✄ .・。.・゜✭・.
all around me are familiar faces
worn out places, worn out faces
━━━

██ 001. / SONS OF SLAVES

█ ✄ ... / BENEATH the monotonic moan of the machine noise, the clustered whispers were about to send Paisley's head reeling. It was always like this — filled with noise, the slaves of District Eight finding any opportunity they could to proclaim their true feelings without their words finding the wrong ears. With their voices buried beneath the clambering sounds of the continuous vibrations, the Stiffs spoke freely in hushed tones as they worked away, breaking up every movement with a couple sharp words of discontent. Most of the workers revelled in their freedom to speak, taking as much advantage of the sheltered sound as they could, but Paisley preferred to work in silence. The whispers were just too distracting — too great a temptation — and the four hours of mandatory work that Paisley put in each day was the only time that she ever allowed herself to think.

Here, behind the busying movements of the machinery, Paisley found her mind too occupied to go wandering. Here, as she picked at yarn and punched holes through plastic, Paisley's thoughts were free of the darker visions that filled her mind at night, when her body was languid enough to let her demons run loose.

Little blood circulated through her fingers as she worked, her firm press around the cotton threads turning her fingertips white. The harsh texture of the fibres irritated her blemished skin until it was calloused and raw, but she didn't seem to mind. Working the loom wasn't one of the easiest jobs, or even the most rewarding, but Paisley had always found it more enjoyable than turning wheels or carting yards upon yards of fabric.

    Still, the racket of the factory made it so much worse.

Most people assumed the industrial noise was what made Eight so audibly unbearable, but Paisley had always found that to be a misconception. After several years of exposure to the thundering whirs, your ears tended to grow numb to the sound, and the buzzing became nothing but a little white noise. No, it wasn't the machines that drove Paisley to insanity. It was always the whispers — the throbbing combination of mindless gossip and zealous words that were practically impossible to tune out.

Beside her, Meryl worked frivolously, her fingers moving lazily as her eyes found their attention drawn elsewhere. They were supposed to be working together - the same tedious movements as they wove the threads through the machine - but Meryl had never been quite as contained as Paisley. She couldn't trudge through her full four hours in silence.

"Psst."

Paisley attempted to ignore her at first, feeling the phantom chill of eyes piercing the back of her head as she worked, but it wouldn't be any use.

"Psst", Meryl hissed again, this time through gritted teeth. Paisley reluctantly let her eyes look leftward, her attention falling onto her friend beside her. "Did you see that?", Meryl nodded towards their right, "Aidan is totally checking me out, right? You see the way he keeps looking over here?"

Almost in sync, their two heads tilted toward the rowdy cattle of boys who were lobbying mountains of fabric across the factory floor. Among them was Aidan — a tall, shabby boy with tufts of honey-blonde hair and skin littered with freckles. Meryl was right — he was staring. His body had been conveniently situated so that his gaze was pointed in their direction, and his eyes were fixated on the girl to Paisley's left.

"I'm not sure", Paisley shrugged behind smirking lips, turning her gaze back towards her work, "Maybe he's just curious about the movement of the machinery. He could just be admiring our handiwork?"

Her fingers found their way back to the threads, attempting to laser her focus back onto the interwoven shades of orange and violet and blue. As she pressed her toes against one of the pedals, the left hand side of the loom lifted, allowing Paisley to weave the weft threads towards the back shaft. There was something magnetic about using the machine, even if the movements did come to Paisley mindlessly, like the ticking of a clock. It was mesmerising, watching the way the colours twisted and laced together as she worked, each thread she wove aligning itself perfectly with thousands around it to create what became a magnificent piece of art.

There were dozens of patterns that weavers were expected to work through, from basketweave to honeycomb to twill, and the intricacies were only made more complex when colour was brought into the equation. Following a diagram only slowed the process down, but Paisley had always had a knack for picking up new patterns quickly. It was as though her mind was adapted for memorising the sequential frames.

"No offence, Pay, but I don't think it's our handiwork that he's admiring."

