comforts of home // sunrise & siberite

The Games were imminent.

As more time passed and they inched closer and closer, I suppose one might've expected me to be more excited. I had been telling my friends and family back home for years that I was going to volunteer for the Games, prove myself and come out of it all alive, as the victor. Honestly, I'd always been so excited for it.

Still, there was a sense of nerves that didn't allow me to force them back down under the surface. I masked them well, yeah. Putting on a confident show for the other tributes and a charismatic demeanor for the sponsors and other onlookers wasn't hard. It's how I'd always navigated life. No one ever really got to see my soft side.

I was always that tough career kid. I had to be, since it wasn't like I had an impressive build or intimidating look to me in any regard. I had to prove myself in skill, strategy and charisma, since my natural stature didn't lend me much aid. So, I continued to put up that show here.

It was finally starting to get to me, though. I knew that my private training session had been a total flop. I'd been shit out of ideas when I finally got in there, telling myself everything good had already been done, and then ended up being basic as hell.

So now, I found myself sitting on the couch in District Two's lounge in the grand building of tribute housing attached to the training center. It was the middle of the night as I sank both into the couch and into my thoughts.

Was I starting to doubt myself?

Did Andesite doubt his abilities before the Games? Was that what had gotten him killed? Doubt, and even the smallest of hesitations that might come with it?

I had to keep my confidence. I couldn't let the mask slip.

"Hey," another person's voice, right next to me met my ears. "You doing okay?"

I turned my attention toward the voice: it was Sunrise, my District partner.

Don't slip up, Siber. Not now. Not in front of another tribute.

I gave my usual smile. It was a confident one, but still kind. The confident part was a lie, at least right then. I wasn't always the first person people approached, especially not with a concern like that. He wanted to know if I was okay.

Was I okay? No one had ever asked me that before, and as he did, I could feel the mask slipping. I wanted to tell him everything I'd been feeling, but I knew I couldn't, or at least that I shouldn't. People just asked if you were okay for an excuse to talk about themselves, right? That's what I'd always been taught. You're not supposed to open up. At least, not to someone you hardly know, even if they seem oh so familiar.

"Couldn't sleep," I said with a small, forced chuckle. It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth, because oh boy, there was so much more to it than that.

"I guess I'm just not really sure what to think right now," I admitted. That was as much as I felt I could tell him. Sunrise hadn't proven himself untrustworthy, but the opposite wasn't true either, and in the Hunger Games, one couldn't be too careful.

"How're you holding up?" I asked him. I meant it, too, for some reason. This person I hardly knew: it felt like I needed to talk to him. He was just so familiar. He felt like home, and sometimes I worried about my home.

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[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy] ]
[592 words]

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lyrics: "long live" by taylor swift