Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson / Where Things Come Back, John Corey Whaley

DEVOTION
A husband or child can be replaced,
but who will grow me a new brother?

ISMENE:
No, please! You're my sister: Don't despise me.
Let me die with you and sanctify our dead.

ANTIGONE:
No, you may not die along with me.
Don't say you did it!
You wouldn't even touch it.
Now leave my death alone!

ISMENE:
Why would I care to live when you are gone?

— Antigone, translated by Paul Woodruff

Grief is an amputation, but hope
is incurable hemophilia:
you bleed and bleed and bleed.
— David Mitchell, Slade House

The air is silent when Aisha Lark is reaped for the first time. Like the aftershock of a gunshot—time frozen and still moving onward without her, endlessly. This is no gentle thing; her sister's voice, calling her own name instead. This is no long story; her sister, swallowed by the insatiable maw of the 50th Games.

It is just as silent the second time, a year later. There is a strange satisfaction in it. A grief, too. This is what she deserves, and yet this is the sacrifice, null and void. This is the grief that should have lived and died with her sister. How much longer could it have survived if it hadn't been passed on? If Aisha had been the only one, rather than the second?

Aisha cannot change her fate. She is an open wound, hemorrhaging. An animal caught in a bear trap might gnaw off its own limb to escape. She is no better.

AISHA LARK — District 9
as described...

ALL OF THAT UNSPENT
LOVE GATHERS IN THE
CORNERS OF YOUR EYES.
GRIEF IS JUST LOVE WITH
NOWHERE TO GO.

EZRA WIDOWBROOK — District 12
as described...

I'LL DO THE STARTLING THING.
I'LL HAVE THE KNIFE IN MY
TEETH. I'LL BE THE STAR. YOU
CAN BE THE HORRIFIED ONE.

AYOMIDE SAINT — District 9
as described...

I HAVE BURIED YOU IN
EVERY PLACE I'VE BEEN.
YOU KEEP ENDING UP IN
MY SHAKING HANDS.

&&&

SHELLE FAIRWOOD
SABLE LARK
EPHRAM LARK
HAYMITCH ABERNATHY
and more.

This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is,
love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.
— Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

ORSESTES:
This was always going to happen.
She's been dead since the beginning.

—The Oresteia, Aeschylus

#AN: I could talk for hours about this book. This is my oldest story. It has been a place for me to safely pour out my grief. To be angry. To weep. To grieve more, and grieve better. I've tried not to write a self-insert, but unfortunately, as it happens with most writers, Aisha carries some parts of me that are too embarrassing to admit. She, and most of the characters in this book, have had many names, faces, and identities. I have tried very hard to make all of them as human as a fictional person can be, and so I hope you can learn to love them for all their faults. For clarity's sake, (and because I do not trust every reader on Wattpad to have the media literacy required to figure this out on their own), I want to give a fair warning that Aisha is not a reliable narrator. She is nearsighted, and as she says for herself, selfish in her grief. Take her perspective on her story and the stories around her with a grain of salt throughout this book.

At this stage of writing, I haven't written Aisha a love interest. There are certainly tensions between some of the characters throughout this book, but when looking at the first installment of it, I don't feel that a romantic interest honors the integrity of the narrative. This is a love story in the same way that Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag is really a love story between Claire and Fleabag. In the way that Sable is Euridyce and Aisha is Orpheus–I am not strong enough to not look at what I want, and what I want is for us to be girls together forever. What is romantic love compared to sisterhood?

I'm unbelievably excited to share this with you all. For anyone reading this who has been around since this story's conception (2019, in case you were wondering), you have all the love in my heart. Thank you for being patient with me as I've fallen in and out of writing. And thank you for loving the bones of this story enough to wait for it!

All my love,
Natalie ❥

#TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of violence, gore, coarse language, mental illness, addiction, abuse, PTSD, grief, suicide, and any/all triggers mentioned in Suzanne Collins' original work. Please remember to practice self-care before and after reading.