"Mer!", Paisley shrieked with laughter, jabbing the side of her best friend's body with her elbow, "You're sick."

"What? Don't look at me like that!", Meryl laughed, "I'm just stating the obvious. Besides, I need something to do whilst I'm stuck here everyday. Otherwise I'll just die of boredom before I turn eighteen."

"And Aidan Shaw is the answer to that problem, I suppose."

Silence fell over them then, and it was several moments of tranquillity before either of them spoke again.

"Did you hear that his younger sister got flogged last week? Suits caught her trying to steal a loaf of bread from the market", Meryl said quietly, her tone suddenly much more serious, and she gnawed so violently on her bottom lip that she began to draw blood, "She's nine years old and starving, you'd think they'd be capable of a little compassion."

"You have to have a heart to show compassion", Paisley shook her head, dropping her hands down onto her lap, "Have you ever looked one of them in the eye? Their glances are so harsh and hollow. It's like staring at somebody that's made of stone. To have that job, it's pretty much a requirement that you have to be soulless."

"This place is sick", Meryl cursed through shaky breath, busying her fingers with the threads, "Mom won't even let us talk about the Reaping tomorrow. She's all brave-face and 'you'll upset your sister' because she's conscious about it being Brella's first year. Truth is, she's just as scared as the rest of us."

"Brella shouldn't be worried", Paisley said bluntly, "Her name's only in there once."

"Still, it's a frightening thing being in that bowl", Meryl shuddered, "I mean, what about you? You've got to be in there nine, ten times now, at least..."

"Fourteen."

"Jesus, Pay", her friend gasped, and Paisley had to keep her eyes fixated on the loom to avoid meeting Meryl's eyes. She could picture what they would look like — shiny, glazed over with fear. And she couldn't afford to cross them. Fear was like a disease, it was contagious. Fine, so long as she could avoid it, but once she put herself into contact with it, it would only spread her way.

"That's nothing compared to some people", Paisley shrugged, "Besides, it wasn't like I had much choice. Parker is too old now, and even when she could, she would never claim it. Claiming tesserae is like bowing down to their authority in her eyes, and she'd sooner have us all starve than give in to them... But the rations just aren't enough — somebody had to do it."

The apathy in Paisley's voice must have seemed rather astounding, but Meryl would never really understand. The Spindlers were lucky — Meryl's mother was a teacher, and her father owned a small tailors shop towards the district's centre square. They weren't exactly wealthy, but they survived enough on their weekly rations alone. The Fawns, on the other hand, had never been quite so fortunate. But still, Paisley was right — her number was nothing compared to some of the kids out there, whose name had appeared in dozens before they turned fourteen.

"Maybe you're right, but you don't even seem the slightest bit scared", Meryl paused, "You're allowed to be scared, Paisley."

"I'm not scared."

"We're all scared..."

"I said I'm not scared!"

The second time she spoke, her voice had found itself a much harsher tone, and her hands somehow managed to slam onto the hardwood surface of the table. Feeling Meryl's body jump, even beneath the shelter of the factory noise, Paisley took a deep inhale and sighed, "Sorry, it's just — life is futile. Fearing the inevitable will only worsen the pain."

There was a moment of silence, before Meryl broke out into a fit of laughter, "You're so fucked up, Paisley. You realise you're only seventeen, right? Sometimes I'm certain you think you're closer to forty-five."

That was a phrase Paisley had heard a few times before — that she was wise beyond her years. Truth be told, she hated it. In the past, it had never done her much good. Wisdom tended to come from experience, and in Paisley's case, the experiences hadn't ever been the particularly enjoyable kind. There was a certain cynicism that came with experience - the harsh reality of being forced to grow up long before your time. Life became monotonous, moments became fleeting, and innocence became little more than the whisper of a friend that you used to know.

She would have pondered on the comment longer, but her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a dozen mounds of fabric being thrown into the storage bin behind them. Seconds later, a plastic carton of yarn landed next to Paisley's feet with a thud.

Oh lord, Paisley mouthed to herself. Here was when the distractions really came in.

