A/N: Today we have two friends we're revisiting! We're going to revist a tribute and a Mentor: Libby Miles, the District Six Female, as well as Pumpkin Little, the District Eleven Mentor. Enjoy your reading, and I hope it's a good one! I'm feeling much better by the way, it was my weak attempt at a joke when I said you guys did not care XD
I honestly have no idea why this took so long. I have no fitting explanation besides a blooming social life (not even really), writing like two paragraphs of original fiction, training for track, and being addicted to watching Survivor. Oh and I am working on this Survivor thing with my friend it's so bad xD But anyway, I'm sorry for the wait, I knew exactly what I wanted to write for these two for a long time and I was excited to do it, it was just like last night I realized it's been 2 weeks since I updated and I was like "WHAT?!" But anyway, enjoy! :D
P.S. I also have the explanation for Miriam & Jayce's alliance name on the bottom, it is NOT what you think I am not damning them to be Bloodbaths from the get go xD
Trigger Warnings: Profanity, K rated steamy stuff, suicidal thoughts and actions, recreational drug use. I think I hit everything but gore with this chapter XD
I also sorta robbed a Lana song for one line of Pumpkin's but it fit well. And I was listening to Lana as I was writing this so, yeah that's why XD
I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And our scars remind us that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel
I tried to help you once
Against my own advice
I saw you going down
But you never realized
That you're drowning in the water
So I offered you my hand
Compassion's in my nature
Tonight is our last stand
Pumpkin Little, 31
District Eleven Mentor and Victor of the Seventh Annual Hunger Games
Phemia and Soya cackle loudly at the dinner table, flipping through a brochure on the new Capitol couture for this upcoming fall season. Phemia's glossy nails clack against the table as they fly across the waxy paper foldable, pointing first at a cocktail dress with a neon orange chevron pattern on it. It's more simplistic than most Capitol designs, and I find it beautiful. Of course Phemia scoffs at it and calls it boring before zeroing in on a flouncy dress made of silver and covered with flashing baubles. She circles it with a red pen and declares that she's buying it, and Soya giggles and nods in agreement.
Omri sits next to me, sawing into his peppered beef and chewing on it thoughtfully, his jaw working up and down to pulverize the tough meat. He discreetly brings his napkin to his mouth and spits out a bit of grisly fat before stuffing the crumpled napkin under his plate. He eats more of the meat, and then he eyes me strangely. I realize that I've been staring at him, and I quickly look back to my plate, stabbing a spear of asparagus and munching on it. An Avox takes away my plate when it's empty. Soya and Phemia are still chuckling over the fashion pamphlet, their eyes alight with true mirth. I smile a little before standing and walking towards the elevator. I press the smooth up button, like a rounded pebble in the wall. As the doors slide open, Omri calls out to me from the dinner table.
"Where are you going?" he asks, his voice curious and a little confused.
"I'll be back in a minute," I reply flatly before stepping into the elevator. The doors glide closed behind me, and I press the button bearing the marking EF3. It's one of the six EF buttons, which stands for Extracurricular Floors. There's six floors of arcades and restaurants and gardens and playgrounds and amusement parks and zoos and more on top of the twelve District floors. After the first day of training, a tribute can spend the entire rest of their training time there if they find training to be useless for them. Some of the more confident or laidback Careers often go there, as well as the younger kids without a hope in this world. There's also a day after the interviews called the "Fun Day", where the tributes get to run wild through the six floors and have their last laughs before heading into the Games the next day. This piece of the Games was added on soon after Ludum become Head Gamemaker back before the 15th, and it is really great for the little kids who don't want to spend the time training. They get to see so much more than they ever would've back home before they get sent to the slaughter.
I'm riding up there myself not for a roller coaster ride or a fizzy, foot high fountain drink. I'm riding up there to meet a special friend of mine.
