Chapter 14: District 4

I felt the crackly static of the microphone before I heard it. It wrapped around my chest and tightened, taking my breath. It was beginning, but part of me kept screaming that this could be the end. The oddity with dark plum lips that curled up at the corners, with multicolored hair resembling parrot feathers, introduced herself as Lyric Adalynn. She tapped her long, pointed nails on the microphone, each echo rocking through me like a heartbeat. I squeezed Tyler's hand before ducking under the rope.

"I can feel the excitement in the air," Lyric trilled in her bizarre Capitol accent. "So let's start! Ladies first, as always." She crossed the stage with a dramatically rehearsed walk. In almost slow motion, she playfully covered her eyes and reached in, her talons arching and snagging a piece of paper. Every heart stopped as she pursed her dark lips and leaned into the microphone.

"Basil Mullingar." she cried out, a parrot among seagulls. I pushed all of my concentration into watching my feet, but it felt like I was tethered to my body, a soul floating along behind. Onstage, I felt vulnerable, like I was in front of a firing squad.

"And now, for our gentleman." She clasped her hands in front of her as best as she could with her barely functional hands that had probably never labored in her life. I thought of Tyler's hands, probably clenched in his curls. She reached into the other clear glass ball, and plucked out a name.

"Tyler Olive." her voice rang out loud and sharp, like a sword slicing through Tyler, his tattered mask finally splitting, if only for a second. Like only someone who's being doing it every day, he composed himself quickly and managed to place himself on stage without falling. I felt as if we were at the gallows.

Was this just a twisted nightmare induced by my mother's screams of grief muffled by a thin wall? Last miscarriage, I had a dream where Tyler was floating on his back, suspended by seaweed protectively looping around him and weaving through his curls. He was gently carried by the soft swaying of the ocean. I wasn't sure where I was or what form I existed in, but I watched my best friend in the safety of solitude and with the knowledge that nature held him from slipping under. And like reality, always slicing our lives up the middle when we've found our peace, a sleek, cruelly beautiful fin glided through the water. The shark swam like I did, without disturbing the water. "Tyler!" I cried out with my nonexistent voice. But it was hopeless anyways. And at the split second where dream and reality touched, I realized that I was the shark.

Right now, as we tried to avoid each other's eyes, I could feel his presence in the air. I could feel it like an instinct, like a shark felt it's pray. And right then, I realized that my existence insured his destruction, just like in my dream.