Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a new chapter for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death; Chapter #20: The District's Punishment, and man, we're here... well, almost here. We're nearly at the bloodbath, just a single chapter away, and the anticipation and suspense is killing me. Last chapter, #19: Creation's Cruelty, focused on the Night Before with a Capitol pov from Nyria as well as four tributes: Nevaeh, Niklaus, Portia, and Ramses. This last chapter has six povs, two Capitols (Cain opening and Friedrich closing) and in between, we've got the last povs for Round III of Pierce, Cassiopeia, Sylvan, and Vesuvia, and then we're off to me killing your precious characters, which I cannot wait for. I promise, I'm somewhat sane I swear it. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #20: The District's Punishment!
"You don't have to know everything about the mountain in front of you to take that next step in climbing it," ~ Louie Giglio
Cain Passionia: Head Gamemaker P.O.V
When his son dies, there is the ominous cloud that hangs over his shoulders. Cain feels it pressing into his very soul, stormy and gray with ripples of thunder that spread along the small of his back and down to the underside of his arms. It corrupts his veins, turning them sickly blue and a brackish green where his wrist connects to his palm, the spot there doused in a sea of flaming red agony, where he can feel bile splashing the back of his throat, Cain up every night vomiting into the toilet for he does not know where else to place it. Day in and day out it is like this, for over a year and a half, even with the coffin being lowered into the ground months ago. He stops by the cemetery, to see the gravestone one last time, placing a hand over the rim and kissing it. He doesn't care about the germs he might've contracted; he just hopes his son can hear him.
"I'm doing this for you," he recalls himself whispering into the calcite gray letters and words, where the faint fog spreads out over the sea of gravestones like it did on the morning of the reaping. Things to seem to like to repeat themselves in his life, don't they? "All of this is for you, and I will see it to the very bitter end, until kingdom come…" Cain's throat closes up, he wiping away a bead of perspiration off of his forehead.
Now, however, he is able to say that the ominous cloud has lifted off of his shoulders. He is in the right place, the birthing cornerstone of a new nation, a new Panem where the wounds will heal as the people in the arena will bleed just as his family did, where the Passionia family loses a bit of their own passion at the sacrifice of what Thirteen and the other districts did. This is their punishment, but the Capitol's entertainment after suffering for so long.
Cain takes a satisfying sip of his coffee, exhaling sweetly into the mug, where there's a bit too much cream and sugar this time round. He might need to speak to his wife a bit more forcibly on not making the coffee too weak; he needs the caffeine for he does not plan on sleeping today with the arena underway. The Gamemaker Center is in a state of certified chaos, and all Cain think about is how beautiful it looks to him. Avoxes are running around, passing notes to other Gamemakers who stand at their stations with white lab coats – his is a gray color, and Nyria's is a dark brown, he spotting her just a bit away from him, down on the ground floor – as people simply are moving about.
The tributes will be waking up soon, and after they're woken up, they will be transported to the arena. It is built twenty miles away from the city limits, out west as far as west goes to supple into the river's supply stream, for Cain is made to assure Emrick that the tributes will not dehydrate themselves. Last minute checks are made as Cain makes a long stroll down one of the railings, having half the mind to lose his maturity and slide down the banister on the silver pole. An avox looks at him for a second, Cain taking another sip, before debating on whether or not he should throw his warm coffee in their face.
"Why are you wasting time looking at me? Get to work!" he snaps at the avox, who ducks their head in terror, cheeks burning the same color red as their outfit and their cut off tongue and the same color that their sores on the inside of their mouth look like when they burst. Lydia once asks him, his mouth filling a distasteful bitterness on his tongue at the thought of the failed potential that is Lydia Wickervein, all wrapped up in that Peacekeeper leather. She no longer deserves that uniform, but it is another thought for another day as he makes his way to Nyria, her face lighting up in pleasure at the sight of him, which pleases him as well.
"Why do we make their uniforms red?" Lydia asks him, looking out of the window at the gleam of sun that passes over her face, on the dark hair she has tied back into a ponytail.
"What?" Cain frowns, turning to face her. He has a cigarette in one hand, a tobacco stick of death wedged between his teeth that he takes huffs and puffs from, the lazy smoke trail floating out into the sky.
"The Avox uniforms… why are they red?" she asks again. Cain shrugs his shoulders immediately as his response. He has an answer, for he is the one who thinks of the idea in the first place, finding disloyal Capitol citizens who believe that Raziel Passionia died for the good of many people in Panem, or that Emrick should be disposed of his presidential power. Cain is not about to cut out his own tongue for agreeing with the latter sentiment, but one must keep up appearances.
Red is his favorite color, or one of them at least, he smashing the cigarette into the ground and watching the embers fade away. When he draws the blade quick across the throat of that poor citizen who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, it is the moment red turns into his favorite color. Seeing the way it decorated the canvas of his skin, adding a splash of color to his normally dry appearance.
"It is a standout color," he says, as appealingly neutral as he can possibly make his voice seem. "Also one filled with shame. A person wearing red looks fashionable, but a person wearing all red looks guilty and suspicious of something…" It's bullshit. He choses red because he wants it to be red. Why is Lydia always questioning his decisions? "So when we see someone in all red, we know them for what they are. Trash and undeserving of life and freedom."
That answer does not satisfy Lydia, Cain reminiscing on the way her eyebrows furrow together, he now resenting the fact he let out the cigarette when he could've as easily smashed it into her eye and turned her into an Avox. However, speaking of people that are trash and undeserving of life and freedom…
"Well, glad to see you didn't get here late," Nyria smirks at him, she crossing her arms, skin glowing under the bright lights turned onto the hub in the center of the room. It is the most impressive part of the entire Center, Cain's pride, and joy. A digital replication of the arena, without every single fancy detail laid into it of course, for that is what the cameras and monitors will show. He only needs to see the terrain, as well lit up as possible. The hub is currently in rest mode, a light blue hue glowing around the rim with only the center of the field, the active center of the arena where the start of the Games will begin, being lit up in an amber color.
More red, more red on his fingers, the fingers holding a rusty blade… Cain shivers as Nyria passes around him, handing a clipboard to an Avox. "Miss the start of the Hunger Games?" Cain raises an eyebrow, looking at her inquisitively. Sometimes he wishes she wouldn't open her mouth. She looks intelligent, but then she just has to speak as if he had spoken to her through telekinesis. "Sometimes I wonder if you even have a brain in your head, Nyria."
"Need I remind you of what I came up with last night?"
"No," he says dismissively, spreading his hands wide around the hub. "Everything is looking good? All indicators are healthy and in their respective green zones? The mutations and creatures in place?"
"Not one plant or tree or droplet of water out of place," Nyria assures him, he seeing out of the corner of his eye that she reaches for his cup of coffee and sets it elsewhere, off of the hub. His nostrils flare for a moment, he looking away when she brings her attention back round to him. "The arena is ready to go, and it is T-minus one hour before the tributes are all loaded up into their tubes."