The doors swoosh open once I reach the floor, and I exit the elevator. The ceiling is a thick, warped glass so you can see everything piled above, and several bars, a trampoline park, and a trio of arcades are nearby. All the lights are turned off, and everything's dusty; in a couple of hours, workers will flood the place to clean everything, turn on the lights, and prepare for the half dozen tributes who usually skip the second day of training. The place, basically a labyrinth, looks a little ominous in the full dark, but I know my path by heart. I head northwest, and soon enough a huge garden with a stone archway above the entrance comes into my sight. I can barely make out the words on the archway in the dark; it reads Garden of the Arenas.
"Hello, Pumpkin," Mateo Ciacco hisses, slithering out from under the archway. I give a little start, and I shake my eyes as he ambles over to my side. I can't really make out his clothing all that well, but he seems to be dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He has a small plastic basket of garden tools in his hands.
"Hello, Mateo," I reply smoothly. He leans in and presses a feather light kiss to my neck, and I roll my eyes.
"You look as beautiful as ever, my elegant flower," he rasps.
"I'm not a lost, depressed 16 year old girl anymore, Mateo," I tell him firmly.
"Whatever you say, Pumpkin," he says, pulling back. "But you're just as lost as ever, my friend."
"Let's just get the plants and get out of here," I sigh. Mateo pulls out a flashlight from the little basket, and shines it on the cobblestone path. We enter the shadowy garden, and I look at Mateo's illuminated back. His slicked back black hair with silvery little streaks, his well muscled build, his confident stride. It was what attracted me to the 19 year old man when I was a year fresh out of my Games, looking for a distraction, looking for love to fill my heart. He took me and had me until he cheated on me. That wound's healed, however. I haven't had sex with him or loved him in a decade. I'd rather never see him again. But he's the Head Landscaper in the Capitol's gardens, and he has access to this Garden of the Arenas. He still loves me, and he digs up the two plants I bring back to Eleven to commemorate my dead tributes in turn for getting to spend a meager half hour with me.
After a couple of minutes of walking in silence, we reach the Twenty First Hunger Games section. The temperature strangely changes once we enter the section, some weird Capitol technology, and a cool, thin mist slips across the exposed skin on my arms and face. The grasses and bushes of the moor scratch at our feet, and in the distance a shadowy grove of trees, cloaked in a robe of fog, rise above the moor landscape. There's two pots waiting in the middle of the field, and we kneel down besides two thick tufts of moor grasses. I dig up one quickly, and Mateo digs up the other in a slower fashion as to spend more time with me most likely. We transition them into the pots, and then once they're in, I grab both pots and stand.
"Thank you, Mateo-" I begin, but he leans in close and presses his lips hard against mine. The pots topple from my arms, cracking into a dozen pieces on the ground as he pushes me to the ground and kisses me harder. To my surprise, I'm kissing him back, and his hands run down my back and unclip my bra, and I don't even care, pulling on his hair and smashing his face against mine more so. Am I really going to let Mateo do this with me? Of course I will. Deep down, I know I still love him, too. Deep down, I know that I could get these plants by myself. Deep down, I know that my temper stems from avoiding my feelings over him.
The mist floats above our heads as we meld with the landscape of the moor, not leaving its wild, ethereal confines until the lights of morning force us to return to our daily lives. We must leave behind the wonderful fantasy, crafted in the dark of the night, beneath the false mists of the moor, for cold cutting reality.
"I'll see you next year, Mateo," I whisper, standing up and pulling on my shirt.
"I'll see you tomorrow night, Pumpkin," he sighs, still on his back and looking up at the ceiling. I just shake my head.
"I'll see you tomorrow night, Mateo," I reply in a bit of a resigned voice, although joy tickles in my chest. I'm still playing the Games; you never stop. Now they're just political and personal. I can't stop myself. I can't show him how I really feel. I walk off, leaving him there, head tilted to the sky like a prissy queen, and when I get back to my room I cry until I can't cry anymore, until I fall asleep in a river of tears. No one helps me or comforts me, and I'm used to it. There's a war in my mind, and I can't get it out. I've had fifteen years to call a ceasefire, but I can't. I never will be able to, and it's all their fault. They know who they are.
