Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death (friends on discord are calling it LLPD lol, sounds like a police department) and we're with our fourth prologue chapter, out of five of them. I am reallye excited for this one as it is going to be from one of those characters I can't wait to dig into: Head Gamemaker Cain Passionia! Submissions are still open and I'm offically keeping them open till next Friday, May 1st, as I am planning to have the fifth prologue ready by Sunday, May 3rd, where we will kick things into high gear. I have a whole ton of submissions as you can see, but competition is fun and you all might surprise yourself with who you can come up with just like that *snaps fingers* I am really excited, so I hope you all enjoy Chapter #4: Wilted Gravestones.
"So it is true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love." ~ E.A Bucchianeri
Cain Passionia: Head Gamemaker P.O.V
Dead men do not share secrets. Nor do dead women. Or dead children. Or dead pets and companions, plants, rocks, dead things do not break years of work once they're gone.
He is surrounded by dead men telling live secrets, bodies rotting away breaking and wasting away years of work and wealth, years slaving away at the machine, breaking a sweat until he's dehydrated, but he does not go for that sip of water. Going for that sip of water is a sign of weakness, a sign of giving up and admitting you have failed. He does not experience failure, he does not experience setbacks. Are you sure you're not the setback? It's a little voice in his head, but it is enough to cause him to grip his hand around the current edge he's holding onto, fingers digging into it, before ripping away some of the stone. There are not setbacks in Panem, he doesn't experience them: he experiences detours. It is the practical way to call them, after all. Giving them a negative name just makes their impact worse.
Here, with all the dead folk, these detours all ended in the grave. Such a shame for them. Vice President Cain Passionia sniffs in disdain, brushing some bits of rock off of his fingers, or rather, as he knows he needs to be referred by his new title given what is happening today starting around noon, Head Gamemaker. It is a superfluous title, as Cain is used to Vice President after so many years. "We all know who has the real power, don't we?" he tells himself, almost with a whistling tone in his head, waiting for that voice to bite back at him, but it doesn't, as it agrees with him.
The graveyard is silent - Cemetery, Cain, try and use big words - and there's not a soul to be found except for him. A light fog has settled over the ground, washing over the emerald patches of grass in supple sea of ivory mist, and despite it being near midday the fog has yet to dissipate. He likes to run his hands through it, feeling nature part for him like it is supposed to filling his heart with elation. Nature has a mind of its own, and it is good for it to recognize one of its rightful rulers. "The rightful ruler, more like," he sniffs to himself again. If Raziel could hear him now, he'd probably be chided, as that it is something his son would do a lot, but with him gone, the little nagging voice over his shoulder has disappeared too. He tries to not be bitter about it, for why his son is gone and other simpletons out in the districts will hold their children tight in hugs and kisses. Those that are out of the reaping age before all of this started is the best thing to happen in their lives.
Aren't they just the luckiest?
Cain does not read the inscription or the name of the person who belongs to the grave he's desecrated by ripping a chunk of it off, moving over a few lanes over to the tallest one in the block. There are several burial sites in the Capitol, but this is the one he only goes to. The others are full of unimportant people, but here, on Kingsmark Cemetery, it is the pioneers of Panem that are buried here, the ones who gave his beautiful country a head start, or built bridges or something more than designing a new piece of fabric or a new word in the dictionary. He won't be buried here when he passes, Cain forbids it. Emrick will be, maybe Richmond, perhaps even Lydia, but not him. He'll be buried on a hill, with a single tree standing guard - No, his mind corrects, it'll be a realperson, sword and all - where the sunlight will cast on the tombstone forever and ever.
He deserves it, for what he's done. He could've let Emrick slaughter all of them, to make those rebels reach a quick death, but that is not going to happen under his watch. The death will be slow, like seeping poison into somoene's veins months and months at a time.
Cain hears the footsteps first, before the voice calls out, it airy and feminine and full of life. "Cain?"
The Head Gamemaker turns around behind him, to the face of Nyria Kirchner, a new member to be added to the Israel administration, for the first Hunger Games, someone under the title Mutt Designer. It is a very blase term, not holding much stock, and he knows she won't be buried here in Kingsmark when she dies as she will not be important enough to Panem's survivability, as there'll be generations of Mutt Designers to take her place when she hits the dirt. She is a very tall woman, just nearly breaking through into her thirties, with a slimmed figure, tanned skin, long ebony hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, and bright eyes that glow an amber color that Cain swears must've been some freak accident with a radioactive silo. No one wears contacts in the Capitol unless they have a secret to hide.