    The balers.

Some of the factory's finest young aggravators, the balers tended to do nothing if not mess things around. They lingered, and they created unnecessary noise, but mostly, they just dawdled around those who were trying to actually do their jobs in peace. It was no wonder, really — they did have one of the worst jobs in the entire factory, expected to do nothing but transport fabric and bails of wool all day long. Anybody in their right mind would feel bored to death, but that didn't change the fact that they were rascals.

There were five of them altogether — Orrice, Turner, Aiden and Brad, but Paisley only really cared about the last. Gusset Buckle was more than just the baler who brought Paisley her yarn, he was one of her closest friends. It had been that way since they were born, after their mothers themselves had grown up as lifelong friends. Over time, they had fallen with their own individual strays, as Paisley had found Meryl, and Gusset his lads. But still, no matter how far they strayed, they always seemed to find one another in the end.

"Your yarn, our highnesses", Orrice mocked with a bow as he placed an identical carton of wool next to Meryl. Meryl's eyes grew wide as she rummaged her hands through the pile, pulling out the various colours of wool that she needed.

Gusset reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a couple scraps of fabric, tossing the bundle of colourful patterns onto Paisley's lap. "And some more material, for the great artiste", he spoke with a smile, and Paisley's mouth awed as she ran the scraps between her fingers.

"Wow... these are seriously perfect, Gus", she grinned, stuffing the material into the front pocket of her apron, "You're amazing - thank you."

His hand reached behind him to scratch the back of his neck, but Paisley was sure she caught a glimpse of red flushing on his cheeks, "No — you're the one that's amazing, P. Have you guys seen what this girl can do with a needle and thread? Seriously, it's like witchcraft."

"What's witchcraft is whatever the pair of you have managed to do with these threads", Aidan chuckled to himself, leaning over Meryl's shoulder to brush his fingers against her part of the weave, "Are they supposed to be so lopsided?"

"Oh, shove off Shaw!" Meryl shrieked and shoved the boy away from her shoulders, "This job is an art."

"Kidding, kidding!", he held up his hands, "Jeez, Mer - some shove you've got on you."

"You girls coming to the meeting tonight, then?", Turner quizzed, tossing a small ball of yarn and catching it with his right hand, "Emory is expecting a big turn-out."

"Of course", Meryl nodded excitedly, "I wouldn't miss it."

"Paisley?"

"I'm not sure, Gus. I mean, the night before the Reaping?" Paisley sighed, "Don't you think that if there's any reason we shouldn't be risking anything tonight, it's that? The suits must be on high alert..."

"But you see, that's exactly why you should be there!" he enthused with the zealous flailing of his hands, "None of us have the power to guarantee where we're going to end up tomorrow — but tonight, we can choose to be somewhere with meaning. To be a part of something that matters."

"C'mon Paisley, don't be such a Stiff", Orrice groaned, "What — you scared your parents are going to find out?"

At the boy's words, Paisley's body language almost instinctively closed off. She couldn't help it, the things he'd said made her want to start heaving. Paisley's parents were Stiffs, by definition of the word, and it was exactly meetings like these that kept them up at night.

"Seriously, dude? Cut it off", Gusset quipped, before crouching his body down in front of Paisley so that his eyes were level with hers. "Look, P", he reached forward to take her calloused hands in his, "I know that these things are sensitive for your family, but you can't let that stop you from doing what you think is right. It's your call — if you don't want to come, then that's fine, but don't let your parents' fears dominate what you choose to do with your life. We'll be there the whole time."

Paisley looked at him for a moment, the tension in her stomach building, but the honest look in his eyes made her feel more at ease, "Okay — I'll be there."

Gusset's face broke out in a smile, "Alright, that's my girl! Here, pass us your arms, both of you."

"Oh god, not more skin vandalism", Meryl groaned, "I'm filthy enough as it is — I don't need to litter myself any more right before the Reaping."

"That's literally the entire point, Mer", Aidan laughed and rolled his eyes, "Besides, you need it — it's your entry ticket."