To any normal Capitol citizen, all of that talk would make a lick of sense, but to Cain, it is music to his ears. It means many downed coffee cups and late nights frothing over every single detail; Nyria's assistance is actually useful. A helicopter ride with every tribute stationed out to the arena, done in a private security detail in case someone wishes to sabotage the Games before they even begin. His genius creates something called a tracker, a little homing beacon back to the Hub that lets the Gamemakers monitor where every tribute is located should a camera not be on them…
The tubes, stationed underground, personal rooms for each and every tribute to get comfortable in. A metaphorical tomb or coffin if you will, Cain smiling at the very thought. Every tube placed equidistant from one another, in a circle, at the center of the arena, where after those sixty seconds…
"A bloodbath," Cain says aloud, a twisted grin stretching across his face, looking over at Nyria, who does not share the same enthusiasm. "It'll be a bloodbath, Nyria," and then, with a bit of glee in his voice and in his heart, "A bloodbath I engineered…"
May the might of Cain Passionia come into fruition, and may it shine a light on the Capitol that burns so bright it'll shine for eons and eons after his body has returned to the dirt.
Pierce Alversway: District 6 Male P.O.V (15)
It is no surprise to him that his night is filled with anxiety and the inability to sleep. Part of him expects it to either be smooth sailing, for it would just be like any old sleep he takes to, with a blanket bundled around his arms, or the fluffiest pillow he can imagine placed under his head to keep him comfortably safe and secure. There is none of that now, the pillow liquid magma strewn over his body, the ceiling fan spinning back and forth not enough to cool him off. Pierce is sure he is sweating, odd for he usually never sweats, and has never found himself outside often enough to be affected by it. His pillow is a lead brick when he places his head against it, and no matter how often he fluffs it, he finds himself completely incapable of falling asleep.
He feels the drowsiness still in the morning, his butterknife scraping along the crumbling piece of toast he has in his hand, the Avox who cooked it having set it in the toaster a little too long for his liking, but he cannot say anything as he stares at his own reflection via the Peacekeeper's mask. There is a Peacekeeper in their room now, while Porscha ambles herself around the kitchen, looking for a glass of orange juice, but Pierce pays her no mind. He sees his wildness staring back at him, the way his dark hair is tousled up and above without a care in the world, the tired and dark circles around his eyes… Pierce looks away for a moment, unable to keep himself steady. Is this the Peacekeeper who struck him after pulling him out of the training center three days ago? He isn't sure, but he is not about to ask Ayanna either, who has joined her tributes at the table with a newspaper in her hands.
Pierce has never held a newspaper in his hands before, let alone read one. His parents liked him being homeschooled for some sort of reason he's never really asked about, except hearing it in hushed conversations where his parents believe he isn't listening.
"We can't let him be exposed to the outside world all that much," he hears his mother tell his father, her tone worried, her voice hushed, but it is like the echo is ringing directly in his ears. Pierce takes another bite of his toast, spraying crumbs everywhere, smirking as some land a little too close to Ayanna's plate, for the withering glare she sends his way.
"If he learns too much, he'll start to believe in us no longer" his father responds back, and that is when Pierce is too afraid to ask what they mean, in case his father wishes to get the belt or the paddle. He'd rather suffer through a thousand history lessons from the almanac he finds in the library that one day when he wanders out of the house. Not believe in his parents any longer?
He's not sure what they mean by that, and he still does not ask them that when he's saying goodbye to them in the Justice Building, his parents not even hugging him goodbye when their comrades tell them it is time to go. He gets a kiss blown in his direction, but Pierce does not catch it close to his chest. Porscha sits down next to him, smiling at him, but there isn't a lot of rejuvenation in the grimace. She's been spending all her time with those coal heathens from Twelve, last he remembers, and Porscha never even came down last night from the roof if he can recall.
He knows since he had been up for it. Pierce finds that his dreams do not come to him no matter how hard he shuts his eyes, no matter how hard he wills the headache to split him open. However, it is not only his inability to go to sleep that keeps him awake.
There's a DING coming from the living room, Pierce shucking the covers off of his body. He is wearing socks while under the covers, sweat dripping down his forehead, but he does not unburden himself of any clothing just yet. Ayanna is passed out, Porscha is with that girl Kai'sa – he tries to keep the feeling of bile rising in his throat from getting too high before it'd slip out of his mouth – and none of the Avoxes are permitted to use the elevator…
Who would that be? He checks the clock on the nightstand in the far corner of his bedroom. It's late, nearing three in the morning. If that isn't Porscha… Pierce grabs one of the coat hangers on the wall. It isn't a weapon, but he is not about to fling himself at the intruder, for elevators do not just come to life on their own.
Pierce makes his way into the living quarters of the apartment floor, a dark shadow ambling across the wooden floors, stuck closer to the windows. He sees a huddled shape pressed against the glass pane, a forehead and someone breathing, given the bit of fog that appears across the glossy surface.
"Zachary?" he says the other tribute's name in confusion, furrowing his eyebrows. His assumptions are proven correct when the boy from Five lifts his head up at his name being called, turning to face Pierce. He is dressed in his own pajamas or whatever the Capitol has offered him to sleep in, but it doesn't explain… Pierce drops the hanger on the ground. He has no reason to fear him, he trying to keep his hands down by his side. Be as non-threatening as possible. "What are you doing here?"
Zachary sighs, rubbing a thumb over his brow, the ghostly blue lights that dance down onto the carpet passing over his arms, spilling a turquoise sea across dark skin that ripples in his movements. "I'm sorry," the other boy apologizes. "I- I just didn't know where to go…" A pause, as the boy shudders and hugs himself tight, Pierce joining him down at the lip near the windows, the couch and TV just a bit away from them. "Kileigh is losing her mind right now," he says, before looking at Pierce, eyes flashing in the dark. Specters and ghouls in the night, Pierce jumping out of his skin. "And I don't want to be there right now, not if she is terrified that she'll have to kill tomorrow."
Kill. It is a heavy word that lodges itself in Pierce's throat, and no matter how hard he swallows, he is unable to dislodge it. He knows that his parents have ended people's lives before, for it is in their line of work, but they never seem to be happy about it. They do not talk about it over piles of pancakes or into their glasses of wine they have on late work nights, before bidding him goodbye as their white uniform drowns in the murky night sky. Can he kill? He looks down at his hands, and then back at Zachary.
He almost did… he has tried removing the instance out of his mind as best he can, but it seems to want to stay lodged in his brain like the word is lodged in his throat. These fingers of his… they were-
"I can't sleep either," Pierce swallows, nodding his head. This is not in his wheelhouse. No one ever comes to him for attention. No one ever comes to him for anything, all looking at him like the weird kid obsessed with puzzles and simply trying to keep his small, sheltered world from falling apart. He is two of the pigs in that folktale, when the wolf blows down their houses, and he's swallowed up by a pile of sticks and straw… except, his sticks and straws are human flesh and blood, suffocating him and blinding him for all else that moves. The corpse latches onto his face, and no matter how hard Pierce tries to break free, his actions are futile. "Might just be nervousness," he offers as consolation, but he doesn't get a step closer.
"I can't sleep either," Zachary admits, nodding his head, looking quite small all pressed into the corner. The kid shakes again, lifting his head, eyes glowing in the dark, Pierce deciding to lean against the window, the cool metal chilly against his side. "And anytime I try and close my eyes, I…" Zachary gasps, biting into his fist. "All I can feel is your hands."
Pierce jolts in place at the words. He apologized! Why is his apology not enough? That is what his parents tell him… if is to ever break a rule or do something to cross someone's bad side, he only needs to apologize. The broken bone will be mended, the wound will be sewn shut… the sun will shine again if he is to only ever-
"I apologized," Pierce says, the words getting stuck in his throat, his tone sounding harsher than he means it too, expecting Zachary's eyes to soften, but instead they flare with anger.