What would her secret be?
"Good afternon, Nyria," he greets her, nodding his head, turning his head back around to the gravestone in front of him. She is a distraction to the bigger picture. They are all distractions at this point, with what he had to do this morning, in waking Emrick up. He swore he'd never become the man's servant, but nowadays it is starting to feel like that the longer and longer he works for him. Simply a detour, and even taking a detour means the person arrives at their original destination. "Can I help you with anything? Someone here for you, perhaps?"
She shakes her head with a sweet smile, always smiling. That bothers her. No one smiles in the Capitol unless they have a secret to hide. Detours, detours, detours. "Emrick is about to go and make the announcement, yet you ran off."
"I did not run off," he accentuates his statement with air quotes, holding out the urge to scowl. "I simply have had other pressing matters to attend to," and Cain shifts his body some so Nyria can get a look at the tombstone he is front of. Raziel Passionia, 20 years old. The stone is not a bitter or calcite gray like all of the others out there in the cemetery, no, a child of his does not deserve to lay and rest like all the others with the typical gray. His son's tombstone is white, a supernova explosion of brick and mortar and grime, and he didn't ask for just roses to be laid there at the foot of the tomb. Marigolds and roses, periwinkles and azaleas, jasmines and violets... flowers of many colors rest there, but no picture. Cain cannot deal with a picture.
It is rather eerie for him to think about, of all things, to be standing above his son's grave.
Nyria must be lying. Everyone has someone dead from their family in the Capitol, it is how the Capitol gets there, and it is built, on the heads of shoulders of the generations before it.
She has gone silent, though, for a moment, running a manicured hand through her hair. The color she picks today, as it is different whenever Cain sees her, as it has been frequently at least every six hours or so, is a sea green, a sapphire and a jade meshed together, foamy and caked on a bit too much, but there's no one at her home for her to return to or need to please. Bella, his wife, needs to be pleased with his appearance decisions, but he luckily approves of them as well, or otherwise there might be a new gravestone aside his son's.
"I'm sorry, Cain," she whispers. No she is not sorry, Cain. She's a bitch.
He looks down at his dress shoes, outfitted in the same attire he had been wearing when he woke Emrick up from his nap. Emrick may say he hadn't been sleeping, but it is a flat out lie. He's seen it, the president of Panem dozing off in the middle of meetings where Lydia needs to clear her throat, or Cain has to have an Avox brew another cup of coffee for him. He'd never fall asleep in a meeting, if he were president. The shoes have a speck of dirt on them, but Cain is not about to bend down and undo the neatness that is his tucked in shirt. He doesn't bend anymore. Anyone who bends over in the Capitol has a secret to tell, or rather, an elephant in the room. They don't hold a single speck of power if they bend over, for there are servants on hand and foot to do that for him.
Cain reminds himself that he'll need to tell Lydia to flick the speck away, when he sees her again. After the ceremony and commencement of course, he can't go and humiliate the woman that ruined his entire life. However, back to the other distraction currently standing in front of him who has still made no effort to zip up her blue dress the way the ladies are being revealed. "I already have a wife, you silly girl," he'd tell her, if he didn't have any conversational couth. "I told myself I'd never come here after he was buried, but here I am reneging on my offer, aren't I?" he resists the urge to smile.
"After all that has been said and done, would you prefer Emrick have just bombed them all?" Nyria asks, tugging at something on her arm. Her eyes are full of emotion, an emotion he cannot read. She is not someone he hires, to design the creatures in the arena considered to be 'mutations' or 'mutts' for short. He doesn't like having people on his side that are overtly emotional, for it bogs down the line of sight of their true mission. "For what they did to you and your family? For what they've done to us?" She has quite the nerve, quite the balls of steel, to even think of asking him that question.
His answer, however, is surefire and immediate. "I wouldn't change a thing, Nyria. Not a thing."
She shuffles a bit, getting a few steps closer, but keeping her distance. Cain knows relatively little about her, even though her file is sitting there just begging to be read, he's never picked it up. A woman that seems to be nice and sweet enough, but finding the calling on generating murderous machines in a prison? Something he wouldn't have expected from a woman with her disposition, although he knows first impressions can be tricky minefields to maneuver. Lydia Wickervein has been his first explosion, and ever since then, he's been getting them all wrong. "That was actually what I wanted to ask you about, before things got too hectic."
