the dark savagery of it all {broke his glory} CBDP

The ever cascading dream world of hope and victory had crumbled the moment the worry-free escort had dropped my name from his over-dyed lips. The path that the demons had carved for my now clumsy feet was not a path of honor, but the one-way path the prisoner takes to their doom in the hands of their ever-just society. I had no glory here and the false assumption that I might make it out of this battle alive had cracked the minute the fiery brute of a girl woman from district six laid her eyes on me.

My soul of heart and dreams had faded into the monster of survival, but the company had swarmed upon my weakness like a pack of moths fly towards the shimmering light. If I was the light I would have lashed away, throwing their bodies with ease towards the cliffs as I made my escape into the wild, but it seemed that my senses had only one purpose left to feel.

Death and pain. My body grew slack as the blood flowed like water from its ripped shell. "EZRA!" I shouted, weakly, as they continued to ascend upon me. "EZRA, GET YOUR DAMN UNGRATEFUL BUTT OVER HERE AND HELP ME FIGHT THESE PEOPLE." But Ezra was stuck in his solitude and my voice had not carried to his statuesque ears. I couldn't shout for the help of our other comrade, Axel, because I had already helped assure his doom by the silent agreement I had made with his enemies. He was weak, after all, and weakness had no place upon the throne of champions.

Yet my heart fell and its liquid spurted onto their swords and stained their clothes. They covered me with their fear, with their survival, with their bloodlust and I was merely a pawn in this game of chess. I had fallen to their noble hands and they would march forward, my death merely an inconvenience.

I was forgotten to the world. I had forgotten myself, and I would remain lost for the rest of eternity. Nobody remembered those who fell at the beginning of the games, they had nothing significant to say and their deaths only deserved to be quick as the real gore began in the days to come. I became nothing as nothing became me.

"Ezra?" I whispered as my body crumbled backwards as if I was the forbidden cookie. The moths had left me now, left to claim their next victim as the life drained from my form. "Ezra, come home. Come home." The boy kneeled next to my fallen figure in a risky leap of faith, we could have been so much, and his shivering hands took my limp one and caressed it as I let the darkness come in waves.

"My cigar, Ezra..." I mumbled, and he placed the last reminder of home I had left. The home that never was my home, if I recalled correctly. Folded into the leafy shell of the roll of tobacco was a nub of a match, too small to be of any use in the arena. I lit it faithfully against my already tarred and feathered skin and held it to the shaking stick of my last hope, of my last relief.

"Go home, Ezra. Go home." I murmured as my hand lost his grasp and fell useless to my side. I inhaled the cigar before it fell, still burning, into the grass below me. He stamped it out before taking his flight from the fray and into chance below. I could feel my soul flying with him as my breath released and I slipped into my quickly darkening unconsciousness.

"Cassius!" The voice called out, more like sung as the pain dissipated from my blood as quickly as it had overtook me. "Cassius, wake up." My weary eyes grew heavy with slumber as I forced them apart to acknowledge the shouting voice. "W-What...?" I mumbled as I rolled from my bed and hit the ground with the solid force of one not yet fully awake. An angel greeted me, a guitar in her hand and laughter on her lips.

"I just wanted you to hear the song I have been learning before I leave for my lesson. Now wake up, you numskull, for you have slept far too long." The clock on the wall pointed to a number that had seemed convicting at the time...but my frail memory had lost its form as I focused only on the woman cloaked in white.

"Okay, shoot." I whispered as I pulled myself back to lean against the steady wall. The angel grinned and began to strum the sweetest melody upon her instrument.

Well I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth,
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

The memory faded but the music continued, and I wondered for a second if this is what heaven felt like. Yet Heaven would never be so pleasant, and all the wrongs I had committed would never lead me there. I was the wandering soul lost to the happy ending.