"Apologize?" his voice thunderous across the living room, Pierce jumping again. He does not want to know what the consequence is if Ayanna were to be awoken in the middle of the night, for the woman needs her 'beauty' sleep as she claims. Zachary takes a step forward, pure, unbridled rage flowing off of him, Pierce moving backwards, equal measure for equal measure. "Pierce, you almost killed me! You were jealous and upset that I solved a puzzle before you, so your response was to tackle me to the ground and choke me!" the kid from Five points a finger accusingly at him.
Pierce no longer believes in his parents. They've lied to him. Why would they lie to him? "I- I didn't…" he tries, but it all comes out tongue tied. Porscha would defend him if she were here, but instead she's dancing around on her ankles and knuckles with that charlatan from Twelve…
"All I feel is this pressure…" Zachary turns his hands inward on his own neck, pointing with the thumbs dove down to the center of his sternum. "You did this to me. You did this to me, and all you can do is say that you're sorry?" His voice is angry, full of rage, Pierce wishing he didn't drop that clothes hanger now. "You're going to have to do a lot more than just saying you're sorry, Pierce," his eyes glisten with tears, fresh ones spilling down his face, glowing a crystalline blue in the harsh azure lights. "You're going to have to repent…" he shakes his head, scoffing to himself. "I don't even know why I came here. You're a monster, my district partner is having a mid-life crisis…"
Pierce has no response for anything as he watches Zachary leave. He has never been called a monster before. He's heard people tell his parents that they're monsters simply for the job they hold but… how- how is he a monster?
Ayanna asks him a question, but Pierce does not hear it until she's snapping her fingers in front of his face, jarring Pierce out of the stupor he's in, a faint blush rising to his cheeks as he realizes that he's been holding onto this piece of toast in his hand with his mouth parted open for a few moments now.
He sets the food down, the blush deepening, Porscha laughing in his ear while she takes a sip of her well-earned orange juice. "I'm sorry… I was thinking about something else," he apologizes. Why are you saying sorry? It's not like it's going to help heal any broken bones or mend any wounds, Pierce. When did you get so stupid?
Ayanna breathes out of her nose, annoyance flashing across the District 6 escort's face for a moment. "I asked if you had any plans for the arena," and the feeling of oncoming dread settles into Pierce's ankles.
"No," he says right back, as well as Porscha's nod.
"I'm with Kai'sa from Twelve," his district partner answers, without the need to wait for Ayanna to ask her the question. Pierce looks at her with a curious glance, eyebrows raised. How come he is seen as rude and she's given a free pass?
He's hit a wall, and Ayanna is saying something else, as Pierce takes another bite from his toast, making sure to have the crumbs spray all over her at this point. He sets his food down, pushing the plate away from him, a smile crossing his face.
Sure… he's hit a wall, but that doesn't mean… walls have bits and pieces to them, not one solid, insurmountable foe. A wall is made of many working parts, parts that can be disassembled. A puzzle. His wall is a puzzle.
All he needs to do is tear it apart, and when he does that, build himself another one.
Perhaps he is not so screwed as he thought he had been… Pierce decides to fuck it. He throws his piece of buttery toast at Ayanna, taking pleasure in her shrieks when it hits her in the chest.
Maybe he doesn't need to apologize. Maybe he doesn't have to say he's sorry.
Maybe he should squeeze Zachary Edison's throat a little bit harder next time.
Cassiopeia Grey: District 11 Female P.O.V (13)
Her dreams are troubling, to the point where Cassiopeia is unsure she is even dreaming, instead surfing the waves of light and dark, passing from one awakening threshold to the other. Her head is moving back and forth against the pillow, but it does not feel like she is moving in the slightest… it is all in her mind, as well as the ferocious monster clamoring down upon her. There's a fell voice on the air, high-pitched, slightly sultry, panic and sweat dripping off of Cassiopeia's face as she runs, runs, runs, but when she looks down, she isn't running. She's going in place, moving as if she's stuck in quicksand or a pit of cement.
The monster pounces on her, Cassiopeia awaking with a scream. A startled person in the corner of her bedroom jumps, making her scream even louder as she reaches for the light. After the halcyon glow washes over the white corners and makes the shadows in the crevices flee, her eyes adjust to the sight of an Avox standing at the foot of her bed. Their skin isn't pale, which has Cassiopeia look at them up and down in awe. She, to be perfectly honest, and perhaps foolishly, had only ever seen an Avox look like their about to be on death's door, with varicose veins striking out from under pale flesh, a haunting blue glow that'd rise off the body and circle around their eyelids. She frowns, too terrified to ask what on Earth they're doing in her room, and for how long they'd been in her room.
Instead, as the Avox approaches her bedside table, he hands her a glass that is in his hands, it being a white liquid that seems rather thick. He simply hands it to her, nodding his head, before going back outside into the main whole of the apartment floor, her gaze following him all the while. She can still hear the monster's roar in her head, loud and demonic, sending malevolent chills down her spine. The voice becomes clear again, sounding like that of a woman's, a girl's rather.
"You really think you have a chance with me?" asks Amalie, her voice the one Cassiopeia hears in her head, for the monster has a sort of flaming aura around them. "You think that just by admitting you like me to the entire nation is going to make me want to date you? Someone as difficult as you?"
She nearly throws the glass at the wall, swallowing a scream. It took her a whole lot of guts and effort to stand on that stage and tell the truth. Hiding her feelings for so long, with a girl that cares about her… she used to find Amalie's concern on not wanting her to get hurt to be something of annoyance, but what if… what if it had been because Amalie cared too, and Cassiopeia is too arrogant and blind to see it? The glass in her hands is somewhat warm, she lifting it to her nose to take a smell. Smells like milk, with a hint of spice rising from it, pumpkin maybe.
A delicacy back in Eleven, like… she doesn't finish the thought. Amalie's lips are a delicacy she'd like to try before she dies, just to see what one kiss would feel like, but it is as the voice in her head taunts. She's difficult, she's always been difficult. At least, that is what everyone else around her has always said, and who wants to be around someone who is difficult? To drown out those thoughts, Cassiopeia downs the glass of warm milk as swiftly as she can, the spice adding a sweet, yet perky taste against the walls of her mouth.
She sets the glass down on the nightstand, going to turn the lights off, and before she knows it, she is back to sleeping. The voice does not return, no monster to chase her, no cement for her to get stuck in… Amalie does not visit her, which Cassiopeia is unsure to find troubling or not.
When Cassiopeia wakes, sunlight is streaming through curtains and shining at the foot of her bed, there luckily not being an Avox there to wake with her. Perhaps they had heard her crying out in the middle of the night? She isn't sure, but there isn't much to dwell on as she swings her feet from the bed to the floor. Cassiopeia is about to get up when reality settles in, bile churning in her stomach. Today is the beginning of the end, for her.
The Hunger Games are within the next few hours, she's pretty certain, as she looks at the analog clock sitting above the dresser. It is early, around 9:30 in the morning or so, Cassiopeia always up early enough to hear one parent in her life leave, the other coming into the house. Never enough time to dwell with them, for she always is getting up to go to school, and soon thereafter, her parents will always switch shifts with each other.
