Short chapter since I felt lazy.
Shinju Matsushita- Heart of Darkness D3F
The thing about reincarnation was, if you were an entirely new person, how was it really still you? I'd been cloned like everyone else here, but I'd definitely undergone the largest internal transformation. I couldn't even wrap my head around it. There were people like me who were born bad. I didn't know if it was genetics or early childhood brain trauma or what, but there were people like me who, in the absence of any clear reason, killed people. People like that didn't stop. I'd never heard of someone like me who killed people when they were little and just stopped.
It wasn't fun anymore. I mostly stopped killing because I admitted it was wrong, but it blew my mind how it wasn't fun anymore. I could say something like Lyte got into my head and showed me people have value, but it was so simplistic. What a slap in the face to all the other people I'd known in life to say that they were never worthwhile but Lyte was just the CHOSEN ONE who showed me a better way. It seemed so glib to say one single moment could change someone like that. It wasn't like in movies, where someone asked an armor-piercing question and suddenly a person changed their entire worldview. It must have been I already had the capacity for change before I met Lyte, but why hadn't anyone else triggered it? Why had I been so content to kill them like they were nothing more than flies, even the ones who had been nice to me?
That was what I really couldn't work through, when I got down to it. I was different now, but now wasn't then. No matter how much I changed, it would never help the people I killed. What business did I have trying to stay alive? All my victims had done the same thing. How could I say I should be alive when they weren't? My youngest victim was seven. I still remembered her face. How could I forget? She'd been missing her front tooth. God, her baby teeth were still falling out. That would always be with me. You could change who you wanted to be, but you could never, ever change what you'd done.
I couldn't talk about things like this with Lyte. Somehow I thought he'd still love me, but there were things he shouldn't have to think about. If I went to him I'd get support and probably some advice on how to heal and get over it. I didn't think I deserved to heal. Ada wouldn't heal. Ada's bones were moldering in a tiny, tiny coffin, and they always would be. He thought I was worth something. I wanted him to keep thinking it, so I would never tell him about this. How can you say you've changed when you've heard the noises a second-grader makes? People could say they were 'a different person', but I knew it was a lie. It wasn't some other person that did this. It was me. I might not recognize the person I remembered, but somehow, we were both me.
"It's souls that matter," Lyte would say. "Souls are permanent". I'd torn mine to shreds, and that was permanent, too. I'd changed, and it was for real, but I'd written things on my soul. If I won, I wanted to put good into the world, to counter all I'd done. It would never be the same good, though. It would never heal what I'd broken. I believed in justice, and it was just that I would always live with that.
Gizmo Torrens- Power to the People D3M
Nubu hadn't come to see me. I wished I could say it was because he'd given up on me. No, I knew that wasn't true. I hadn't seen him since I'd woken up, and I knew exactly why I felt the guilty shadow across me. Nubu thought I would come to him. He didn't want to push me. He had faith that I'd come to him when I was ready. He thought it would be like the old days, and sure I was having a harder time than he had, but I wasn't a bad person. I'd come. He just had to be patient and keep the faith.
I wasn't going back to Nubu. I was glad he'd been able to get himself out. It was a treasure to me that he hadn't had to change. He was one of the lucky ones- the ones who found their way home without sacrificing everything. Well, I wasn't one of them. If I wanted to survive, I had to be like most of the Victors- I had to throw off everything else, even the things some people would say made life worth living. No, I was going to have to kill. Not just the people who tried to kill me. Anyone who was stronger than me, I had to hunt down and I had to kill. The choice had been easy for me. Truth be told, I didn't regret it. That was the reason I would never go see Nubu. Let him think I made a mistake. He didn't need to know I knew exactly what I was choosing.
Biological warfare was so heinous most countries wouldn't even use it on their enemies. It was one of the biggest reasons the Capitol won during the rebellion. Morale falls pretty quickly when your family's skin peels off as you all try to find some way to stop breathing the air around you. But it won the war, and the Capitol fighters stayed alive. Before then, these things had been best left behind in history books. History always repeats itself. Everyone says they live in the most enlightened time in history, and everyone is wrong. We've never been enlightened. We've just become more efficient.
