X. Unrecognizable
86th Hunger Games
The wind howled against the inky blackness of the night. Thunderous rain poured out from the sky, and it looked like it would tear itself apart. Lysander found shelter in a cave just within its mouth. The dancing flames reached out a offered a small sanctuary of light and warmth against the vicious and frigid dark. Lysander reached out his blood-soaked hand, the rain washing way to the dirt forming a small trickling river. He brought the hand up to his eyes, and as he observed it seemed unfamiliar.
Clean.
It was more authentic when it was drenched in crimson.
Lysander's eyes then jumped to his other hand - a familiar honest red. He knew that the rest of him would be much the same. The markings of a blood-soaked warrior. The creature that was now.
With any luck the storm would pass in the night. So he could go back to doing what he was meant to do. What he was made for. Lysander gazed into the flames finding a long-sought-after comfort in their erratic dance, such fleeting and free things there were, how strange and unfamiliar.
A boy sat at a table, a candle beside him, dark surrounding him. He's drawing something in a scrapbook. Smiling.
Lysander did recognize the boy. It was not anyone he knew, The Institute rarely allowed time for such activities. In the Institute one must strive to focus on their duty and their purpose.
The boy blew out the candle, leaving only darkness.
A strange fleeting vision, tormenting him the crucial moment, the very moment where he must maintain focus and prepare himself to finish things. To walk down the chosen path its final victorious ending. A twisted machination of his last shreds of doubt that was capable of achieving victory. It would not succeed for he could easily see from it trickery. His mind could not be twisted.
A boy, the same boy, gazed out at the sunset as he slowly sunk below the horizon, beside someone else. A friend perhaps. They are both smiling.
Lysander retreated with himself searching for the part of him that had conjured up these illusions so that he could exile it. But he he could not find, whatever part of him it was, if even a part of him had hidden itself well.
The sun sinks bean the horizon and suddenly dark covers the sky. The boy and his friend disappear with the light.
That's because there was nothing to find. It was…the flames with their hypnotic dance spitting out light in a futile attempt to illuminate the dark. He should pull himself away, the bare rockface of the cave's walls would provide better company.
"Lysander." another boy says "What did you think lies out there?"
"Outwhere? 'Lysander' replies. "The wilds?"
"Out Beyond Two." The other boy answers
Darkness overcomes the scene once more. 'Lysnader's' answer became but a muffled whisper.
So the illusions have evolved, naming giving its conjurations his name, trying to lure him in. But it did not matter, he could not be deceived, so let the illusion keep on using his name, for would do it no good for he could see its tricks for what they were. Lysander pulled himself from the fire's grasp, eyes now firmly fixed on the grey and unchaining rock.
It is a bright summer's day, the sun shines and not a cloud blemishes the blue sky. A boy runs through the village square. The same boy as the before. Just behind his friend from the sunset chases after him.
"Pax, Pax. You can't catch me, Pax," he teases playfully
How strange he could recall having a friend named Pax as well.