"What if I end up going to the Capitol? I wouldn't want them seeing all of these words ..."

"So what if they do? You're so covered in dirt that you can hardly make them out anyway. There's no crime in blurred ink. And you're not going to the Capitol — there's literally a one in a trillion chance. Relax."

Meryl sighed and held out her arm, "Alright fine — corrupt me."

Paisley rolled up her own sleeve and chuckled lightly at her friend's disdain. Her arms were already smeared with dirt themselves — smothered in black ink — and an abundance of words and phrases decorated every inch of her skin. She didn't see the harm in adding a couple more. Along her right forearm she could immediately make out the word 'rise', plastered in gigantic print. Around it were several others — 'take the stand', 'screw the odds', 'enough'. Most of the words were blurry — they had been hand-scribbled by the tip of an ink-covered finger, after all — but that was the exact point of their existence. After a life of long factory hours, polluted streets and slums lacking any sanitation, most of the kids in Eight were covered head-to-toe in a permanent layer of dirt. Their fingernails were black, their cheeks dusted, and the surface of their skin was practically stained with the murky-grey colour of soot. Under the smog-restricted light, it was practically impossible to differentiate the words from the grime.

If you weren't permitted the freedom to say your thoughts aloud, why not plaster them all over your skin?

    There were pictures too — various poorly-drawn doodles that had come to mean everything to those who sported them on their skin. Something along the lines of an eagle. A rising sun. The worker bee. Paisley could only hope that fabric ink was not damaging to the skin.

Gusset pulled a square piece of plastic out of his pocket and pressed it firmly against Paisley's wrist. It was clearly an off-cut, the harsh sharpness of the edges grazing the sensitive surface of her skin, but the plastic had been scratched at until a small image had been etched in. When the plastic had been lifted, Paisley could clearly make out a series of black lines that had been inked onto her skin — they curved and twisted over one another in what seemed to form some kind of knot. Above it was another word, the small print of thick black letters.

Paisley traced her finger over the lines, "Anarchy."

"To raise hell."

She watched as Gusset covered the same piece of plastic in more fabric ink and stretched over to press it against Meryl's wrist, leaving the same harsh print on her dusted skin. Paisley laughed, noticing the way that his fingers were left covered in the ink, but Gus only reached to roll up her sleeve, using the excess ink to write his own name just below her shoulder.

"There", he smiled and pulled down Paisley's sleeve, "Now the words you wear aren't just associated with the people that you hate."

"Thanks, Gus."

"We should probably scatter, boys", Orrice beckoned, nodding towards the troop of Peacekeepers who had just turned onto the factory floor.

Gusset turned to Paisley with a quick and subtle, "I'll see you at 7", and then the five boys scurried off back to their tasks.

It wasn't unusual for Peacekeepers to turn up on site every so often, doing their quick loop around the floor before leaving again. They didn't need to be there all day long — just long enough to make sure that everybody was inside. That meant that everything in Eight was as rigid as normal. Running like clockwork...

But they had to do their checks, just to make sure that everybody stayed in line. When they entered, the noise-filled factory would fall silent — just for a few short moments — like they were wolves walking through a herd of sheep.

Making it clear that within these four walls, they would always be the predators, and the poor souls that worked there would always be their prey.

The last thing anybody wanted was to get caught off the job. Not unless you wanted to find yourself getting whipped, or worse. Parker was adamant she had witnessed a boy's ears get nailed to his workbench once, and they were no strangers to attaching metal weights to workers' necks to keep their heads down.

"So...", Meryl sighed casually after they had sat in silence for about a minute, "At what point do we address how obviously in love with you that boy is?"

    "Who's supposed to be in love with me?", Paisley asked absentmindedly from behind her busied fingers.

    "Don't act all clueless with me, Fawn! The boy whose name is written on your shoulder in a heart — he had his hands holding yours like this?"

Paisley shook her hands free from Meryl's grip and rolled her eyes, "Affection isn't inherently romantic, Mer."