Do they love her? Does anyone she knows in Eleven love her? Would Amalie still love her after Cassiopeia returns from the arena?
She runs a hand through her ponytail, shakily getting to her feet. Cassiopeia takes another step towards the closet to change into the outfit that Marlon asks them to wear before joining them for breakfast last night. Her stomach growls again, her eyes bulge out of her chest, and then Cassiopeia is racing out of her room. Dill is already up, sitting at the dining room table with a cup in his hand, something steaming out of it, his hastily bid good morning lost in the roar of blood in her ears. Cassiopeia vaults for the bathroom, throwing the door open.
She reaches the porcelain bowl just barely in time, before her hands are clutching the rim, vomit spewing out of her throat and into the bowl. The sound of footfall clamors down against the tile, Dill reaching her first, and out of the corner of her eye, the familiar red of an Avox's clothing. Someone's grabbing her ponytail – the bitch-ass should've asked first, but she's not about to argue as she pukes – and lifting it out of the way while Cassiopeia dry-heaves the milk from last night and the dinner before interviews out of her stomach.
Marlon joins them last, she knowing it is him by the way his feet seem to hit the tile and wooden floors. He always is gliding across surfaces as if he is surfing, with his blue mohawk blowing in the breeze; their escort seems to float, as Dill sets Cassiopeia's ponytail back. She makes a pained noise in her throat, reaching to flush, but he does that for her too, as there's sick dripping off of her fingers.
The avox cleans that up for her, Cassiopeia locking eyes with the man, it being the same guy who gave her the milk just hours ago. Another dry-heave into the bowl, as she then wipes at her face with a towel. "What was that?" she groans, holding a hand to her still-vibrating stomach.
"Some people call it morning sickness," comes Marlon from the back, with a high whine to his voice, like Amalie's, and oh god she is going to throw up again.
"But that's for-" Dill starts to say, but he's shut-off by an effective glare, while Cassiopeia falls back onto her heels.
"Yes, Dill, darling, we know that pregnant women get morning sickness," Marlon's voice is disturbingly harsh, Cassiopeia shakily turning around to look at him curiously, eyebrows raised in confusion at the anger rising in the man's throat. Ever since their interviews last night, for the brief amount of time the three of them spend together, Marlon's patience grows shorter, his answers to their questions quicker than that… "Cassiopeia is just nervous."
"I'm nervous and I am not throwing up," Dill blinks in confusion.
Even through the muddled feeling in her head, Cassiopeia is grinning and pointing at her district partner with a smirk. "Be careful what you say, Dillie Boy," she teases, as she scoots over to make room for Dill in case she somehow ends up being right, which, oh Panem above, she wishes she isn't. He sticks her tongue back at her, holding out a hand for her to grab.
It is different now, their relationship. She has since then apologized for punching him on their first meeting, and for teasing him in the training center. Cassiopeia needs the laughter, the bellyaching that Amalie cannot fill. She takes his hand, and he hoists her up relatively easy, but it seems now that the danger has passed, no one wishes to pay her any mind.
"The way no one back home pays you any attention?" comes the voice again, in her head, whispering over the frontal lobe and down to her earlobes.
"My parents pay me enough attention," she snaps back in her head. "They love me. Amalie cares for me. Dill cares for me." There's a sentence she doesn't want to vocalize back to the predator inside her head, for she knows it'll just warp the words against her, a knife plunged into her chest if she is not careful. Dill needs to care for her enough that he'll be okay with dying, dying as she gouges his eyes out, or rams him into a tree.
Marlon is twirling some sort of thread in his fingers at the dinner table, his eyes bearing into Cassiopeia as she takes a seat, happily accepting the plate of food the Avox places in front of her. It is a much lighter meal the normal, a piece of toast, one egg white, and a glass of orange juice, but food is food. She goes to mill about it with her fork, before looking up, their escort's stare still directly aimed for her own eyes.
"Can I help you?" she asks, disturbed, setting the fork down. "Or are you going to continue looking at me like a pedo?"
Dill chokes on his single link of sausage that he has replacing his eggs – there's a euphemism in there somewhere, if she is privy enough to find it, but Cassiopeia needs her time for elsewhere, like how she isn't going to die in the next few hours – and he starts to pound his chest, going for the glass of water.
"Cassie!" he yells at her, eyes wide with disbelief, once he's recovered, but Cassiopeia is not having it.
She shakes her head back and forth, ponytail slapping her shoulders with vigor. She has always been told she's difficult, it is what the doctors tell her parents from the time she's three years old, even to the check-up she has just a few months ago before the reaping. Volatile. Much more volatile than the average person, where her anger will get the best of her, where her words will find a way to rear back and punch her in the face, and Cassiopeia will be unable to do anything about it lest she holds her tongue.
So fine, she wants to hear what has Marlon so upset concerning her.
"You've been looking at me with disdain since my interview last night," Cassiopeia shrugs her shoulders. "Something I've done to upset you?"
"Not that at all," Marlon sniffs dismissively, taking a sip of… is that wine? She dismisses the thought while their escort sets his glass of what is most certainly something alcoholic down on the placemat. "Just, make sure you don't throw up in front of everyone in the arena. It'll make you look weak."
She sends Dill a furtive glance, frowning, as he frowns back. "Wasn't planning on it, I promise you," she scoffs somewhat, going to finish another bite. He's lying, but she doesn't want to argue. She's sick and tired of arguing.
There are people back home who need her, people back home who want her, and she isn't going to let a round of throw-up every morning, or Dill's dismissal, or Marlon's objections get in the way of that.
Let her be volatile, it may just be what saves her skin.
Cassiopeia takes another bite of her egg whites, the clock in the corner ticks, the Avoxes in the room are ever watchful, and another hour passes by before the beginning of the 1st Hunger Games.
Sylvan Adello: District 7 Male P.O.V (14)
He's taken several antacids at this point, but it is still not enough to stop the churning he feels in his stomach when Nevaeh comes to get him quarter past eleven. Sylvan is sitting on the edge of his bed, running a finger up and down the comforter, tracing out the paisley patterns that he gets on the cloth. The TV screen hanging up in the corner, one that Sylvan has paid zero attention to since he hardly spends any time in his room to begin with, is on. It had been on, at least, for a brief while, as Sylvan searches through the channels and feeds, the walls washed over in a light blue glow, the same glow reflecting down onto his pale skin and brown hair that he brushes out of his eyes.
Late last night while doing some searching, after staying by Nevaeh's side until she is the one who tells him they should sleep, his sleuthing places him on the Sights and Sounds of Panem channel, it causing him to quirk his brow. District 7 is one of the places listed, and so that is where he goes, though he is intrigued by the stone mason walls of District 2, or the coal mine skies of Twelve, he sticks to what he knows best. However, the moment the screen comes on, to the sight of a massive oak tree hanging amid a bright blue sky, Sylvan frowns. He doesn't recall there being any oak trees in Seven, and there's certainly no chirping of birds, for their sweet song is drowned out by the cacophony of tires and steamers and trains and wood processors and grinders and… there's no nature to Seven, not in the same sense he thinks the Capitol believes it to be.
