The sun sets late on the night before, and Sasha Toille is dancing.
Night should, by all normal standards, have started two hours ago - and yet the warm glow clings to the sky and refuses to leave. Perhaps it is as unwilling for tomorrow to come as all the children of Eight. Nineteen-year-olds are celebrating and twelve-year-olds are weeping, and Sasha Toille is dancing.
He has his own theory about the lingering sun. It is a spotlight, poised to guide him through his movements and illuminate his performance. Today has been a good day, one where his lungs have obeyed and pastel colour has seeped into his world instead of harsh reds, and if he dances he can forget about tomorrow. At the moment, Sasha is the only Toille child eligible for the Reaping. Hattie is just ten, and Flaxe is nineteen, currently at a party with others who are safe from the Games.
Sasha hinself has always felt a sort of distance from the Games. Nobody he has been close to has ever been Reaped, possibly because he has been close to nobody. Callie was a fighter against the Games, though. It was one of her driving forces of hate and of steely determination to win against the Capitol.
Callie was a fighter.
Sasha is just a dancer.
But the sun cannot hang on forever, and soon the warmth of the sun is replaced by the pallid light of the moon. There is no point in dancing in the dark.
The sun sets late on the night before, and Sasha Toille stops dancing, so the fear comes flooding in.
Dusk is just setting in around the district, the glassy surface of the water turning dark, as I see the first glow of orange rise from the lowest point of the horizon. That small glow grows much larger as a horde of lanterns are being released all along the docks, and from the nearby streets. I begin sprinting towards where I had left mine, a solemn smile grazing across my lips. It was good they were being honored. It was the least we could do to make sure all of the fallen from our district were never forgotten. They had all been so young.
In the end, no matter what had happened, they were all just kids.
This morning when I had learned that some of them didn’t have any family left living, or had never known people they could call that, I had immediately known what I needed to do. After all, everyone was important. I couldn’t let them just fade away into the black.
Feet sliding on the slippery docks, it wasn’t long before I had reached the lanterns I had made that afternoon. There were thirty of them, five for each of the tributes that didn’t have anyone else willing to take time to honor them tonight.
One by one, I sent them up, their glow reflecting in the water, the blue strokes of their name in my scrawl and the wisps of color of their design hovering in the surface. Some of the doodles were weapons, others foods. Whatever I had been able to learn about them from people around the town. Those that still remembered them.
I had even been able to find a few pictures, and had slid them into the pile. I knew later they would be projected over the sea like all the others. It made me glad to know that no one would be forgotten tonight.
The cloud of lanterns was massive now, the glow overtaking everything in sight, crowding out the darkness of the town as the night was lit up in memory of the dozens of fallen tributes.
The sound of the night wasn’t silent, but a mix of tears and cries of joy as the pictures started wavering along the tide, of smiling faces and clips of birthday cakes smashed in high chairs. My smile was one of joy and sorrow, a perfect picture of the bittersweet feeling that comes with remembering the dead.
The mix of the navy sky with the sunset of lanterns overtaking it is one that also fills the district with hope. At least, that’s what I choose to believe. After all, if we believe things are going to be bad, they will be. You have to look on the brightside.
Taking my attention away from the painting of the sky and the sculptures of the water, I feel my feet fall into the familiar grooves as I start walking around the docks, stopping at all of the memorials people made. Candles and pictures and favorite foods. The people are grieving, and I want to help comfort them as best I can. To make the hurt as small as possible. They deserve to be happy, even in dark times.
I hope that someone finds the memorial I made for the six little tributes that no one else seemed to remember much except for me. It wasn’t large, or grand, but it was thoughtfully put together, the flowers framing their faces. It was by a tide pool, and it pained me to leave it behind.
But I had to do my best to help those left behind. I had to do my best to make them happy. It was the least I could do.