"No... But ogling at each other like that sure is", Meryl shrugged her shoulders and laughed, leaning her body forward, "I mean, come on Pay, you practically drool at the sight of one another."

"We're just really good friends — that's all."

"If that's your story."

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Just short of an hour later, the end of levy hours was signalled by the ringing of the bell. Almost on queue, every set of hands in the factory dropped their equipment and stood, ready to leave the sweat-ridden building for the day. The children piled out first — hundreds of them, some as young as seven. School hours ended sharply at three, so every child in the neighbourhood had been in the factory since, working their tiny hands raw.

The children were normally restricted to simple jobs, like manning the machines that only involved the turning of a wheel, but sometimes they were expected to put themselves in danger. Crawling into confined spaces, unclogging machinery, dodging moving parts to fix the broken threads. It was gruesome, and the combination of dim lighting and poor ventilation tended to make them sluggish, but they always found the energy to bustle out of the doors at great speed as soon as they heard the bell.

The rest of the workers didn't tend to leave in such a hurry. There was no point, really — all leaving quickly would do is get you stuck in the rush. At precisely seven every evening, each and every working soul from Paisley's neighbourhood would pour out of the same factory doors and onto the surrounding streets, resulting in some severe sidewalk traffic.

When Paisley finally exited the building, she was thankful for the gentle blast of a humid breeze. It may not have been particularly cool — or even particularly clean — but the thick air from the factory had started to clog her lungs with dust. The building had very few windows and a shortage of any proper light, so even beneath the dimming layers of smoke, Paisley's eyes struggled to adjust to the blinding haze of the sun. And the weather was warm and dry, so escaping the morbid heat inside did nothing for the thick layer of sweat slicked across her skin. Her clothes still stuck to her body like glue.

    When she turned the corner, Gusset was standing waiting for her by the gates, his back pressed firmly against the wall. He'd been fiddling with a stray piece of yarn, wrapping it tightly around his fingers until it cut his circulation short and his skin turned white.

    "Hey, stranger."

    "Oh thank god", Gusset breathed a sigh of relief, kicking himself back from the wall, "Let's get out of this place - the heat is driving me nuts."

    "What makes today different from any other?", Paisley pondered with gentle laughter, starting to stray away from the factory's front gates.

    "Something about the day before a Reaping... it makes everybody so eerie and tense."

    The pair crossed the street away from the workhouse and into the depths of their surrounding neighbourhood — Bramhall Green. They had lingered long enough that the foot traffic had started to clear now, but certain sections of the street were still cluttered with people hurrying home before the hour of curfew arrived. Though it was only a short fifteen-minute walk from the factory to the Fawns' small apartment, Gusset always walked Paisley home anyway. It seemed to be the only time across their tireless schedules that they ever found themselves alone.

"I'm really trying not to think about it, actually."

"Well, you wouldn't", he laughed and turned himself to walk backwards along the pavement, "You have this extraordinary ability to numb yourself to things you don't want to worry about."

"No point fretting over things that are out of our control", she shrugged.

"But you see, Paisley Anne — that's exactly what you should be doing. Who says it has to be out of our control? Maybe we aren't fretting about it enough."

He was beginning to talk with that zealousness again — the overwhelming passion he showed when he started to preach about something he wanted to change. And there was that glint in his eye; the sparkle of hope that reminded her so much of somebody that she used to know.

It was that very dauntless look — like he thought he could change the world — that terrified her so much.

"Come on, Soldier", she teased and gave him a light shove to goad him to walk faster, "At least save the heroics until after dinner, we're going to be late. Race you to the edge of the block."

She picked up speed then, kicking off from the gravel dirt to speed off in a sprint down the pavement. She wasn't really sure why. Sometimes she just needed to feel the wind blowing through her hair, and a certain weightlessness building beneath her feet.

He stopped still, his eyes rolling, but the corners of his lips began to curve into a smile. Paisley was a funny girl — her personality seemed to fall either side of a drastically different spectrum — but something about her always felt refreshing. Like a drop of liquid sunlight, or a heavy breath of fresh sea air.