Cain looks at his wrist, where there would be a watch normally, but Richmond begs him to not wear it for it could reflect the camera light back into the shot and cause a glare, as everything needs to be perfect. Picturesque. "Please, we definitely have the time," he says sarcastically, inhaling a deep sigh. Nyria bridges her eyebrows together, pursing her lips, but she doesn't react to his statement. Good, good; she's learning, for once you step into the chessboard game of corpses, you do not react.
You simply exist in the greater context of things.
The mutts designer shifts somewhat on the balls of her feet, to which Cain realizes that she's barefoot, feet disappearing into the grass, which needs to be cut. Who needs to lose their tongue? Laws and mandates say that the lawns in the Capitol must be cut every week, and this lawn looks to be a week and an hour overdue. Cain frowns to himself, missing the first piece of Nyria's statement. "I was looking through the files, doing one last read through. These things called the Tribute Parade, the interviews, Private Sessions... what has all of this been for? If it is simply an arena where they all kill each other till one remains standing, shouldn't we just skip to that process and be over and done with it?"
Ah, a naysayer.
"Oh how the subtleties of life are lost on you, you sweet idiot," the Head Gamemaker betrays his mantra and smiles to himself. "Emrick asked me that question too, after Lydia and I talked him down from killing them all," he places his hands in his pocket, careful to not lean back on his son's grave. "I don't want the Hunger Games to be seen as punishment, Nyria, a single one time thing where they're done and all is forgiven. I've never wanted them to be viewed that way, but I know the heathens out there in Four, or in Six and Twelve won't understand the difference." His jaw locks. It's a lie, all of it. They should suffer, and they will suffer. The first year is only the beginning, and every beginning will eventually need an end. Cain has planned for there to be no end in sight. "At the end of the day, this is entertainment and like any piece of entertainment, you get to learn about the contestants beforehand," the smile turns into a grin, and the rules of heaven must be cracking on the sides of the throne of God. "Ways for us to all fall in love with them."
He cannot read the expression on her face, but it betrays far too much. "To give them a false sense of security. To get into the routine before it's ripped away from them."
"Precisely," he nods. Is she six years old? Does she need everything explained to her? At least with Emrick, he is able to hold a slightly competent conversation. This, at this point, has just been painful.
"You still have never explained why we went all out on the design this year, though. I know Emrick has been worried about the expenses."
What an idiot! It is Cain's greatest mistake, trusting those who actually have no place among the gods, mere mortals who simply believe they're able to work wonders with just a bit of luck. It is not magic. It is not luck. It is natural ability. "There are plenty of other things in this world for Emrick to be worrying about than the cost of a Hunger Games arena, Nyria." He rubs a hand across his chin, feeling the stubble from a fresh shave poking him back on the palm. What did the blade feel like when it sliced through his son's throat? Did Raziel die peacefully? "As I've said before, I am not viewing this as a punishment, for the Games will go on and on into perpetuity. The districts are the ones who decided to ally with a liar and a charlatan," a low growl builds in his throat, he turning around and bending his knees slightly, leaning into his son's tombstone. "A caller of gout," he hisses.
Nathaniel Coin's death had not been painful enough. His family died too easily. District Thirteen wisped away into the history of Panem without a fight, in the end. No! No, that is not how any of it is supposed to go, not when Cain Passionia is in charge! They should've been drawn and quartered. Chained to rocks like Prometheus, forever to live in agony, not living, but not dying, and there would be no wilted gravestones to mark their eventual demises either. No holes in the ground for them to return to.
"Cain-" Although he cannot see her, Nyria raises both of her eyebrows in exasperation, eyes wide, and one hand holding her elbow behind her back.