In the land of Gods and Monsters
I was an Angel
Living in the garden of evil
Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed
Shining like a fiery beacon
You got that medicine I need
Fame, Liquor, Love give it to me slowly
Put your hands on my waist, do it softly
Me and God, we don't get along so now I sing
Libby Miles, 16
District Six Female
After dinner, I stumble out to the balcony that extends out from our hotel floor. It's long and made of sleek metal like the rest of the structure, and I collapse on one of the silvery lawn chairs. Its cushions are soft and puffy, chartreuse in color. They remind me of bile, and that just triggers a bunch of memories. Both Anaya and myself getting sick with the stomach flu when I was 6. I barfed all over the kitchen counter, and Anaya cleaned it up before puking herself. It would've been funny if it wasn't so disgusting. Bile bubbled in my stomach and crept up my throat at the funeral when I saw Anaya's unblemished body laying in the casket, and I fled from the room, unable to take another second. Bile, showering the alleyways where I desperately searched for a release. After I took my first hit of the dirty morphling the hoodlums in Six make, nothing compared to the fancy stuff the Capitolites use in their hospitals, I saw a guy overdose. His body kept having him regurgitate bile over and over to get the toxic substance out of his body, until he was convulsing, and then just shivering as his eyes glazed over. It was horrendous, so horrendous, but the needle had already bitten into my arm and I was on the hook. I couldn't step away.
So chartreuse isn't a preferred color of mine. I rip the pillows off of the reclining lawn chair, and I toss them off of the side of the building. I slide over to the edge of the terrace, watching in half fear, half exhilaration, as the pillows spiral down seven floors and land with a soft pump each on the sidewalk. It's high enough to break bones, to turn flesh into an oily paste, if one were to jump. My fingertips drum across the railing, and I close my eyes.
I could jump.
JUMP. Anaya's voice is cool and steely in my head. Ever since we got to the Capitol, she's been leaving me alone; the trauma of seeing a hundred thousand neon colored people begging to see my blood shed and being Reaped and leaving home has been enough, she hasn't had to taunt me as much. Her voice drives deeper into my head like a rusted nail, the hammer ramming into the head of it, choppy but irreversible as it buries itself in my consciousness.
JUMP. Anaya repeats, her voice raspy and quiet. Show them that you're not just the little sniveling bitch, Libby. Show them that you're not the mindless failure that you are. SHOW THEM. JUMP. Feel the wind hit your face, feel everything leave your mind, even me, before you collide. JUMP.
I'm not the strongest girl, but I have enough upper body strength to heave myself onto the railing. It's flat topped, a little slippery and made of smooth steel. I run my fingers across it, savoring the tingles that run up my arms from the cold. I can't do this. Isn't suicide more cowardly than dying in the Games?
Don't you want to be remembered, Libby, or do you just want to be another ex-addict from Six who can't make it past the Bloodbath?
"This isn't the right way," I murmur to her in reply, barely realizing that I'm talking to myself.
Nothing is the right way. Anaya's voice grinds into my head. Just get it over with. Die by your own accord, rather than theirs.
I've never been rebellious, really. Sure, no one loves the Capitol in Six, but we're not that rebellious really. We're too preoccupied with our addictions and our poverty. Those of us that are sober and rich have the Capitol to thank for their bounties, so they don't step out of line in fear of ending up on the street like so many of our citizens. I've never thought Oh, I wish I could kill a Capitolite, although I do really hate our neighborhood's Capitol Liaison. She's a total pervert. But anyway, I've never been that reckless girl who gets arrested and wants to show the institution that they should go to hell. I like to keep to myself.
But the idea of being free, of thwarting the impenetrable force known as the Capitol, is so alluring. That's why I let my feet dangle off of the balcony. That's why I let my sweaty palms make the metal slick until I'm sliding forward. That's why I let gravity wrap its eager arms around me as I near falling off of the railing.