Knowing there was little else to do, Gusset picked up his own pace and started legging it down the gravel street, choosing to ignore the jarring looks from those around them, who were trying to make their way home in peace. Paisley's laugher grew, her feet speeding up, but it didn't take her much-taller friend particularly long to catch her up. Within seconds, Paisley felt the tight grasp of two arms twisting around her waist, and she broke out into fits of giggles with a shriek. She turned her body to face him and they laughed for a moment, before the excitement died down and things grew quiet.

As they stood, the sun began to set, and Paisley attempted to watch for any streams of colour that might bleed out into darkened sky. Perhaps a glimmer of purple or pink bursting out from beneath the golden rays. It was no use. There was a thick veil of fog that permanently canopied itself across the skyline, no matter how clear the weather, and only the most feeble traces of daylight were able to escape from beneath the shrouded sun. Clumps of buildings peered out from the dun haze of smog like islands rising from a sea of soot, and the protruding height of the chimneys stood tall, billowing out plume after plume of thick black smoke. No, any sign of colour had been firmly squashed by the lurid murk of grey.

"I should go... It's going to get dark soon", she said quietly, "Mom must be getting worried."

Gus looked disappointed, but he gave her a short nod. "I'll come get you once checks are through and lights are out. Back window. Come quietly."

"Right — back window. See you then."

Paisley watched as he disappeared into the sea of brick, leaving her to plunge into the burley neighbourhood of her home alone.

The first thing anybody ever seemed to notice about Bramhall Green was the smell — the abhorrent stench of rotting waste and industrial fumes. Crossed with the constant whirs of the factory machines, it was just about enough to send any visitor spiralling into sensory overload.

And then, second to that, came the irony of its label. Bramhall Green — implying there was even the slightest trace of greenery across the entire town. Acres upon acres of territory, and yet there was still not a single blade of grass in sight. With the harsh humidity of the weather, and the overwhelming pollution from the district's factories, there was little to no opportunity for anything to grow.

No, Bramhall was nothing but barren pavements and exposed brick.

The rest of Eight was no different, of course. The district was built up of a dozen of these factory-towns, each neighbourhood almost identical to the last. The families of each town lived in their identical rows of apartments, sharing identical furnishings, facilities and food, and when it came to work they would all pile into the same factory, whichever one their rotten slums happened to be built around.

    All the same, apart from one... Horton Heath, where the poorest souls of Eight typically went to die. Even the Peacekeepers chose to mostly steer clear of there.

Most families in Eight were housed in run-down tenements — narrow, low-rise sort of buildings that were clumped together in rows, each divided into as many as four dingy apartments for every floor. They were packed together like sardines, separated only by a thin strip of land surrounded by an iron fence, that acted as somewhat of a communal front yard. Each apartment had a small kitchen, living space and bedrooms of its own, but everything else was shared.

    In her quest to make it to the front door, Paisley found herself having to dodge and duck through the endless rows of laundry that hung to dry in the front yard. The clothing lines were always cluttered, but the fact that they were busier than normal came at no surprise.

    Reaping clothes.

    For such a populated and sociable street though, the rest of the yard stood empty, and that was the first sign to Paisley that she had been pushing it with the time. Dusk was approaching, and all signs of life had already been concealed away behind drawn curtains and bolted clasps.

    The Fawns apartment was thankfully located on the first floor, so unlike many of their neighbours, they scrounged access to a decent amount of natural light. It was compact, but it was cosy, and the family of five had done with their three rooms the best that they could manage. When she entered the apartment, her mother was carrying bowls of stew and ration-grain bread across the short distance from the kitchen to the dining table.

    "What time do you call this?", her mother fretted, "The rest of us were back nearly twenty minutes ago!"

    "I'm sorry. It took longer to get home than I thought."

    "We all do the same walk", Parker snarked, already perched at the dining room table.

    "So I dawdled, so what?" Paisley retorted, throwing her sister a look as she swung into her own seat, "How was work, Dad?"

Burton looked at his daughter warmly from behind sleep-filled eyes, "Oh, it was alright doll — just tiresome."

