Her name was Gabrielle Winters. She was 19 years old, and was from Massachusetts. She was from the third province, on the southeastern coast. Her family was low class, the kind of low class that left them under the overhangs of street bridges on stormy nights. She lived with her mother, Alyssa, and her father, Daniel, and her siblings. She had three younger brothers, Henry, John, and Garrett; each ages five, eleven, and fourteen respectively. She also had and older brother whose name was Dustin, age twenty-six, and an older sister named Clara, who was twenty-two, though she passed on last year after being infected with virus R-342, which originated in Eastern Asia and traveled through the Americas, wiping out a lot of the lower class before it was suppressed.

They’ve already made up the numbers.

She also had a cat, a wild calico with scuffled, dirty fur, which always seemed incredibly content with her life, and for some outlandish reason, went by the title of Closet. It was a name that could only ever have significance to the person who had deemed it such, and that person was Gabrielle Winters.

Gabrielle Winters was five foot seven, with straight hair that shined like a raven’s feathers after a rainy morning, and a strict face that was defined by her sharp cheekbones. Her skin was pale and flawless, save a scar that she had across the palm of her left hand that she’d obtained during childhood after stumbling over some broken glass. If you looked at her, you couldn’t tell she was poor, save her raggedy clothes and the sloppy styles that she draped her hair in. She was beautiful, but modest about it. Heck, she probably would have had some sort of a future if things hadn’t happened the way they did.
Four years ago, Gabrielle Winters was elected as the sacrifice.

It was a close race. In the beginning, nobody really expected her to make it very far in the election, because of her meek and fidgety personality. Most were expecting her to be voted out, so she could simply melt into the masses and be forgotten by the public eye. But, after a while, the election changed her. She stopped fidgeting, but she stopped smiling as well. As her façade melted away, people noticed that she had a strong side. Or maybe it was her that melted away to reveal a façade? Either way, in the final round, she beat out the boy from Georgia by a ridiculously close margin. And thus, she was elected to be the ninety-eighth sacrifice in the history of this nation.

In the end, she’s still been forgotten by the public eye. She just skipped the ‘melting into the masses’ part.

I rush to close every tab on my laptop that regards to Gabrielle Winters, or anything at all to do with the sacrificial election, as I hear the familiar, squeaking twist of the golden doorknob. I’ve tried to it explain to her many, many times—that thing that you do with the door that they call knocking—but it never seems to get through her head. I pull up a webpage that I always have resting to the side, completely unused, specifically for instances like this. An online shopping network, selling elaborate shoes for fairly high prices. I pretend to be browsing the page as the clicking of my mother’s four-inch heels against the light, wooden ground approaches me.

“What on earth are you doing?”

I look up at her from my cushy purple swivel chair, my face glazed with a blissfully ignorant expression that I know I’ve mastered by now. My mother’s face is covered in a thick layer or makeup, and her eyes show me that she’s irritated, even through all of her large, unnatural black curls. She’s wearing a clingy red dress that only makes it halfway down her thighs before abruptly cutting off, with her aforementioned black heels and a gaudy jeweled necklace to top it off.

“I’m shopping. Aren’t these cute?” I lift my finger and point to whatever is on the screen. Mother crosses her arms and squints at me.

“Those?” Her tone makes me turn around and observe what my finger is directing her gaze too. It’s a pair of mud-brown hiking boots. Lovely.

“No, not those. Hold on a sec—”

“No. Siobhan, everyone is looking for you! Put that on, and get downstairs, now!” She flings her angry hand in the direction of the pink evening gown that rests on my similarly pink bed sheets. Ugh. Then there’s that. The pink of my walls, the pink of my bed, the pink everywhere. My entirely freaking pink room.  No matter how many times I tell her that pink is a nasty color—

“Sorry, I forgot.” As if I could forget about the event that was taking place in the room below me. The noise had been bleeding through my walls for the past hour.

“How would you—never mind, put on the dress and come on.”

“Fine.” I dramatically push my chair away from my desk and stand up.

Mother continues to glare down at me with her crossed arms.

“And remember to be sociable. Friendly.” Apparently, she rethinks that. “Actually, don’t do that. Just… just smile and nod.”

“Yeah.” I move to my bed and finger the skirt of the too-short-for-comfort dress. I imagine it’ll be too tight around the waist to be breathable as well.

Mother, having nothing more to say, starts for the door, and is almost gone when she decides to stop in the doorway and look back to me.

“And, Siobhan?”

“Yes, mother.” I muster my most fabulous monotone.

“Don’t embarrass yourself. Or me. Try not to embarrass anyone….”

I sigh and nod my head. She accepts this and let the door slam shut as she walks out. As soon as she’s gone, I lock the door and plop back down in my swivel chair, pulling myself in front of my desk, where I restore the tabs I’d previously had on my laptop.

Gabrielle Winters. There’s a picture of her at the top of the website. I find myself silently comparing myself to her. My hair is lighter than hers, and certainly not as glossy, but my skin is a little darker, probably because my descendants are Catalan, while hers are German. We’re about the same height, and our eyes are the same dark green color. She’s poor, while I’m here, living in my family’s three-story condo in the middle of the city. She’s two years older than me. Or she was, four years ago. Before she was elected.
I power down my computer and reach for the dress on my bed, holding it like someone might hold their baby brother’s soiled diaper, then begin to take off my gray, baggy pajamas and put it on. It’s painful, but it’s also inevitable. Whatever Mother buys me, I have to wear. Even if it’s pink.

As predicted, it’s tight. There’s no point in even trying to complain about that. I brush my hair as a final touch, which I suppose to would seem mediocre to any real lady, but it’s as far as I’m willing to go. I slip on a pair of gray flats and head out, turning off my bedroom light and clicking the door shut. I’m anything but ready to spend another night at one of Mother’s parties, but that’s inevitable, too. My feet moving against the floor creates a constant, quiet tapping as I robotically walk to where I know everybody is right now, only one thought really on my mind.

What happened to Gabrielle Winters?