He realizes, then, after a second, that the Capitol has it all wrong, for it is surely no screenshot of Seven that he's accustomed to. Sylvan finds himself staring and peering into the picture, trying to match any of the details he sees, such as this dark line that spreads across one corner to the other until he watches a ripple of wind blow the green screen down, and the sights of 'Seven' vanish into that of complete tom foolery. He scoffs, throwing the remote away, and bundles himself in a blanket, alternating between that and the position of sitting up.
Sylvan's District 7 is full of terror and cloudless night skies, sometimes where he can point out the constellations that he sees, Aquarius and Scorpio what he notices the most, resting his head on the one lump of the log. His District 7 is full of Nightlock strewn everywhere, especially in bundles by the stream. His District 7 contains his voice, panicked and yelling, sometimes even screaming, when that cute neighbor kid whose name he never learned eats one when no one is paying attention. Sylvan is too late to save the kid, who convulses on the ground in front of him and in front of everyone else whose taken to inhabit the perimeter beyond the fence line. There is no din of helicopters or hovercrafts or even, in the dark of night under a secluded cave entrance, a Peacekeeper's voice with a megaphone cascading against the rocky surface like a wave.
A pretender's dream, this is what he is looking at, as Sylvan shakes up a storm, a trembling leaf blown about by the breeze and the rain. The elevator is cold, a different one than the typical one he's used to when going to the training center. This one is at the back of the hallway of their floor, adjourned by the staircases. Javier stands between him and Nevaeh, who is looking up at the cube they're in.
It is time, and they've been summoned to their fate and doom. Nevaeh believes that they're marching to certain death, or at least something to that degree while they're enjoying a last supper of sorts: scrambled eggs, a slice of bacon, and his choice between a small sliver of wheat bread or a toasted English muffin. He skips on everything but the eggs, as Sylvan is feeling his stomach rock back and forth like a log when it is getting splintered into two halves.
"I believe in you both," Javier says, after a moment of silence. It is a two-minute elevator ride deep into the underground, where just outside of that will be an airstrip that every tribute will be landing on. It is all timely, as once Sylvan and Nevaeh get there, Eight will be after them, and Nine after them and so on until all twenty-four tributes are accounted for.
"Accounted for in being killed," Nevaeh snorts into her glass of spiced milk, some sort of pumpkin drink from what Sylvan can smell, and then aloud, in the elevator as she tugs on her ponytail, "Thank you, Javier. It's nice that one escort has faith in his tributes at least."
Sylvan tries to avoid even using the word tribute, as he certainly does not view himself to be some sort of sacrifice for hands to pick and pluck at. He is his own human being with his own goals and decisions to make, a life he wants to live, and he is not going to offer himself up on some sort of silver platter. If he is to be offered up, he better have an apple already stuffed into his mouth like some pork roast.
Would it have been better for him to have picked one of those Nightlock berries back in the forest? Instead of facing whatever lies on the horizon?
"What's going to happen, Mr. Nordem?" Sylvan asks, his voice shaky despite his best efforts to keep it steady. No one knows anything, which is what he finds to be the most baffling. Does no one know what is to be happening, when flesh and blood and lives are on the line, or is it that no one is willing to share? He finds it impossible to keep someone in the dark and then expect them to play along if they do not know what is to happen after being told to Go.
Javier strokes his beard, the elevator giving a slight shake. "Well, when we step out of this elevator you're going to make your way to the hovercraft, and there'll be some doctors to do a few check-ups on you, physically and mentally," There's a pause, for Nevaeh scoffs and rolls her eyes. A mental check-up. Sylvan wants to laugh too. What answers are they expecting? That he's perfectly peachy and happy about his potentially imminent death and not terrified of every sharp or blunt object in a thousand-mile radius? "When you get to the arena, which has been constructed as this massive dome, though you won't be able to see it, you'll be transported to holding rooms where I shall see you guys very shortly for some last-minute prep."
Sylvan nearly cries. Last minute prep? For what? How can he possibly be more prepared – not that he thinks he is prepared in the first place, despite what that training score says. Swinging an axe and tying a few good knots he feels didn't relegate himself to even a five - looking at killing people than he is right now, in this very moment, in this elevator?
"Great," Nevaeh deadpans. "Let's go…"
The elevator comes to a stop, Sylvan needing to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight that pours in. He is about to take a step out of the elevator, just as Nevaeh does, when Javier holds a hand back, he running into it. Nevaeh looks back, quirking an eyebrow, but not saying anything.
"I want to talk to Sylvan for a moment, Nevaeh," Javier says, his voice level, Sylvan unable to find any agenda or hidden motives in his speech. "You go on ahead, he'll be there shortly…" his district partner turns away after the dismissal, he going to say something, before Javier is turning, almost looking Sylvan in the eyes at his 5'7 height, and Javier is only an inch taller. "This is for your ears, and your ears only," he says.
"What is?" Sylvan frowns, scratching at his arm. He just wants to get to the arena already, a statement he never figured he'd be telling himself in the first place.
"My bet is on you, Sylvan," their escort says, with his kind eyes, tanned skin glowing in the sunlight, a sense of pride filling in the kid's chest, but along that, a ripple of disbelief… why would someone pick him to root for? "I know what you're thinking," Javier interrupts him again with a raised hand. "But it's true. Nevaeh just doesn't have the same sort of feeling for me, kiddo, and while I think it is a good idea you've allied with her and not one of the other loner kids, I don't know you expect her to be your saving grace when it comes down to it."
He takes a moment to read over the words. The dead kid, with his berry coated lips, hands shaking and pointing towards Sylvan, pointing a finger, an accusing finger... that kid believed in him too, yet he couldn't save him when the berries were crushed by a set of beautiful teeth. He mourns the loss of life for weeks… will anyone mourn him if he is to lose his own life?
Sylvan licks his lips. "What are you saying, Mr. Nordem?" That is one stark difference he has noted between himself and Nevaeh, she never refers to anyone with some sort of modicum of disrespect. He grows up on the very notion, afraid of what it would mean if he were to be discourteous to someone. Probably a handful of berries or a Peacekeeper spotlight cast down on him, forcing him to choose how he'd wish to go in the end.
"Just… just make sure you know how to play the game, Sylvan," Javier instructs, with a pat on the shoulder, "Make sure you learn before the game plays you, instead."
Easier said than done, Sylvan expects, but he doesn't argue, getting a swift kick in the pants to send him on his way. His vision is blurred by the heatwave spilling out across the landing pad, a woman in white beckoning him forward with one hand to the other end, by the hovercraft, which is up and running, the catwalks glowing in a flashing amber color.
The woman, who he assumes is a doctor, takes his blood pressure and his heart rate. He's asked if he had anything for breakfast, a package of saltine crackers next to her in a box that rests against the woman's leg. He peers inside to see the assorted tributes are sitting randomly, not next to their partners, Nevaeh's head straight ahead, looking past who seems to be Kileigh, and Nevaeh has Magnus on her arm, which she doesn't look to be too happy about.
As Sylvan is talking to the woman, he sees out of the corner of his eye a Peacekeeper coming up to him. His warning is stuck in his throat as his arm is gripped, he looking away at the first sight of a needle that is plunged into his upper arm as if someone where taking his blood. The injection is actually rather painless, something plunged into his skin, he feeling the bulking of the skin as if it has been bruised.
He looks back, seeing something blinking in his arm. Great, a beacon for people to see him at night.