The five of them tucked into their evening meal, engaging in light conversation about school and work as they ate, but the atmosphere seemed more uncomfortable that night than most. It always played out this way the night before a Reaping, when everybody's nerves sat teetering right on the brink of insanity. Polly seemed the most unsettled, but that was to be expected. She was only young, after all. Parker, on the other hand, didn't seem to ever feel uneasy. Mostly, she just got mad.

As the clock struck eight, their mindless natter was fleetingly interrupted by the clanging of the bell. Curfew. Suddenly, the sound of a fork clattering against the brass table sent the entire family jumping out of their skin.

"What is this, a police state?"

    "Parker Leigh-"

    "No, Mom", Parker upbraided, "How can they lock us in here like prisoners in a cell?"

    "I don't think now is the time, Parker", their father scolded, "You're going to upset your mother."

    "I don't care, I am sick of it! Every day we play by their rules. We eat their rations, we work their hours, all to pay their dues. I've worked four hours in that same factory every day for the last fifteen years, for God's sake, and what is that supposed to get me? A couple more decades trapped in the same sick job, destined to be a stiff for the rest of my life? Where did it get the two of you?"

    "That is enough!", Burton bellowed this time, and it was clear that his eldest daughter's words had cut deep.

    There were a dozen rules controlling Eight that you could choose to be angry about — rations, curfews, checks — but levy was by far the sickest of the lot. Any citizen above the age of seven, regardless of health, status or occupation, was expected to work four compulsory hours of factory participation every day. Hours began at precisely three in the afternoon, signalled by the ringing of the bell, and continued into the early hours of the evening. Levy had been put forward as a sort of tax - a way to pay back the workmanship and sacrifice that was owed — but really, it was just another way to keep the mutinous folk in line.

    Failure to show up for your hours was punishable by death. The only way around it was to buy your way out, and heaven knows there weren't many souls in Eight who were capable of doing that.

    No, everybody in Eight started their working life with the sluggish hours of the factory, but what made Paisley's parents stiffs was that they had never left.

    Paisley rose from her seat and began to stack the empty bowls in her hands. "I'll get started on the dishes", she said in an attempt to ease the friction, but she could still feel the animosity from across the room. Parker was subversive, like so many others, but her anger was a problem. It made her practically impossible to contain.

    "Oh, Paisley — look at the state of your fingers", her mother gasped when she caught sight of the bloody calluses on her hands, "Bandage them up with some gauze before they bleed..."

    As Lisle prodded  to look at her damaged hand, Paisley felt the cuff of her sleeve rise up, and in a moment of panic she hastened to break her arm free.

    "Of course, I'll do it now Mom."

    Their tiny apartment didn't have access to any plumbing, so the wooden basin that was supposed to be their sink had been filled by a bucket of cold water from the communal pump. After throwing in the empty dishes, Paisley let her own hands soak in the bowl. The water was murky and grey, and as Paisley wet her hands she could feel the light sting of the pollutants bleeding into her wounds. Still, the moisture of the water helped ease some of the tension on her tightened skin. As she moved her hands over to the dishcloth to dry, Paisley felt the firm grasp of fingertips pressing tightly around her wrist.

    There was a caustic fire burning behind Parker's eyes. "What is this? Are you insane?"

    Paisley said nothing, instead reaching for the gauze and shaking her hand free. In a painful silence, she began to bandage up her shredded fingers, attempting to block out the scornful severity of her sister's glare.

    "You're not going to that rally, Paisley", Parker seethed beneath her breath, "Not if I have anything to say about it."

    Paisley whipped her head swiftly to her left. "You don't. Besides, don't act like you aren't planning on going yourself. So knock it off with the double standards, okay Parks? I don't need you to coddle me."

    Parker's lips began to move, but before she could muster up the words to bite back, her sister was nowhere to be seen.