Most people knew about mixing bleach and ammonia. What some people didn't know, and what I hadn't known until I'd asked the assistant to confirm, was that really you only needed the bleach. There was enough ammonia in urine to complete the mix. Just piss on a puddle of bleach and you can turn a room into a gas chamber. I didn't need to run the experiment. I already knew the outcome. Some part of me just wanted to see.
I poured the ammonia into the bleach, using the provided beakers rather than the natural method. It looked like I hadn't done anything at all. The clear liquid lay in the bottom of the black plastic bucket. I wouldn't even have known it wasn't water if it wasn't for the smell. The sharp, acrid smell grew as the chemicals bound and reacted in ways I understood but couldn't see. I took a step back as the smell got too sharp. The assistant had set up a fan beforehand, and it quickly kicked on to funnel the fumes toward a purifier. I stood there perhaps a little too close, my eyes watering as I contemplated. It was death, there in the bucket. Anyone who stood too close would feel their lungs start to burn as the gas wormed its way inside their bodies. They would cough, trying to expel it, and they'd suck more in. Their eyes would scald, their head would ache, and then they'd fall over and they'd die, burning up from the inside out. This was far from the worst thing I could make. A long time ago I'd read an account of mustard gas. They didn't die right away. I'd always remember there was enough time that the defenders, seeing the pockmarked, partially-skinned soldiers stumbling toward them, called it "the attack of the dead men".
Jezzebel Fern- Descent into Madness D7F
It was really embarrassing, honestly. I almost couldn't go through with it until I reminded myself that therapists had to not tell anyone.
"What can I help you with today?" Dr. Moreau asked in that placid and soothing voice therapists use, like you're a deer they're worried they might spook away. It was especially annoying for me because of the reason I'd come.
"You know flight and fight and all that?" I asked.
"Yes," Dr. Moreau said soothingly.
"Can you change yours?" I asked. "Like if mine was..." I gritted my teeth and got it out. "Freeze?"
"You don't have to be ashamed. Freezing is a valid response with real benefits," Dr. Moreau said.
"Not in the Bloodbath," I reminded her, politely refraining from rolling my eyes. It was nice she wanted to spare my feelings, but personally I was more focused on sparing my skin. "It's not so much 'freeze' as 'panic', to be honest. Anyway, is there a way to not panic?"
Dr. Moreau leaned back in her sterile-looking white chair. "There are a few approaches," she said. "Grounding exercises are beneficial from a wider perspective. For more tailored fears, the gold standard is exposure therapy."
"Exposure therapy?" I could see in Dr. Moreau's eyes that she didn't think I understood her correctly. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to sit through her compassionate and very indirect lessons.
"You want what now?" Sequoia asked after I explained it to her.
"Trust me," I pleaded. "Just let me try it, anyway."
I couldn't be mad at Sequoia. She followed my request with the utmost skill. I'd spent the last two nights sleeping with one eye open, expecting her to jump me in the dead of night. But no, I was just wrapping myself in a towel when an air horn blasted deafeningly into the bathroom. I turned around just as Sequoia burst through the door, jumping at me with a knife in hand.
To my horror and disgust, for a split second, I froze. Maybe I had good enough reflexes, or maybe Sequoia gave me a tiny grace period, but just before she was about to stab me to death, I decided any action was better than none and did the first thing I could think of: threw my towel over her face. I darted past her as she pulled it off and dove behind a couch, coming up with a fragile-looking vase, prepared to fight for my naked life.
Sequoia cackled as she threw my towel back at me. I swatted at it, still pumped with adrenaline, then collected myself and covered up.
"Feel more prepared now?" Sequoia hooted. "Good heavens I'm lucky the camera guy didn't sound an alarm. Good to know we're safe from intruders, am I right?"
That went better than expected, I dare say. Maybe it was the anticipation. Maybe it was the breathing exercises I'd tried out. Either way, I'd gotten over my fear far faster this time. I couldn't say it would stay the same in the Arena, but it seemed to be helping.
"So you want me to do that like a dozen more times before the Games?" Sequoia asked with a smirk. "Because I think we both know your answer doesn't matter."