There is a room, deep under the cracks of the Earth, that withstands the test of time. The door is closed, clogged with rubble and stone that will not be shaken. All memory of the room is erased. No one remembers. No one knows. No one ever will, either, as is written in the pages of the heavens.
The room will never be opened. God has preordained that much for the fate of the room.
If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, was it ever there?
The ghosts of old memories linger in their phantom-form, drawn so strongly to the sight of such death and misery that is contained in the room. Most suspect a powerful source; a necromancer's book, the body of a bloodthirsty dictator. Anything.
A cardboard box, crammed with sheaves of cracking parchment, is all they find.
It is this that draws so closely the spirits of the dead.
The only ghosts you can't ever catch are the ones you chase.
There is one spirit, and one only, that remains with the box.
The box was linked with his destiny the closest.
Even as he burns, ever tortured and shadowed, in the pits of Hades, part of him stands sentry to the words.
When the other ghosts aren't there, he might even give his last promise: a promise never to lie.
Every quarter-century, if you're lucky, sneaky, and find him in the right place at the right time, he might pull out the spirit of a piece of parchment.
He might even read the death sentence of four and twenty to you.
But that's only if you're lucky...
Or, of course, if you're not.
The murdered haunt the murderers. The haunted never lie safe.
Such is the nature of the Quarter Quell, and tragic story behind it. Born from a country torn from war and desperate not to make the same mistakes, the Hunger Games rose to power. Born from the Games and the every-present fear that they be disobeyed, the Quell rose.
Every generation spawns something worse than the last.
The ghost, twenty-five years after his death, slides a sliver of parchment out of the envelope in the box. He slits the corner as the flap slides open, and he withdraws a small slip of paper. And he reads.
For the one hundredth Quarter Quell, as a reminder that the rebels doomed their selves with their poor leadership, the tributes this year must play without mentors.
Everyone needs a leader to follow. Everyone needs a follower to lead.
Years slip by in a dreamy haze for the ghost, but he will get used to it. It is now his reality, his destiny to wait for nothing else.
He stands as stoic as stone until another quarter-century passes. He neatly slides his finger under the flap of the envelope, breaks the red seal, and draws out another piece of paper.
For the one hundred twenty-fifth Quarter Quell, to show the districts that, even in the most secure rebel headquarters, the Capitol still ruled over them, this year's tribute alliances shall be preordained. Any violators will be eliminated.
Elimination...such is the way the murderers talk of murder.
It's long, but not quite as much so now. The years will come and the years will go, and he will stand and wait, watching. Ever watching. Because it is his fate, his cruel but entirely deserved fate, to be the guardian of the death sentence. The guardian of the thing he has spawned.
The motion is conducted with flair as the twenty-five years end; his movements are becoming practiced, and he wants to retain originality...he wants to retain himself... for as long as possible.
For the one hundred fiftieth Quarter Quell, to show that the rebels were clearly unprepared and unarmed, the Cornucopia this year will hold no feasable weapons. The tributes will be required to kill each other with their own hands, to learn the values of strength and the honesty of bloodshed that the rebels never got to learn.
Knowledge is power.
It's not quite five-and-twenty years, but the spirits in the room at the time shrink back in fear of the pearly figure's aura. White as shining snow, a thin smile traces puffy lips. His mouth is red, the only part of him that has any color, and it looks as if though colored hastily by a child with paints soaked in water for too long. It looks like blood has stained his mouth into a raw, rich scarlet.
It probably has.
The first movement in so much time that is not, indeed, flipping a card out of an envelope. President Snow traces the white, pearly rose tucked into his white, pearly lapel as he looks around, and his eyes flash for the slightest second, a cold ice blue as he breaths out a memory of air and speaks.
Oh, Ms. Everdeen, I thought we had promised not to lie for each other.
His hand lowers and rests on the corner of the dusty, cracking box again. But he smiles, looks down, looks back up before resuming his stoic position.
For indeed, they have promised.
Again the cycle begins, twenty five, quarter of a century, and the envelope slides again smoothly out of the box as the dead President clears his throat and smiles. He reads aloud, occasionally glancing up and giving a charismatic smile to unseen audiences. His lips mouth out the words.
For the one hundred seventy-fifth Quarter Quell, as a reminder to the districts that they went into the rebellion unprepared, this year's tributes shall receive no time in the training center, instead proceeding directly to the Arena.
Instead of proceeding to a dose of morphine, they get a one-way ticket to hell.
There is no need for description; the ghost has lost everything, his poise and flare with it. Nevertheless, he tries-his eyes twinkle, his lips open in a soundless laugh in response to a flamboyant joke he will never hear. He twirls the envelope in his palm. He slides it open with his forefinger, not his thumb. But nothing about the damp, musty room changes. The cobwebs do not turn to crowds. The ash does not morph into anyone. He is alone, reading to an empty room. Again.
For the two hundredth Quarter Quell, as a reminder to the districts that it was in par the discontent among the rebel insiders that ended them, the tributes this year must kill their district partner first and foremost before proceeding to kill anyone else.
Brother on brother with blood spilling blood is what makes wars civil and rivers run red.
The ghost is gone.
It is sudden, sure, but not quite impossible. Plain and simple, he is gone. No one knows why or how. Has his attachment grown weak enough for him to pull away? Was he called back to the pits of fire? Or is it simply another coincidence, another roll of the die in fate's everlasting game?
He leaves behind him a box of parchment, neatly slid into envelopes, red seals that will never open.
And, if you're lucky, you're in the right place at the right time, and you can go just beyond what you believe into what is impossibly insubstantial...
...you might be able to open an envelope and read to spirits you can't see the death of four-and-twenty.
But only if you're lucky..
I wrote this like a month ago, and never found the guts to post it because I feel like this thing is quite possibly the worst recent piece I have ever, and I mean ever, written. But here we go. Flame me 'cause you have every right.
Side note: this shall, I have decided, be the last piece I ever write for THG. I just don't have the motivation or the imagination to come up with something un-cliche. *nod
It seems a need to be a little more specific.
People around me have stopped talking about THG, which means I am no longer getting new ideas or inspiration. That is why I have decided to stop pushing myself. Anything else I come up with will sound forced...so I have learned from experience.