Thirty-Six - Watching It Burn

                                    

                                          
31st July 74PD
Darkness blankets the entire city, the town square was eerily quiet as everyone in the District sleeps until the night's tranquillity was abruptly shattered by piercing screams slicing through the darkness. The shrill sounds reverberate through the city, bouncing off the stone walls and waking several children in the Academy's dormitories. A symphony of chaos begins as one of the children spots an unexpected flicker of orange and red over a few rows of houses, the colours lighting up the dark sky, alerting one of the night matrons before the smoke rises. With children instructed to stay inside, matrons rush to find the source of the flames. Shouts and cries for help mingle with the chorus of the wail of a smoke alarm and the distant sirens; and when a high rank District official reaches the site of the blaze his face pales, immediately ordering one of the younger peacekeepers in training to alert Victor's Village. 
Sudden jolts of noise invade Clio's mind as she sleeps. She tries to push away the noise, brushing it off as part of one of her now recurring nightmares until she hears a voice she recognises, "Clio!"
The bangs on the door echo through her house, startling her awake. Confusion and concern course through her veins, heartbeat quickening as her adrenaline response is ignited. Stumbling out of bed, disorientated and still shrouded in the remnants of sleep, panic dances in her eyes as she hears the sounds of shrieks and sirens, the desperation in Cato's voice as his insistent shouts and pleas merge with his frenzied thumps on her front door.
Swinging the door open, she is met with a flurry of activity on the side, and a distressed looking Cato. Flashing lights pierce the darkness, the streetlamps flickering to cast an uneasy glow on her boyfriend's worried face. Peacekeepers move with coordinated urgency, lining the streets around Victor's Village and the Academy and preventing anyone from passing the wrought iron gates connecting the two. Voices of older victors boom in the dark, commanding attention from the Peacekeepers, conveying their authority as they demand to be informed on why exactly they have been awoken. The night air is laced with danger and uncertainty, something that Clio is familiar with from her time in the arena, and she desperately tries to reel back the panic she begins to feel in her gut as she, still half asleep, strains to make sense of the chaos unfolding before her. She can hear whispers of concern from some of the female victors and the older Academy children who have disobeyed their matrons' direct orders to gather in the streets. She catches fragments of information on the breeze, overhearing phrases such as 'fire', 'safety precautions' which causes the knot of anxiety to tighten in her stomach. 
Cato moves himself into Clio's eyeline, drawing her attention back to him words begin to flow from his lips that cause her eyes to widen, more alert than ever after he utters the words, "your parents."
Her heart pounds in her chest, pushing past Cato, wide eyes darting around to assess the situation and find a way past the barricades at the gate. She pushes against the solid wall of uniforms, desperate to convey how urgently she needs to get out of this street, pleadingly relentlessly but to no avail. The Peacekeepers, resolute in their duty to maintain order and serve the Capitol, stand their ground and form an unyielding human barrier. Clio's eyes scan each of the Peacekeepers in the line, looking for any sign of tiredness or weakness in their bodies, choosing two at the end of the line and mustering every ounce of her strength to squeeze through the narrow gaps, and drag Cato through with her. She needs to know what's going on.
Ignoring the shouts around her, Clio breaks into a run, her bare feet stinging as she races down the streets towards her parents' house. This can't be real, she thinks, it has to be some kind of misunderstanding. I know I said I wanted them dead, but fuck. The people living in the surrounding houses had poured out onto the streets, awoken by the unfolding catastrophe. Their faces express fear and disbelief as they stand and watch a pyjama-clad Clio race down their streets. Her hair flies behind her, propelled by the wind and pushing her forwards; her eyes fixed on the flames growing ever brighter as she moves.