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Patrol checks were carried out just before ten, but lights-out wasn't until well after eleven. Once it was certain that their parents were tucked away in bed and sound asleep, the children in the opposite bedroom began to stir. Parker was the first to rise, silently slipping out of the door with the skilful stealthiness of a fox. Regrettably, Paisley was much less subtle, almost clambering into the wall as she attempted to tug on her shoes.

"Paisley?", a tender voice from the bed beside her questioned, "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere, Pol", she whispered, "Go back to sleep."

"Don't lie to me — can I come with you?"

"I think it's better for the both of us if you don't", Paisley sighed and bent down to stroke the young girl's hair, "I'll tell you sometime when you're older, but I need you to promise that you won't tell Mom and Dad I'm gone — okay?"

"Promise", Polly nodded, and Paisley gently kissed her head goodnight.

Gusset was waiting by the back window, just as he had promised, but the second she began to climb, Paisley regretted her decision not to brave the stairs. She had changed out of her work clothes into something much darker, and her hair was scraped back in an attempt to seem more discreet, but in the end it wouldn't matter. If they were caught, they were dead — there was no question about it.

Their destination was located right on the Far East side of the district, at least three towns over, so the journey was a bit of a trek. Thankfully, they were fortunate enough that the idle roads did not contain additional light after ten, and the militant patrol of the streets tended to relax after lights-out. If they had completed their checks, and the entire population was tucked away in bed, the Peacekeepers seized the opportunity to take it easy.

It must have been a little after midnight when they arrived, but Paisley hadn't passed by a clock to tell. Horton Heath was the final neighbourhood they needed to pass through, and on its lifeless streets they sauntered through unscathed. The building was about half a kilometre clear of Horton's centre, just before the metal fence that signified the district's border. Nothing surrounded it, apart from some arid dirt and an overgrowth of wilted weeds.

Inside, the building was practically heaved.

"You made it!", Meryl jumped excitedly and ran to hug her, somehow having spotted Paisley's arrival from the completely opposite side of the room.

"Just about..."

"Well, you're right on time - I think Emory is starting to speak soon. Impressive turnout, huh?"

Paisley opened her mouth to speak, but as if on queue, a brittle and yet bellowing voice hollered at them from across the room. "Hey! Could I get everybody's attention, please?"

On a heightened platform directly in the centre of the room stood a nineteen-year-old girl, who possessed more grit and erudition than any adult Paisley had ever met. Though she was short in height, her presence was mighty and robust, and the bravery that she wore like armour made her look like a hero taken from the pages of a book. After her plea for silence, she stood back to allow the noise to die down, but just the sound of her voice made the entire room fall still.

   "Most of you know me already, but for those of you who may not — my name is Emory Paylor", her voice spoke again, now finding she had the whole room's attention, "Welcome to my revolution."

❛ bright and early
for the daily races,
going nowhere ❜

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AUTHOR'S NOTE . . . ohmygosh, hello! there was a point with this chapter where I genuinely never thought I'd be here - it seriously took it out of me. this chapter is *long*, I think probably the longest I have ever written, but I have no regrets. welcome the fuck to needlepoint. I'm honestly not even sure where to begin.

i've been being a real perfectionist about this chapter, I just really really wanted to get it right. and to be honest, near the end I think I started to slack, but I was honestly losing the plot with it (cries in virgo). I just wanted to give a good introduction to our central character (in all her angsty, traumatised teen complexity).

as I've said already, I've taken major inspiration for the world of district eight from my own hometown, which was actually *the centre* of the textile industry during the industrial revolution (who knew right?) but I also really identified with the rebellious side of my town's history, which equally seemed to match up with eight pretty well. we already know that there's a massive rebel scene in eight by katniss's era, but I found myself really captivated by the idea that the younger generation of this era would grow up to be the adults that later drive that rebellion forward, and raise their own children to do the same.

so, on that note, as you may have noticed, a familiar face popped up there at the end. we'll see a lot more of her in upcoming chapters, but I wanted to sneak her in briefly just to give you all a little taste!!!

anyways, I have to be awake in five hours (jokes on me for only being capable of writing at three am), so I am going to sleep.

all my love, dani x