Wiggling, Flailing, Flying, Shaking [Reyes/Tumnus]

I've slept well for a few hours despite the rabbit, and now I can't get a moment's rest. When the anthem pops up, it's so goddamn loud even my thoughts are drowned out. I'm hyper-aware of everything now, and I kind of wish I was still tired.. still numb. When I'm tired, the thoughts come slower than usual and everything shuts down except for instinct, like I'm not even a person. My head will be on a swivel and I'll be watching my back and looking for dust flying up in the presence of dangers, but other than that I mostly breathe. Inhale, exhale, look around, step. Not too bad. But now.. now I can't shut anything off.

"Am I a person?" I wonder aloud. "Am I a mutt, Capitol? Have you sent me here to be a half-human mutt?" I ask, lifting my head up to view the glass surrounding me. Not half human, though. If they've sent me here to be a mutt, I'm something with a walking, talking, human shell. Somewhere along the line, I lost myself.

A spark of this newfound energy pulls at my limbs. I'm torn between shaking and dancing, and maybe I haven't lost myself entirely. The tips of my fingers wiggle first, flailing in a lazy dance, but then it spreads. My wrists fling themselves, back, forth, and then my elbows. My forearms fly. I raise my arms up into the air and I yell, because I can't help myself, and my legs start up in the movement. My toes, though squished tight into my cleats, become free, clinging to whatever freedom they can within the confines of my socks and shoes. Then my feet are moving and I don't notice the toes anymore, and my knees sway back and forth, and then my ass, and damn it I'm dancing. I shake, flail, fly, dance wildly. My feet trace circles around the place where I slept, where the anthem woke me.

I yell as I fly about. "KILL ME." I flip my chin up to the sky and toss my hair, but the energy is leaving me and the shaking is slowing down.

"WHY LET ME LIVE SO LONG IF I'M GOING TO DIE ANYWAYS?" I know I've wondered this before, a few days back, when there was a sliver of my being left. But now I wonder more.

"KILL ME, OR KILL THEM."

"What am I doing?" I ask myself silently, as everything stops. But I don't care, and I'm allowed this. I'm allowed to .. to .. okay, still not sure what I'm doing.

I'm a mutt. I'm not a human. My next words spring through my lips in a quiet snarl, because I'm not a person and I'm already dead.

"Why let me suffer?"

Nobody answers, and the movement has stopped, so I kick at the sand and pick up my bag. Probably wasn't going to sleep anyways, so I dig out my water jug and gulp the water until it's empty. Sweat falls down my forehead, but the coolness of the water helps a bit. I dump what I don't drink onto my face and rub at the dirt and sand that's accumulated there, for the cameras. Doubt anyone still looks any good on Day 6, but you never know.

It's early, too early, but the rest from yesterday was almost too much. I trek through the sand until I reach a tower, but the sand is still slowly raising itself up. The dance drained me only a little; it left me with a shiver and an uneasiness which I haven't been able to shake for years. I close my eyes, try to block out everything, but it doesn't work.

At this point, I want a fight. I don't want to think about home or dying or love or loneliness or friends or the Gamemakers. I want the instinct back. The numbness. Sitting here outside the tower doesn't help -- I can't enter yet. It's not time.

Hours tick on by, and I can feel every second. The dancing in my fingers starts again, but I shut it off. They'll think I'm crazy. The passion from before is gone, so at least this time I don't sound like a lunatic when I open my mouth.

"Hi." These words don't come easily, so I stumble over them for a few seconds. "Everyone. The Capitol. Mom. Dad. Anyone who cares, I guess."

I pause and close my eyes.

"I don't know. I ... "

These sounds that come from my lips are raspy, and they sound like death, and I don't like it. I don't like being dead.

"You're all a bunch of fucks and I hope you die in a ditch for never letting me live in the first place."

Saying it doesn't make me feel any better, so I shut up and wait for the sand to lift up.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally, the floor is there as the sun peaks up, and my eyes widen. Something to distract me! I pick up my backpack and the flying is back, but this is a different kind of flight. Not one of a last dance, but one of excitement and hope, if it still exists. My feet touch the ground of the tower floor, and all around me, everywhere I look..

The earth shines.



[He drinks water]