"You know, you really aren't as bad as they say, Cassius." She whispered again, this time in my ear as I held her in my arms as she shook in sorrow from her horrid day at the training center. The trainer had screamed at her to be more motivated, and she had lunged at him in an explosive rage so unlike her usually calm form. Their scuffle had left her with a cut lip and him with a black eye, and the screams she had received from our freak of a mother had left her shaking in my embrace. "You deserve more than that bitch lets on...I think you're going to go far in life. I think you're going to be happy."

Shhh. If only she could see me now.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

The drugs, they had tortured you ever since you had introduced them to your strengthening body in a weak attempt to distract yourself. You would never admit it to the world but the reason you had started smoking wasn't to look cool or for any sort of enjoyment, but as a punishment for the wrongs you had committed against them. All those nights you spent lusting after one girl or another, or the many moments where you had fantasized over the various ways you could squeeze the life out of the demon who had birthed and raised you.

You often questioned your relation to their monstrosity, but your cool-blooded thoughts were too much of a stark reminder of your blood-ties that you couldn't deny your genetics from them. Instead, you turned to your drugs and they turned you into a beast.

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor (you know)
I used to live alone before I knew you
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
and love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

You had lost all sense of yourself by now and it was only the deepest devil of them all that whispered to you, the devil of your heart, and he reminded you of your weakness.

You had once desired something more than this cold hug of crushing death. You had desired life and you had yearned for love. There was a time, long ago, where you had chased girls not for their bodies, but for their hearts. Where their whispers of love is what fed you and you had hoped to marry someday.

But then your demons had found this secret desire, and they had squished it into oblivion as they forced you to be the toughest son-of-a-bitch there ever was. But you failed that too, and now you lie unconscious, dying, DEAD, in a pool of your own blood. What have you done to yourself, Cassius? How have you fallen this hard and this fast?

Who are you?

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

You have slipped from your throne. And you have failed me. You have failed everyone and now you will fall into the pit of death. You have lost all of your glory, and you will never see it grace your name again. Your lips have no welcome, your body has no strength left at all, and you are a dead man.

You are forgotten.

You are lost.

...you are loved. and her cries are ringing across panem as we speak.

...you are dead...

and dead you will remain, forever.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

OOC: Permission previously obtained to abuse her character in this post. Now onto the important business!

Oh wow, where do I even start? So many people have helped me through the entirety of these games in order to keep me sane and motivated. I tend to freak out under pressure, but the calm rationality of the support I received while writing Cassius and tribsitting for Ezra is really what kept me pushing forward. I guess the first person I want to thank is North for all those late night chats and for welcoming into her alliance i'm sorry I died on you bb. All that midnight plots of revenge and talk of being sexybackhotwankers really made my time in the games soooo valuable, and I'm so grateful to you dear. I'm also grateful that you gave me the opportunity to tribsit for your beautiful, wonderful tribute. I really did want him to win and his death made my heart split in two. Thanks for being absolutely wonderful during these games. <3 Lots of thanks to Rook for being a great tutor and being awesomeeee. I also want to thank my super awesome mega foxy hot tribute sitters, Tristen and Matt for all their hard work at trying to keep Cassius alive. I appreciate you guys jumping in when I couldn't. Thanks to South and Nofo for running headfirst into the bloodbath with Cassius and helping him annihilate people before he died. Also thanks to you guys for helping keep Ezra alive when I was panicking about killing him when North wasn't around when his alliance turned from him. Thanks also to Clover and Meg for letting me into their alliance when I was tribsitting, even if you freaked out and tried to attack him lol. <3 Purty much anyone who helped me out when I was tribsitting I want to shower with gratitude and lurveee. Thank you Kale for letting me into your alliance as well even though I helped orchestrate your tributes death </3. Thanks to the wonderful Semper and Axel for their support and constant advice. And thank you to everyone who sponsored Cass or Ezra, who roleplayed with Cassius in the training center, and who waved their support for all the world to see (Especially you, Raseri). Thanks to everyone for making these games awesome! I hope I can write with everyone someday. <3


Word Count: 1663