles are the punishment of retaliating. I just cannot risk any chance to be thrown into a little conflict, even if it is just talking back. That aint what my momma taught me. But momma’s lessons of twelve years have rung their final school bell.

Ever since the end of the rebellion, I have gotten more words out of my little sister than my parents. Their minds are lost, wandered to a world far away from here. We don’t sit around the table anymore, well we really haven’t since my brother’s accident. But…but we are still family! Just a little different from the rest. Things have happened that have changed, that is the answer…

”What do you think they are doing?”

My brother’s voice is his only tool now, the one thing that properly works. A lively soul bound to a mattress, he tries to release the energy through me but it is only wasted on getting through a working day. ”Maybe they are government spies or secret rebels.” An unlikely fact as the only mention of the conflict during the rebellionwas adding to the death count of relatives and neighbours.

”You should make ma and pa look after me Emmi, get yourself a real education.”

”You should just forget about me Emmi and run away, you are wasted down a mine…”

”You should just let me go Emmi, there is a world out there for you explore.”

Sour statements spill from him now, pain makes him speak silly words. My family are my life, that is just a fact. There is no way I am going to wave them goodbye. There is no way I am going to run away now. Nothing is going to drag me away from them….

[d7m fraser birk ♚ frankel]

gm bourgeois decadence [aya] I guess this is it.

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

Accepted!