"It's your tracker," the woman says, as sweetly as she can, though her voice is robotic. Sylvan would prefer a robot, to be perfectly honest. "It's so we don't lose you in the arena. It is linked to your heartbeat," the doctor adds, and then he's getting another swift kick to the pants, getting directed to sit down next to Cecelia Blackstone.
The girl smiles at him as cheerfully as she can, though it is short, and Sylvan can see the preoccupied look in her eyes, which he is certain is reflected back in his.
All he can do is wait, Sylvan letting out a shaky breath, thinking over Javier's words. A grown man, whose never met him before three days ago, a complete stranger… he's his bet, who he wants to win. Sylvan lifts his head up some, having leaned it back to close his eyes, for he is sure it'll be another fifteen minutes until all the tributes are assorted together.
Someone he has never met believes in him.
Who is he to let this person down? He has let one person down, a boy he believes to be the prettiest specimen in all thirteen districts and the Capitol… he will not let anyone else down ever again.
Cross his heart, or hope to die.
Vesuvia Vocanova: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)
She understands everyone else's worry concerning the Games. She does, she understands every single nook and cranny that there is to be had, for she has her own as well, buried deep down, flashing a S.O.S signal at her, but Vesuvia refuses to acknowledge it. At the end of it all, the tunnel with the flashing lights and the bright sign that says Winner Enters Here, Vesuvia knows it is just a game… that is all it is. While everyone else is viewing it as punishment, which it most certainly is, she's not denying that fact, given the fact she is just randomly plucked out of the crowd for it versus wanting to come, like the erroneous behavior from Magnus Winterthorn, that thought is what keeps her going.
Vesuvia has surrounded herself in games and digital technology her entire life, it is her world, upside down and backwards and left and right. Her own stories that she creates in her head, the villains and the winners and the monsters and the heroes… the angels and devils that sit on her shoulder, they come from her. Her mind is a labyrinth, one she has traversed many times, where she can see all of her worst fears and the futures that may come to pass without her in them, and not once has the Minotaur tackled her to the ground and won. She's plucked the horn off of it once upon a time and stabbed him with it, right in the eye. Vesuvia has fought with the devils of the sea, or the crooks and thieves in the mess hall, and she's won. What makes these foolish Capitolites believe twenty-three other scared children are going to do her in?
Her arm hurts somewhat from where the Peacekeeper injected the tracker, she mad at herself for the fleeting moment of panic that ripples across her chest when she notes the familiar gray coming towards her out of the corner of her eye. It is a garbled-up cry that has Jasper soothing a kiss into the back of her neck, which gets him rudely snapped away from her, as there's not supposed to be any sort of contact between the tributes yet. She has to keep her bloodlust down for the arena, as what the Peacekeeper says, which has Vesuvia rolling her eyes. She is not a violent person, but it had been fun making Kileigh squirm back in the training center.
Vesuvia runs a finger over the lump in her forearm where the tracker is, it blinking back at her in morse code, she tapping with the same hand at the wrist. She morse codes W.I.C.K.E.D and a few other words that are lost to the bright red glow of the helicopter. Calen is sitting next to her, and that Diana Kratovska across from her, the boy not so mindful, but Vesuvia can feel Diana's eyes glued to her forehead. Let her look, it may be the look of her killer that the seafaring gal from Four is witnessing.
Her lips still spark and electricize from Jasper's kiss last night, where there's the tangle of limbs and bedsheets while the clock strikes midnight. He is apologizing for being such a failure – referring to his training score, she believes, and while she is underwhelmed with his six, her ten makes up for it in droves – but she silences that with another kiss and another stroke, grinning. It's a game to her, even the sex, even the way she eats at breakfast. Vesuvia Vocanova does not lose, she doesn't know what the taste of bitter defeat feels like, at least… not yet.
She does not acknowledge that possibility, as Peacekeepers tug her down the hallway, one arm gripping her left bicep, the other occasionally pointing and looking back at her while they guide the way. She does not get to see Jasper besides that moment on the helipad, for she wakes up late, so late in fact that Cole bursts into her room in a panic. She forgot to go to bed, simply staying up and looking at the patterns in the ceiling, replaying Jasper's sweet nothings that he says in her ears. She mulls the words over and over and over again until they're sweet music, amble notes played by deft fingers over a violin string.
Screams sound like music to her ears, too. Those in the prison system, when they've crossed the peg-leg war veteran who has spread one too many anti-Capitol signs gets wind that someone is a Capitol supporter in the rebellion, Vesuvia could count the heartbeats in-between the yells of pain elicited out of the dying. Peacekeepers who were too late to save the inmate would find the body swinging by the hook under their jaw, copious amounts of copper spilling onto the bathroom tile. It'd be an excuse to go outside, to use the outside showers or let the rainwater wash away the grime and gunk of the ten by ten cell. Vesuvia is alone in her cell, no other inmate to spend time with her.
"You were alone?" Jasper asks, trailing nondescript shapes into the small of her back, curving over the shoulder blades, chills digging into the empty spaces of her spine. "Why were you alone in prison?"
"Too dangerous, I'm told," Vesuvia smirks, looking back at him. She is stunned by the fact he does not look at her like she's a monster. Sometimes Vesuvia feels it, buried beneath her entrails that the seafaring girl wishes she could rip out, a low whisper against her ear in the same place her district partner goes to tell her that he's in love with the volcano. It is a euphemism she's never heard before; she'll give it that. "And I like being dangerous; it let me have restful nights," a pause, with a frown, "Well, besides the screaming of the dying or the insane, of course." And a giggle to close it off with another musical flourish, another twang of the harp.
Vesuvia is led to a door that has her name on it, written in a golden cursive font on a crème colored card placarded above the peephole. The Peacekeepers let her inside, she ripping herself out of their grasp, sneering at them and baring her teeth. When she turns back around, she's greeted by Cole, their escort, with his illuminating pale skin, made ever more noticeable by the bright, also very pale, like flesh colored, lights shining from above.
The walls are a sickly green, puke colored, making Vesuvia's stomach churn. Cole steps forward, not speaking, even as she draws him into a hug, feel his bony backside and the hollowness of his sides. When they retract, he hands her an outfit, to be changed into instead of what she has on. Vesuvia takes it without a word, stepping behind the curtain set out for them.
It is a dark, black actually, colored shirt with her name written on it, curled and swirly at the top, it seeming to glow when placed under the harsh lights. The pants are a more suede brown, with what almost looks like hiking boots or some sort of footwear for climbing, which has her frowning. She realizes that she hadn't factored into what the arena would remotely look like, as none of them are aware what it is they're being forced to walk into. Jasper considers a ruined landmark or battlefield from a lost skirmish, but Vesuvia disagrees with the statement given the air quality could be bad or radioactive or any other sort of reason that doesn't need to be explained to them. She gets to keep the same belt she has on, double knotting the shoelaces, as tripping and letting Orion Maythorpe get a good stab at her back being not one of the ways in how she wishes to die.
Except, she won't die. Vesuvia knows she won't, for a confident person always gets far.
Vesuvia comes out from behind the curtain, having changed, and despite the boots, she is still entirely unsure what sort of landscape they are being driven into. Cole looks at her, up and down, grinning after he finishes.
"You look like a winner," he says.
"Well, damn it," she swears, chuckling under her breath. "I wanted to look like a complete failure; now everyone is going to count me out of the running…" Vesuvia shakes her head back and forth, unable to suppress the smirk that spreads across her lips. However, it is short lived, as she frowns. "Why aren't you with Jasper? Or will you be joining him too, shortly?"