"Will any of them know, truly? What it meant to be here in the Capitol during this rebellion nonsense?" Cain rights himself, looking back at her, and she shirks away under his stare. "Forget what happened to my son and my wife, although Thirteen payed for those with every inch of covered ground in blood. We ate rats to survive, as I know you remember. Some families ate each other..." The Dark Days do not do good for the Capitol. He is surprised they recover, after he tries wild rat for dinner one night, unable to wipe his wife's tears away. For a second, he had thought, like some district barbarian, on what his son's flesh must've tasted like. "They thought they could turn away from the beating heart and have all of it suffer? I, as vice president, cannot let that happen..." he shakes his head back and forth, balling his tongue inside his jaw. "We couldn't let the districts, who don't know their left foot from their right hand decide the course of the future for us all." There shall be no compromise, as Cain lifts his head defiantly. "No, Nyria, I am doing what must be done."
She pinches the bridge of her nose in annoyance, for this one he can hear the quick breath out of her nose. "Trust me, Cain, I do not disagree with you in the slightest." You do not understand how this world is handled, my sweet child. You are a child playing an adult's game; give up before you hurt yourself.
"If you do not disagree with me, Nyria, then why are you asking me in the first place?" he asks, tilting his head to the side some, unable to mask the gleeful tone in which he makes his question.
Nyria opens her mouth to say something, before closing it. Good, she's better when she's not being heard. The designer of the mutts shakes her head again, ponytail billowing in the breeze against her back. A spilt keg of oil, where the blood turns black, and it runs down his hands as Cain brings the blade back and forth across his son's throat, all the while the screams fill the roof and fill his heart, echoing in perpetuity until he's buried on top of that hill. "I'll give you the space you need, Cain, cause I know you need it," she turns away from him, still barefoot, her hills resting on the edge of the sidewalk, almost buried into the grass. Nyria takes another few steps back towards the land of the living, looking back, but he's turned his attention back to the grave. "Please don't forget that we're starting the broadcast in just fifteen minutes. You're the one who champions the idea of being on time. Reapings on the dot."
Cain does not say anything when she goes, rather happy to see her leave. He didn't request to see her; what makes her think she could just waltz up to him and start a conversation? It doesn't matter anymore, for he's alone now. The Head Gamemaker rests his head against his son's gravestone, hoping his son can hear him, from whatever circle of hell he's resting in.
"Nyria is right, Raziel, for what I'd give where I could raze it all to the ground," he whispers, running a few fingers on his left hand over the stone. "Believe me, my son, they will pay for the sins of their fathers and then some. There can't just be a single Hunger Games and then never another..." another shake of his head, where the stone scratches into the underside of his neck. "Another generation as brave and stupid as the first will rise to take its place, and on and on this cycle will spin and it'll never stop, unless we crush the serpent's head underneath our heels time and time again..." Cain kisses the gravestone, the next statement coming out raspy with the hiss of a rattlesnake tail backing it, eyes alit with fervor of the bloodshed to come. "I promise you, Raziel, your sacrifice will not be in vain."
Cain rights himself from the tombstone, swallowing down the lump that has formed in his throat, tugging the tie a bit tighter around his neck, creating a slight bulge on his throat. This is for the greater good, and when the history books say that he officially saved Panem from itself, he, not Emrick Israel or Lydia Wickervein, will be resting on the top of that hill, with the sunlight shining down on him.
It is showtime, as Cain Passionia, designer of the Hunger Games, walks through a sea of wilted gravestones, where the dead men tell no secrets.
And neither does he.
Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #4: Wilted Gravestones, the next prologue chapter to Liberty. This was our full first look at Head Gamemaker/Vice President Cain Passionia, who we've seen previously, but goodness, getting inside his head has been a load of joy, with a little bit more background thrown in there as well as a bit of reasoning for why these Games will have a tribute parade, tokens, interviews, private sessions and the like rather than just twenty-four people thrown into an arena. We also get a look at the next member of the Capitol cast, Miss Nyria Kirchner, first name happily given to me by Thorne cause initially it had been Willa, which I decided I wouldn't use, and she's the mutt designer.
There is just one more prologue chapter left, where we'll get the POV of the last main Capitol character to be had, a POV I've never seen anyone do before, so I am excited about that immensely. And with that chapter, there'll also be the full tribute cast which will also be on my profile but after I post the chapter, not before. Submissions are open for another nine more days until May 1st, and I will aim by all powers that be to get the chapter out on May 3rd. I will be having a Bombs and Bullets update this Monday should things go well, so I hope to see you stop by! Reviews, follows, favorites, and submissions are greatly appreciated, and I can't wait to show you all Chapter #5: Desperate Breathing Techniques. I love you all so much! Have a good day! Bye!
~ Paradigm