Sounds of the children's voices swirled throughout the humid room. Wooden seats creaked beneath the many kids' spindly figures as the lot of them jumped; twitched to the slow-moving beat that was being orchestrated. Oscar Flin, a six-year-old, kept the tempo with a brown, dirty pencil and an old, empty coffee can, beating one object against the other and scraping out of tune.

"Okay, we've gotta keep it steady," Mr. Smithson said. The conductor hummed to the wads of words on a paper of nonsense. It just had scribbles on each of its half-torn, under-used pages. He only opened it three times, - he thought he knew the song. His pale hands waved before his frail body with the veins all popping out and the skin wrinkly. "'Ooh, aah, ooh' - sing, Demetrius - 'the cow goes moo'."

Every student tried. Still, it all ended up as a cacophonous soup of shrill noises and grunts. But it pleased their teacher. "Good, good job," and his long and skinny spider-leg fingers reached up to pat his raw ear one time, "Let us just go easier on the ... screeches. One more time."

Ooh, aah, ooh

the cow goes moo

the chicken said goodbye

and now I've almost died

fie foo-dickie hee

he told me the story

of

the man who went

pee

Travis

red hair

auburn tendrils of curls that wove

from skinny

white legs

Converse shoes

a beaten old hat

and five white toes

that bent the wrong way

embroidered scarf

it couldn't make sense

she ran the wrong way

she has a disorder

Josh had been reaped. Attending the interview the night before the games, Joshua Smithson had waltzed on up into position far before his district partner's interview had completed. Ignoring the strange gazes, he stood over her shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest and waited casually for her to finish before finally, the buzzer rang, and she rushed away from the stage with redness streaking her entire expression.

Josh Smith was now being given his chance.

He lowered his body down into the chair, his legs crossed over each other while Cesar looked at him with careful scrutiny. Josh's mind made a flash back to his children's choir. Their plump, multi-colored faces all perched on bodies that were wickedly frail. They were always so sickly. And Caesar's hair reminded him of the choir room's chimney cat. "I can sing you a song?" Josh asked in his strangely calm high-pitched voice.

Caesar's brows knit together. It wrinkled his tan skin, which had obviously been painted the night just prior. This occasion meant a lot to him - it was obvious in his face. He was incredibly weird. His voice quavered past his red-tainted lips. The sound was honeyed by the mic that trembled in his hand. "Yes. You may."

Caesar didn't have to finish his thought for Josh to anticipate his fervent 'yes'. "I knew you would, Caesar." He said it to the man like a history book fact. His blue eyes turned to the chuckling crowd with a deeper gleam. "The song, my children, is entitled 'Dark Oak Door'." There was no background music, but Joshua didn't care. He didn't bother to stand, for his legs shook with the exhaustion, having walked to his own seat.

With each line, his chin knowingly nodded. "My name is Dark Oak Door - I come in peace. Pleased to meet you, don't harm me, please. My name is 'Dark Oak Door." Not a single word tainted the air or the heat that rose to it in droughs of confusion. The crowd had to be in awe. The buzzer's blaring noise was the dim precursor to a crippling silence. Joshua made certain to keep the sway in his hips with his exit.