Hi, guys! My name is Morterra de Vancy, and here I am with the start of a SYOT that I'm hoping you will all enjoy. A general warning: this chapter, and probably all my chapters in the future, will have mature themes. You have been warned!
I'll write more down below. For now, I'll just say that this chapter seemingly has nothing to do with the Hunger Games. But I promise it's not completely random. I'm one of those people that likes to have an interesting backstory running alongside the more prevalent SYOT story, so expect to see more of these "random" chapters in the future, if you stick around.
Hugs and kisses!
Prologue: Part One
Cadmium Lorelite, 29
Prostitute
His bedroom is exactly as I remember it.
Nothing has changed. The room still stinks of cologne, and the air is oppressive, as though weighed down by his presence at my back. The purple drapes block the light from massive glass windows, and they hang listlessly, fraying ends just brushing the carpet. The bed is the only thing that seems to have changed: where it was once an average bed, I find it now to be huge, miles wide, an expanse of rumpled sheets and twisting limbs so massive that everywhere I turn I can see it, all around me.
He puts a hand on my shoulder. Something jumps and twists and finally settles in my stomach, in a grudging sort of way. "Cadmium," he says. "You look… ravishing."
I hate the way he says the word. The way he says it, he wants to ravish me himself, and I can't abide that idea. Not anymore.
My lips twitch up at the corners, bare just a hint of teeth. I turn and face him. He eyes me appraisingly, and his eyebrows rise slightly as he takes me in, examines every curve of the body that he knows so well. "A bun," he manages finally.
I blink. "I'm sorry?"
"You're wearing your hair in a bun." He manages a loose sort of gesture. "You never used to do that."
The thing inside me coils, sensing danger. I ignore it. "Trying something new," I admit. My voice has gone faint.
He glances away. "Cadmium," he says again. "You know it had to be done—"
"I didn't come here to talk about that." Impatiently, I pull the coat from my shoulders. It falls to the carpet with a muffled thump. He shivers.
"I came here," I continue, moving forward, "to apologize." My hands find his, and our fingers interlock. Just like old times. Up close, my nose almost brushing the front of his uniform, the smell of perfume is overpowering. Tears prick at my green eyes, and I press my cheek against his chest and look away. "I was wrong. I was wrong, and we both know that."
One of his hands lets go, and it travels to my waist. "Cadmium…" he murmurs, questing fingers snagging at the hem of my dress. He looks at me with a question in his eyes.
I nod, smiling faintly, and he pulls the dress up and over my head. Then his eyes darken, almost imperceptibly, and he attacks me like an animal. His fingers dig into pliant skin and they dig deep. It hurts, and I want to make some sort of protest but I moan back, tug at his bottom lip with my teeth. Tear the shirt from his shoulders. We're stumbling backwards, towards the bed, and the thing in my stomach is ready now. I am ready. I am more ready for this thing than I have ever been.
I land on my back against the bed. Instinctively I arch, try to push away, but his weight crushes me down and I clumsily translate the action into a sort of sensual wriggle. His hands are everywhere, and I let them roam free. I don't feel them. All I can feel is the slight residual pain in my scalp, from all the combing. I wanted the bun to be fucking perfect.
Gently I push on him, indicating in a language we both know well that it's my turn to be on top. He obliges easily, flipping onto his back, gazing up at me. My lips are swollen, and I lean in and press them to his neck. He closes his eyes and shudders, and that I do feel. It shakes me to the core.
The pin skewered through my hair comes out very easily when I tug on it. The end, sharpened to a point, pricks my finger, and the prick of pain is small and easily ignored. My hair falls, tumbles down gracelessly in silvery sheets that frame my face. The smile is gone. The lust is gone. The pin feels heavy and cold against my sweating palm, like a brand of ice.
Head Gamemaker Carron Fioro manages a single grunt before I plunge the pin into his solar plexus.
His eyes open wider than I thought possible. The corners of his eyelids might be tearing, the way he's going on. Both hands fly to his throat in an attempt to reverse the damage. An attempt that will fail.
My hands are like weights. I refuse to let go of the pin; instead, I press harder, and harder still. My knuckles brush up against the entry wound. It is so warm, and wet. Like torn meat.
Carron kicks, gurgles. On a sudden whim I remove the pin from his throat, and he gasps brokenly, a toy run out of energy. His own fingers are digging into the wound now. He wants to push it closed. The animal brain inside him still believes that he can save himself. His eyes are rolling, frantic, and I can almost hear the scream he is dying, literally dying, to produce.
His blood coats the pin. A single droplet falls onto the sheets, and I remember when it was my turn, when the doctors held me down while I screamed and thrashed, when the sedative took hold and dragged me away. When I awoke, dazed and near-senseless, and I realized that the heavy presence that had been within me had been cut out, destroyed, taken away. I remember seeing the blood on my thighs. I remember my scream then, and I imagine that the scream Carron wants to make would sound rather similar.
Carron is kicking less now. His eyes have begun to film. Those slate eyes. When he told me that the procedure would happen whether I wanted it or not, I felt something inside me fracture.
I reposition the pin and slide it through the tough flesh of his left eye.
He moans, spits blood onto chapped lips. Tears streaming from the wounded eye, a miniscule pool of blood forming around the pin. He has nothing left within him that would allow him to protest.
With a sudden jerk, I've removed the pin from his eye. Both eyelids immediately flutter closed, and he whimpers and flops uselessly on the covers.
"You killed my baby," I whisper, but the only part of him that might have reacted is already dead.
I leave him then, drive the pin into the place where his heart would be, if I believed that he had one. My clothing comes back on in a flurried series of mechanical movements. The heavy purple drapes are not easily moved, but I fling them back until light has transformed the mausoleum of the Head Gamemaker's room into something alive. The glass breaks around the same time the skin at my knuckles does. I wonder if the noise will draw attention, consider the fact that I will not make it three steps out of here before the bullets rip me into senseless pieces.
It matters very little to me. When they pulled Carron Fioro's baby from my womb, when they killed my treasure, they killed me too.
I slip into the garden, and am miles away before the alarms finally begin to blare.
So, yes. Mature themes. I hope I didn't make anyone overly-uncomfortable. Sorry if I did :(
On to the more important stuff: submitting! If you want to submit a tribute (I hope you do!) the form and other important information is on my profile page. Hopefully some of you are interested, and if that's the case, you know where to go!
Even if you don't want to submit, I greatly appreciate that you read all the way down here. You're a cool person :)
See you around, bub!