Tick tock, this is a clock.

Just give him the medicine!" I scream at her. "Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!

I don't write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.

I'm sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it's mostly for their own good.

If your parent is deployed and you are that young, you spend the whole time wondering where they are and waiting for them to come home. As time passes and the absence is longer and longer, you become more and more concerned - but you don't really have the words to express your concern. There's only this continued absence.

So, what do you think they'll do to him?" I ask. Prim sounds about a thousand years old when she speaks. "Whatever it takes to break you.

The realization that I’d have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees buckled and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired. Let them call the Peacekeepers and take us to the community home, I thought. Or better yet, let me die right here in the rain.