The sliding doors whoosh open, and I twirl, falling off of the balcony and back onto the metal floor of it. Calla steps out, a joint held between her index and middle finger in her right hand. She sees we hunched over the railing, and she laughs uproariously, sitting down on the bare metal lawn chair.
"Thinking about suicide, bitch?" she cackles. You better be, Anaya yells in my head.
"Maybe," I hiss, narrowing my eyes at my apathetic Mentor. "If the pillows can fall, so can I."
"You're hilarious!" Calla chuckles. "One kid tried that four years ago. Remember? Orchard Callen from Eleven? She died. After that, they put up forcefields around the hotel. Things that weigh less than ten pounds can fall through. And you're really scrappy, honey, but you'd be launched right back onto this balcony, and all you would gain from the stupid experience would be a bruised tailbone and embarrassment once the media found out." Calla takes a drag from her joint.
Ask for a drag. Anaya peeps up, her voice shrill. Just one.
I slam my fist against my head, and Calla looks at me quizzically, taking another puff from her weed.
"You look messed up. Ever tried marijuana, girly?" Calla extends her arm, and the smoking joint is so close to my face I could lean forward and grab it with me teeth. I close my eyes. I shake my head slowly, and Calla's arm draws back. I can hear Anaya's voice bubbling up from her dark corner in the back of my mind, but I won't take it.
"JUST GET OUT!" I scream, pulling on my hair. Calla drops her joint, and it goes out. She swears and picks up the ruined weed, looking ticked. She looks at me, head cocked, and she just shakes her head slowly.
"I'm not going away. I have to at least try to Mentor you, bitch," Calla hisses.
"I'm not talking to you," I growl in response.
"Who you talking to? The voices in your head?" She giggles to herself, and I glare at her.
"Fuck off bitch," I snarl. "I suggest trying to jump off that balcony. With how insidious of a person you are, even a forcefield would let you plummet to your death." I snap up to my feet, opening the sliding door after getting there in one huge stride. Calla stands up, confused.
"Do you really have voices in your head?" she inquires.
"A voice," I bark. "And seriously, motherfucking fuck off, fucker." I step inside the expansive hotel floor, and I flee to my room, curling up on my bed when I get there. I lay awake for hours, keeping the tears at bay and staring at the ceiling, willing everything around me to explode and crumble.
It's only before I slip off to sleep that I realize something: Anaya hasn't spoken to me since I told her to go away three hours earlier, when I fled the balcony. How is that possible?! I'm too tired to keep thinking about it, however. I sneak off into the private recluse of my dreams, hoping for once that they won't be nightmares.
A/N: Wow. Like I had the basic idea for Pumpkin and Libby when I started writing these, but they got darker than I anticipated and a lot more fun to write XD I like writing angst and stuff that makes you think (Sorta like this I hope?) so this was really fun to do. I hope you enjoyed these two :)
Quick explanation! XD Jayce and Miriam are not named Mortem because they are doomed to die. They're named Mortem because one of Miriam's key components is her dying mother, and Jayce's character is based on how he's slowly dying and he has to make the most of the time he has left. So yeah. XD Hope that makes more sense?
OMG THANKS ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE NOMINATED ME FOR THE SYOT AWARDS ON THE SYOT ALLIANCE FORUM! :D It's seriously an honor to see people saying that I'm the best "new" SYOT author (I guess I am still new but I almost have a year of SYOT under my belt), as well as having the best story and being the best all around writer! It really means a lot, and I like knowing that people appreciate all the work I put into this story :)
Have your thoughts on either of these changed? Any thoughts on the story as a whole so far?
Also thanks for all of the reviews they're precious to me by the end of this we'll have broken 1,000 I know it
Trivia:
Pumpkin (1 pt.): What was the arena of the 21st Games? (inference from the word used many times to describe that section of the garden XD)
Libby (1 pt.): What is the name of the tribute who committed suicide four years prior?
Until Next Time,
Tracee