Escaping Bambi

I sat accross from a man I once knew, but no longer recognized. He looked like Warren, but I knew that wasn't his name anymore. His face was hardened now, new scars I wasn't privy too. His boyish features had turned cold. It brought a knot to my stomach. My mother reached under the banquet table for my hand, she rubbed her thumb reassuringly over my knuckles. I hadn't realized I had clenched my fingers together, I loosened them immediately. "Thank you for joining us here today." The man who looked like Warren said.My mother beamed under her embroidered sun hat, "Of course, Anything for our son." Father gave a half smile. His wrinkles etched into a unreadable expression. Then we fell into silence. Everyone looked pointedly at meIt was my turn for pleasantries, but all my words seemed to be trapped in my throat. How can we all sit here acting like nothing has changed? As if my brother was the same boy who left four years ago? I could still remember the day when I tripped down th

I slid into the white limousine sitting in front of my house. I struggled with how to place my legs with my short dress. How do northerners wear these?The coachman closed the door behind me with a thud that jump starts my heart. Now I was truly stuck inside this car. I looked around me. The seats were padded leather and upholstered with diamonds. I ran my fingers along the empty spot next to me. How many people have sat here before me? On this very same trip? The vehicles engine started with a faint roar. A white, expensive beast here to carry me away. I snapped my head to the tinted window that faced my home.There my mother stood on the garden stone path, clutching a porcelain doll from my childhood. I couldn't see her face, but I could only assume her cheeks were wet with tears. My poor mother, alone in that gigantic house. Father had never come to say goodbye but I expected as much. And now she would live the rest of her years alone. At least emotionally. The car moved forwa

When I woke up everything had changed. All I could do was scream, hunched over in the seat of the transport van. The bottom half of my once pristinely pressed white dress was now soaked in rust colored blood. My blood. With every bump the van hit, my fresh stitches pulled apart causing a mangled cry from my throat. They had taken my body from me, my future. I could no longer ever have children, they cut those possibilities out of me. I don't know how long I sat in the back of the cold moving van, but it was long enough from my sobs to come to a slow. It felt like my mind was screaming at the top of its lungs, deafening me. I wasn't sure who was driving, or where I was going. I was just so scared. My whole body shook uncontrollably, I rubbed my arms in an attempt to soothe myself but it didn't help. The Selector couldn't have assigned this right? This was all just a sick joke on me. My hopes and dreams couldn't end here, not like this. The van came to a screeching halt th

I woke up in the morning to shrieking voices and loud clattering, I barely had a second to sit up and rub my eyes before I had someone crushing themselves into me with one of the tightest hugs I've ever had. "Oh my god! You are so pretty!" A high pitched voice squeaked in my ear. I pulled back from the embrace to see a girl half on top of me, the other half of her on the other side of my bed. I stared back into big brown eyes, pink glitter smeared over both monolids. Her platinum bleached hair lay flat on her head cascading just past her shoulders, she had the biggest excited smile I had ever seen.A voice called from the bunk above, "Ah Candie shut up I'm trying to sleep." I guess Vixen still wasn't happy about the bed switch. Last night she stared me down before crawling up the shaky wooden ladder above me. Between the aches in my abdomen and the fear of the entire bed collapsing on me I didn't sleep well. Candie rolled her eyes. "Ignore her she's not nice to anyone, not even