Cole's eyes dance and twinkle around playfully, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. "He actually wanted to be left alone in this time," the escort says, but he does point to a gray colored button sticking out of the wall, Vesuvia thinking it looks phallic, but it might be the events of last night still settling into her consciousness. "The light will change colors, and I'll step in for a moment if he needs me," he shrugs. "But since he doesn't, you're stuck with me."
"Rather you are stuck with me," Vesuvia chuckles again, running a hand through her hair. She's shaking, Vesuvia realizes, when she draws her hand back with loose bits of auburn rippling around her pointer, middle, and ring fingers. Shaking. Scared. Vesuvia hasn't been scared since she has her picture taken for the national criminal database, the NCB as she puts it for short. Her first act that she'll do if – when, Vess, she reminds herself sharply, not if, but when… - escaping the arena is abolish the database, sending it scattered among the spider-webs of the internet like raining bytes of data. "Stuck with a loser," she jokes.
Cole goes to say something else when a sharp blare of trumpet sound cuts him off, both he and Vesuvia jumping in place, a feeling of anxiousness and nervousness churning in her stomach. There's a faint crackle of noise, someone's throat being cleared, and then crisp and suave tone of Head Gamemaker/Vice President Cain Passionia. Vesuvia likes his voice, especially after he commends her on such an amazing private session where the dummies are all laid out beneath her in a serial killer fashion, different limbs and body parts extracted and ripped out with her handy blade, and her own fingers of course.
"Greetings, tributes!" comes his chipper voice, and while Vesuvia is trying to calm her nerves and quell the anxiety bubbling in her throat, she cannot say she's skip happy to enter the threatening and ominous looking tube over in the corner, a silver plate with her name written on the inner lining of the tube. Another prison. "If you're hearing my voice, then congratulations! You've officially made it through all the prep for the Pre-Games and are about to become a part of history. In just a few moments, I am going to need all of you to step into the tubes at the far back corner of the room," there's a pause, Vesuvia able to pick up on the excitedness in his voice, the pure trembling excitement that shatters his throat. "Once the tube shuts and starts to rise into the arena above ground, that means the Games are almost ready to begin!"
"They began when you selected my name," Vesuvia mutters under her breath at Cole, loud enough for him to hear it, he simply blinking back at her. Cold and unemotive, like she figures him to be.
"When you are all above the surface," Cain continues to speak, she trying to listen and not gouge her own eyes out, "Do not immediately start running. You have to wait sixty seconds before the Games are allowed to start, enough time so you can get acclimated to your surroundings. There will be a structure in front of you, a cornucopia of sorts… supplies, weapons, other essentials… it'd be wise for you to go and grab something," and then another pause, she feeling his smirk that vibrates up and down her body. "Do not run off that plate before the timer runs down, or else you'll find out that your impatience has dire consequences. This is not a bluff, you will be blown up by landmines, and that means there'll be twenty-three of you to start the Games," Vesuvia's leg starts to shake back and forth, a clopping noise of her boot on the tile. "In this arena, tributes, you slay gods, and eventually may even become one in the process. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!" Cain's voice is chipper, a shiver sliding down Vesuvia's spine at the motto.
Slay Gods… and you may even become one.
Vesuvia knows she's a god, a god of wit, and intelligence.
Cole nods at her, pushing her forward to the plate. She steps into place, closing her eyes while the tube slides around her. She keeps her eyes closed, head lifted up, waiting. One. Two. Three.
The plate begins to rise, Vesuvia opening her eyes. The Games are about to begin.
She cannot help the wicked smile that stretches across her face from ear to ear.
Friedrich Calvary: Mayor of District 1 P.O.V
This is it.
The end of the days.
And for the first time in his life, Friedrich can actually feel it in his soul. It is a bomb strapped to his chest, each ticking second matching the beating of his heart. The fan mail and letters from Capitol citizens and fans from District 1 now reach to the ceiling of his study, to the point where he no longer goes into the room. His voicemail is clogged up with calls from Adriane, who he does not want to speak to, for frankly he could give a rat's ass about the two people from One representing their district in the Capitol. Cecelia and Catalus are faces he does not recognize out of a crowd, and they should have no stake in his heart…
However, if that is the case, then why does he already find himself mourning them in the middle of the night? It wakes up his wife, she undoing the sheets tangling her to the bed so she can wrap her arms around Friedrich. She does not even have to ask what is the matter, for she can feel it if she were to place a hand on his chest and against his heart. His heart has broken in two, and he has cried enough tears to fill an aquafer.
His breakfast tastes bland, Friedrich milling it around with his fork, seeing the eggs spill onto his grits, and even when his wife makes toast, for she has some sort of technique with the butter that makes it heavenly in his mouth, it is still not the same. He places his utensils down on the napkin to wipe them off, pushing his chair away. The death threats have picked up as well, they coming in a flood just after last night when Cecelia and Catalus both give their interviews. It is a Peacekeeper that delivers them to his door, knocking on their step at nearly midnight, Friedrich's words of anger dying in his throat at the fact that the man simply looks disheveled, beyond the way he's breathing heavily.
It is the same Peacekeeper that saves his life, Friedrich realizes. This is all of his fault, and he knows it. The letters spell out the same doom, to bring those children in the Capitol back home to One. What has the sweet little Cecelia Blackstone done to do deserve a death by the hands of Ramses Boskov or the unstable Porscha Watanabe, or lord forbid, she be done in by the other little girl her age, that Cassiopeia Grey who Friedrich fears could tear out his own trachea? Catalus is another bag, there being ruminating words of betrayal from the Drachma Conglomerate, the root of their problem.
There has been advice, though it is mainly from Adriane's calls that he does not respond to, that he take fire to the entire compound and watch it burn down to the ground, maybe feel the need to dance in the ashes once they settle over his skin like dust bunnies, the remnants of souls that tried to kill him. There is, in fact, a letter from Catalus's parents in the mix, the one that the Peacekeeper hands him last, but it is still sitting unopened on his desk. The Peacekeeper had been a captured informant, with plans about the hit the Drachma Conglomerate were going to make on Friedrich himself, and another higher-up in the Capitol army stationed in One… until things go awry, Friedrich realizes his life is at stake, and he makes the call to Emrick after seeing District Two do the same thing.
"Eggs not good this morning or something?" his wife interrupts his train of thought, Friedrich breaking out of his stupor, looking up to see her looking back down at him with a sweet smile stretched across her lips, concern reflected back in her eyes.
"They taste as delicious as usual, sweetheart," he tells her, holding onto her left hand for extra support as he gets to his feet. "I just don't feel all that hungry I suppose." He tastes blood in his mouth as he takes a bite of grits, crunchy toast that is the way bones feel against his teeth while he grinds them down. Cracking open slices of bacon is seeing Cecelia's kneecaps shattered, or the way the resistance is devastated as One and Two switch sides for the Capitol, turning their missiles onto their own brothers and sisters in arms. Friedrich is still repeating to himself the mantra that he says in his head the morning of the reapings. If a single hour goes by where he is not reminding himself of the fact that this is all his fault, then he does not think there'll be another breakfast cooked by his spouse morning ever again. "Their blood is not on my hands…" he hisses to himself inwardly, even as copious streams of copper coagulate underneath his fingernails and slide along the curves of his ribcage.
