Hi! Mental back again with some writing, but this time it's a bit of a throwback. Before I begin, let me just say that this is for the "Best Writing" challenge in my writing competition, of which there is a link on my profile should be you interested in taking a look! You're free to spectate, wait around for Season Two, and participate in side challenges.
Now, this piece of writing was written waaaay back in 2014! Yes, I wrote this four years ago, although I have edited it slightly. Regardless, you can find the original post on the forum where the prompt was. I'm putting this piece of writing forwards because, for me, this was the piece when I looked at my writing and realised that it all made sense. It was this moment when I realised that I truly loved to write. For me, this piece was kind of where everything began. From this piece came the stories, the friends, the forums, everything.
I want to give a huge thanks to FireflyLlama, MistMirror and Blue Eyes Arch Angel (I don't know if any of them have changed their names!) who created the character and the prompt on their forum "Assembling The Pieces". The prompt is about a District Seven boy called Joshua, who's just escaped the bloodbath to meet with his ally, Sophia. Enjoy!
Joshua Riverly, Fifteen, District Seven Male
My heart throbs painfully as I skid to a stop.
As the piercing light of the sun assaults me, I scrunch up my blue-grey eyes, my vision blurring slightly. My long eyelashes attempt to block out the light, but with little success. My knees wobble slightly as I check myself over. I'm severely out of breath, have several lacerations to my arms and anxiety is rushing through every screaming cell of my body. My injuries ooze life, the essence of my very being, glistening an angry and painful red as the precious liquid spills from the lips of my wounds. The deepest cut is on my skinny forearm; a slash cutting its way partly into what little muscle I have, my skin staining a darker red with each beat of my heart. Pain sears through my arm with every movement.
Blood.
The metallic smell of it fills the air, and mingles with a light forest breeze and the smell of my drying sweat. These wounds were the results of my dive to the cornucopia, stumbling over the bodies of the dead and dying as I raced to the golden mass ahead of me. I managed to grab several small silver knives and a short sword, but at the price of my wounds. I'll survive for now. The rock moss I found at the stream a couple of miles back has helped my minor injuries, and I used the sap off of a healing plant to reduce the risk of infection. All I need now is to find Sophia, my ally from District Three, and a place to rest.
I study my surroundings, breathing in the smell of pine needles and bark which remind me of home. In District Seven, no-one ever noticed us going missing. We just sped through the trees, flying through the wind as gracefully as eagles before we found a place of own. A place where we could talk about the Capitol all we wanted without any worry. I didn't say much. I normally don't. The others were okay with that though - there was no judgement, just safety and fun under the comforting shade of the leaves. We used to laugh and joke so often there…
But I'm here now.
I'm here, in this pen of despair, where any minute now the careers may hunt me down and leave me to become a rigid pale corpse in the wooden boxes they call coffins. No…this is not District Seven. The trees are greener here; too vividly a green, illuminated even more by the light that blasts through the leaves. The very treetops themselves scrape the heavens, and they slice through the clouds in silent purposefulness and deliberation. There are no flowers here, yet I would run if I saw any, for the poisonous barbs shot from the opening buds can kill in a matter of seconds. I was lucky to jump out of the way of only a few of them on my way here. I brush my long dark brown hair from my eyes, slicking it back with my sweat. My breathing is more controlled now, although the stinging of my wounds remind me that I still have them. I used to feel at home in these trees, but now they're like staring aliens, sinister and unhelpful.
That's when I spot Sophia.
She stands in the clearing, her golden curls twisting and framing her youthful face as her brown eyes swirl in slow lakes of chocolate. She looks to be waiting for me.
"Sophia!" I call, and I jog over to her. She turns and looks me over, taking in my injuries and my newly acquired weapons. Her face is grave as if she's delivering me the worst news imaginable. For that one fleeting second, her face stays the same, before contorting into a cold mask.
"You didn't follow the plan, Joshua," she said curtly. "You could have died."
Her tone encases me in a blizzard of hurt words that batter into me and tear down my defences. There is no way I can mount any resistance against her onslaught. I could never hold my own in an argument, and I still can't do it now.
"Uh…sorry about that," I tell her weakly.
And then comes the rant. Her worries come tumbling out like a dam lets out a river, and I'm swept away in her stream of emotions. She almost reminds me of my mother, despite the edge of coldness to her that I never knew was there. I listen silently to her words until she stops and looks at me expectantly, looking for an answer.
Again I say nothing, and this time, she loses her temper.
"Seriously Joshua!" she shrieks shrilly at me, almost bursting my eardrums. "Why is it that you have to go and almost kill yourself without telling me anything? Why do you take half a goddamn day to get here while I've been waiting around? How long did you really think that I was prepared to keep this alliance alive with how quiet you've been? It feels like I'm talking to a brick wall!"
She slaps me hard around the face, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the staring trees and the sting becoming a mass of – ouch…- as my skin traces the shape of her hand, etching it onto my face.
"I'm breaking this off," she announces, huffing in irritation.
"W-wait, what?" I say, shocked, rubbing my cheek.
"I. Am. Breaking. Off. This. Alliance. Get it?" she snarls to me.
Okay, she's pissed. I acknowledge.
But then I remember something as I look over her exasperated and desperate face.
This isn't just about me, is it?
"It's because of him," I state the fact to her, speaking my thoughts.
Her face flushes a deep red. I know. She loves him too much to help me. I saw the way she looked after him as he threw his spears at the target with precision. When she sighed in wistfulness as he strutted around, ignoring her as if she wasn't even there. And she loves him. It's written all over her face. But who in Panem could ever love a career? She must be one of the first. I try to get my head around this concept. Why? What could she see in that brute? How could you fall in love with someone that would happily kill you, someone who was unapologetically an arrogant fool?
"So?" she demands, recovering. "What does it matter? I have to keep him alive. I love him."
That's not love. I think, but she continues anyway.
"-I'm sorry but you're the reason why this alliance has broken down. So you must pay for it. You're just another obstacle between me and him."
She's about to get something from behind her back...a dagger perhaps, but an arrow is twice as swift, passing cleanly through Sophia's jugular and landing into the trunk of one of the trees to our left. I stand there, helpless, as she tries to say something, only for those words to be replaced by an erupting volcano, the wet red lava gushing forth and sliding down the smooth contours of her face. She falls; first onto her knees, grasping at her neck and writhing violently, before landing face-first into the small green tufts of grass. It happens all so fast, and I am rooted to the spot as I hear the whooping and cheering of the careers through the forest. Sophia cared about that career, but they certainly didn't care about her.
They got her, and now they're coming to get me.
I turn and run away through the trees, hearing them gain on me. They are the cheetahs and I am the gazelle.
It will not be an easy escape this time.
Y'know way back when I was only just learning to write! The post in the forum was good for me at the time, but this is the remix! I hope you enjoyed what you read, please leave me any comments or thoughts you had about the writing through a PM or a review!
Over and out!
~Mental