Lumara Hansen (17) D10F

It was, without a doubt, the best time of the day. I had recently fed a cow some white snakeroot, milked it, and kept the milk in a syringe. I waited a couple of days to use it, being careful to make certain the cow's milk was totally infected. That was proven to me when the cow got sick and died soon after eating the plant. It was the perfect crime; my parents would never suspect I had willingly killed one of our cows, and I would have the perfect poison to damage a creature without necessarily killing it and losing one of my precious test subjects.

"Hey there, baby," I whispered to the rabbit I kept in a shed. She was a precious girl, almost white, totally used to my antics. She was a bit sickly, which I didn't like, but it didn't really matter. She had lived a good life and been a precious test subject, taking everything I did bravely. I held her down lightly, making sure she didn't move, and stuck the syringe into her, making sure to get past the fur. Then I put just a little bit of the poison into her, knowing too much would totally ruin her. I didn't want her to die. I just wanted to see what would happen.

As it turned out, I wildly overestimated how much poison a rabbit could take. My lab rabbit started kicking and writhing, and soon she went to sleep forever. I sighed, hardly having been able to see what the poison would do. Would it last for days? Would it hurt? Would the rabbit turn sick? The cow had been nigh impossible to watch; other chores kept me from documenting her. I sighed, knowing the current situation. I would have to find a new test subject.

I didn't wince when I stuck the syringe into myself, my right arm, already scarred from past experiments. I didn't flinch when a little bit of the poison went into me, less than went into even the rabbit. I did begin to react when it burned, and I knew it was a serious poison, no matter how little was taken. Maybe I would regret the decision of testing it on myself, but that was unlikely. I was used to pain like that. I was my own test subject a lot of the time, poor lab rats or pure curiosity convincing me to poison myself time and time again. This was just another instance.

"Hey Luma, come in for supper!" my mom called to me, and I headed to the house. My parents didn't know about my experiments, and they didn't have to. They could think I was an innocent little girl that couldn't handle it when an animal died, not knowing I was the cause of most death on the farm.

"Coming, mom! Would you believe Snowball died today?" I replied, putting fake tears into my eyes. They were never suspicious that I was the first one who knew when animals died. They assumed I was being responsible. Which I was, in a way.

Theodore Elaine (15) D10M

The piano was a beautiful thing. It created notes and could be played perfectly through perfection, ignoring emotion and playing exactly what was written on the page, exactly how it was supposed to be written. I could play with the beat of the metronome, never missing a note, never accidentally playing the wrong chord. It was exactly what my grandparents wanted from me: perfection and nothing else. There was no room for mistakes in life, no room for reconsidering actions or realizing you had messed up. Perfection was achievable and the only goal worth striving toward.

Playing the piano was one of the things I loved in the world. My grandparents signed me up for it with many other things, and I loved them all unconditionally. Sure, the flute took a while to like, but if they were so right with piano, they couldn't be wrong with flute. Sure, debate took a long time to get the hang of, but they knew me! They loved me! If I liked piano, I had to like everything they liked. If I could be perfect at playing piano, I could be perfect at other things. I could make mistakes a thing of the past, something I didn't need.

One of the best things about piano was that it cleared my mind. One of the worst things about piano was that it cleared my mind. On the one hand, I could play freely, enjoying every second and feeling exhilaration at doing one thing right, one thing perfectly. On the other hand, when I wasn't thinking about how to be the perfect leader, how to do everything to help the people, my mind sometimes wandered freely, dwelling on every foolish mistake I had made in the past. It focused on how I once insulted my grandparents, three years back. How I was dumb enough to think Boxer was a good guy in Animal Farm. How once I didn't want to be a leader, I wanted to be a follower. Those were nasty thoughts to dwell on, but piano was worth the risk.

My mind decided to focus on one nasty thing, something I liked to forget. It focused on when I had called Grandpa a lousy Ten in a fit of rage, back almost ten years ago. He was a Capitolite. He had been reminding me for years, reminding me that I was supposed to follow in his footsteps of being a leader. Of course, I had been punished accordingly; no food for three days. Still, that wasn't nearly enough punishment. They should have done more, trained me better. Maybe then it wouldn't haunt me, years into the future. Maybe that was what they wanted.

Frustrated, I closed the piano. It hit my hand, and I almost had to curse in frustration. How could I think my grandparents would deliberately be cruel? They only wanted to train me. They wanted what was best for me. Nothing taught a child faster than losing basic privileges like food and a bed. They were just being smart, and I had no business questioning them. For anyone else, it was allowed. Anyone else was less than, just like I was less than Grandpa and so was Grandma. There was a simple order, and I couldn't question it.

I return victorious, a chapter slain in my wake.

Anyways, I finally wrote again! Story time: I randomly had a dream where I wrote a two POV Games chapter. Which would be weird as all-get-out. I think it was in my house again. Whack.