"I'll saran wrap your meal and put it in the fridge for later," his wife tells him with a kiss on the cheek, he simply waving her off as he steps into the parlor. It is lavishly furnished, wonderfully adorned with a silver and crystal appearance to it so everything can glisten in the sun. Friedrich stretches himself out on the couch from end to end, draping an arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight.
He has always hated sunlight. Sunlight makes his mistakes appear out in the open with nothing to blot them or change their appearance in any way, he having to look away and at something else in the distance, else he stare straight on into his failures and misgivings. The largest failure of his is currently happening, a golden clock resting on the TV screen hanging off of the wall and above the fireplace in the center of the parlor.
The Games are about to begin, Emrick calling all of the mayors of each district that they must make a spontaneous announcement to their respective citizens that everyone must be tuned into the arena. The Capitol has called it the 'Bloodbath,' Friedrich tasting another languid drop of vermillion slide into the duvet of his lips at the word. A bloodbath of dead children, detached limbs, lives cut short with Arachne's spidery long legs dancing thinly on the wire, cutting the tether in two. If there is to be a citizen caught by the Peacekeepers in not having their TVs turned to the proper stations, punishments can range from a night in a jail cell or stockade to even worse dealings such as bullets lodged in their craniums, and if need be… Avoxing. Friedrich hates them, the Avoxes that linger around the halls of his home.
Just because he is the mayor of One, luckily by all the good graces of a ruler above that his head is not filling some sort of hand-woven basket in a trophy garden back in the Capitol, does not mean he needs a man-servant tying his shoelaces for him. "I might need that soon depending on how this morning goes, however…" he thinks to himself darkly, chuckling at the thought even as the sound of his wife putting his leftovers in the fridge fills the empty space.
Everyone must watch, no one is to tear their eyes away from the violence, from the entertainment, but Friedrich must admit to the desolate corners of his soul that this is not something he has been looking forward to, even if he has been following the festivities as close as he can. His representatives are doing terribly, if their training scores are any indicators, but perhaps he'll be surprised. He doesn't want to be surprised, and Friedrich feels horrible for even suggesting it, but maybe if Catalus and Cecelia were to die within the next ten minutes… then maybe it means he will be able to tear his eyes away from the spectacle and no longer have to watch. It'd be a certain freedom he has been denied ever since Emrick places a hand on his shoulder and guides him away from the guillotine, or even when Cain places his lips against his own for a split second after putting his son to rest…
It is all building into a headache, Friedrich asking his wife if she could make another pot of coffee and also to go grab a tranquilizer, for he might need it. He has the speakers currently off on the TV, going to grab the remote to turn it on as Richmond Anvil's face appears in the famous Capitol recording studio, talking about the Games and the preparations made… Friedrich prefers he'd be smothered with a pillow right about now.
"It's not my fault…" he tells himself, and then aloud, as the golden timer in the counter starts to count and wind down. "Their blood is not on my hands," Friedrich whispers to himself. He didn't kill anyone of these kids, none of them will die cursing his name.
It is true; their blood is not on his hands. Their blood soaks his entire body.
The 1st Hunger Games has finally arrived; who will live, and who will die?
Tribute List (Boy - Girl)
District 1: Catalus Drachma [Submitted by Manny Siliezar] / Cecelia Blackstone [Submitted by A Proud Bibliophile]
District 2: Magnus Winterthorn [Submitted by Audmirable] / Portia Beninblade [Submitted by WhateverIsOpen]
District 3: Jasper Overheart [Submitted by ParanoidSylph] / Vesuvia Vocanova [Submitted by Platrium]
District 4: Orion Maythorpe [Submitted by jimster920] / Diana Kratovska [Submitted by Firedawn'd]
District 5: Zachary Edison [Submitted by GreyShade] / Kileigh Katsaras [Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie]
District 6: Pierce Alversway [Submitted by Merlin's Brown Jacket] / Porscha Watanabe [Submitted by thornehub]
District 7: Sylvan Adello [Submitted by In Writing] / Nevaeh Davoli [Submitted by dyloccupy]
District 8: Niklaus Peverell [Submitted by timesphobic] / Poem Cavalli [Submitted by LordShiro]
District 9: Gemini Lennox [Submitted by Apple1230] / Camilla Rodriguez [Submitted by Reign of Winter]
District 10: Calen Kinegrove [Submitted by silversshade] / Nokomis Yanaba [Submitted by Ripple237]
District 11: Dill Waylon [Submitted by A Mad Tea Party] / Cassiopeia Grey [Submitted by ZeroIsANumber]
District 12: Ramses Boskov [Submitted by Guesttwelve] / Kai'sa Shadow [Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn]
...
ALLIANCE LIST
The Mini Careers: Catalus Drachma (D1M), Magnus Winterthorn (D2M), Diana Kratovska (D4F)
Girl Power: Portia Beninblade (D2F), Camilla Rodriguez (D9F), Nokomis Yanaba (D10F)
Brutal Technology: Jasper Overheart (D3M), Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F)
Respect for the Principal: Orion Maythorpe (D4M), Ramses Boskov (D12M)
The Dancing Queens: Porscha Watanabe (D6F), Kai'sa Shadow (D12F)
Woodland Family: Sylvan Adello (D7M), Nevaeh Davoli (D7F)
Wax Poetica: Niklaus Peverell (D8M), Poem Cavalli (D8F)
Loners: Cecelia Blackstone (D1F), Zachary Edison (D5M), Kileigh Katsaras (D5F), Pierce Alversway (D6M), Gemini Lennox (D9M), Calen Kinegrove (D10M), Dill Waylon (D11M), Cassiopeia Grey (D11F)
*squeals and waves hands back and forth* Ahhhh! There we are, ladies and gentlemen, Chapter #20: The District's Punishment. We are here, ladies and gentlemen, to the arena. Bloodbath is on my doorstep, on your doorstep. We've had six povs this chapter, Capitol perspectives from Cain and Friedrich, with Pierce, Cassiopeia, Sylvan, and Vesuvia getting their last Round III povs. You've seen sixteen tribute chapters with 72 povs spread across them, a crap ton of words as LOL I'm at over 200k before I even reach the bloodbath... and I am so happy and proud of this story.
This cast is amazing, and I can't have asked for a better one; I love these tributes so much, and I cannot wait to kill them. Having the full list once again and the ALLIANCE LIST (HYPE!) which is something I've never done before makes it feel even more official, and I want to burst. Remember, here in this arena, you can slay gods and even become one. As always, as I know I won't shut up about it, if you haven't already, vote on the bloodbath poll before the next update. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think about the cast, about the Capitol characters and plot, predictions and victor potentials and anything and everything you can think of, as your feedback means so much to me.
Bloodbath is going to up on Halloween, which I know you all may be doing things for, but it is something I've had in my sights for way too long and you bet your ass Paradigm meets his updates. I will not be labeling who gets the six povs for the chapter, as I want it to be a surprise. I, like always, will have a suggested soundtrack for you to listen to on repeat while reading, and there will be spoilers of course in the eulogies, on my profile, and in the kill count I post, so try to not spoil yourselves. I hope you guys review; it'll mean the world to me. I love you all so much and I hope you have an amazing day! Bye! GET HYPED! BLOODBATH TIME!
~ Paradigm