I don't remember exactly what prompted my wanting to write about a young, female rebel leader back in... looks like 2006? I know some of it had to do with a couple of weird dreams I had had around that time. I guess the universe was crying out for role models for young ladies because I think that was about the same time Hunger Games came out. I was all about the scifi during this period, and had read the absolute crap out of Maximum Drive. I've always been fond of solid female leads. I guess this was part of my need to feel important. I was going through an epic fuck ton of average teen girl crap, and trying to find meaning in my life. I had always kind of felt that I needed to be important somehow and that the endless stretch of featureless time ahead of me couldn't possibly be my destiny. I was a hero or a space princess secreted away on Earth or something other than this meager speck of flesh crawling around on a giant, watery dirt ball fly through space. I'm still kind of struggling with that on some levels, but adult apathy has dulled some of that and has taken the edge off the existential break downs I occasionally still get. Anyway, here's this little story I tried to make sense of. I will reiterate, I didn't read Hunger Games until 2012 when the first movie came out. I read it before I saw the movie so I'd know what was going on, because the trailers looked hella rad. It's interesting how themes kind of permeate everything...
Grace watched people pass her as she rested her feet for a moment. Many were tourists, taking in the sights and sounds of the Capital. Some wore suits and carried brief cases, scurrying to one meeting or another. Others just lived, not doing much of anything but doing so much more than the rest of them. Grace counted herself among those few. She felt that she was one of them for about three months now, when she could finally shed the chains of her old life and breath again.
She sighed and let her head fall back to revel in the decadence of the early spring sun. She shook out the dark curtain of her hair, feeling free at last. Mother would miss her, but that would always be expected with mothers. She scoffed at that thought.
"Yes," she said to herself. Mother would miss her little scapegoat, wouldn't she...
Thinking of her mother fanned the smoldering ember in the back of her mind. If she left it linger too long, it would blossom into anger and ruin a particularly lovely day. Grace doused the ember in the cool, quenching memory of the feeling of freedom she had felt when she had stepped off the train and onto the cobbles of the Capital three months ago.
But the mean little ember wouldn't be quenched. It reminded her that Mother always found her, and that her darling brother and beloved sister would stand beside her and look lovingly away as punishment was brought down upon her.
A bird pecked at a crumb nearly under her toes. The bird distracted her enough to break her from her reasons for leaving and remind her that the day was moving along without her. She'd have to get going if she want to see any more of the capital.
The Capital was a maze of gleaming marble. Every intersection of broad avenues was punctured with a fountain or monument of some kind. The domes and colored glass glittered like jewels in alabaster settings.
Near the Presidential Palace several groups of protesters gathered and chanted and sung. She observed them from across the plaza at the gates of the palace. Nearby, three men in black stood, glancing about. She heard one of them say something
".... in just a few minutes...."
What? She studied them cautiously. Two of the men engaged in some sort of whispered dispute, but the third, scanning the crowds, caught her stare. He smiled. It was the kind of smile a cat might give a mouse before pouncing. The kind of smile a bomb might make before it explodes...
RUN! RUN RIGHT NOW!! Her mind screamed at her. She had to get as far away as fast as she could before the man stopped smiling at her. She could see them now. Groups of twos and threes in coats too heavy for the warm spring day standing tensely among the protesters. Of course they'd wear that. They have guns.
Some of the others in the plaza began to notice the pockets of calm among them.
Three black helicopters swooped out of the sky. They speed low and fast straight toward the Presidential Palace. They gleamed like sharks in the sky. They landed, almost delicately on the pristine grass of the palace lawn behind the tall wrought iron fence. The calm people watched the helicopters intensely.
Men leapt from the hovering crafts and advanced on the Palace. They all wore the same red, crisp jacket. As the men advanced, those in the crowd shed their coats, revealing the same red jacket. They drew their weapons. Some herded the protesters out of the plaza while the rest formed up.
She needed to run, she had to get out of there, but what was unfolding in front of her was far too important to not witness...
Police and Presidential Guards began to make their defense on the lawn. The gun fire was much louder than Grace had anticipated. Her senses reacted before she knew what was going on. She found herself taking cover behind a stone trash bin.
Bodies began to fall to the ground and yet another hovering, metal contraption roared into the plaza from the sky. This helicopter was black with red markings along the body and tail. It landed behind the red men. Several more red men clamored out. The last one descended with an eerie calm. His jacket was much longer, and he wore shining black boots. He bore some sort of insignia on the breast of his coat.
Something exploded, ripping the fence apart like paper. The men in the plaza rushed through the breach. She had to get to safety, but this was going to be history...
The red man in the long coat swept his gaze approvingly over the plaza. Grace hoped he wouldn't see her, but his victorious, burning amber gaze found her wide, pale eyes. His eyes quickly swept past her, but in that brief moment of contact, she swore he had learned everything about her.
The battle was being won by the red men, and they soon overwhelmed the Presidential Guard. The man in the long coat walked calmly between the gun fire and lead his men toward the Palace. As Grace watched his coat tails flutter through the doors, hanging drunkenly on blasted hinges, she was filled with an unreasonable hatred for that man in the red coat. She wanted to hurl the stone bin right at his head. She nearly missed noticing the remaining Red Men turning back toward the plaza. They opened fire on the bystanders still lingering on the edges of the plaza, like she had.
More in Chapter 2
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