{ light 'em up } Chime

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 10px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] To say I didn't understand anything anymore would be a lie, and a bad one at that. I understood perfectly well everything that happened. I could repeat back to you the lessons that we'd had all week, word for word, dropping, hushed voices and sad tones including into the list of "facts." If you could even call them that, the dramatized stories that the teachers were required to feed us as a curriculum. They were nothing like real facts, something solid and tangible. Instead they were meant to instil fear in the students and make them cowards. I would not stand for that. I would not be a coward. I couldn't be. I wasn't a Career, no, far from it even, but I wouldn't fear their Games. Not the ones inside an arena projected for the world, and certainly not the ones that were fought and lost right in our homes. They were poisoning us, bit by tiny bit. Switching their serums every so often to make sure we never became immune to their biting words, but still it was that same symptoms. The same blank expressions and small personalities, the fear to step outside of what they'd decided what was right. This wasn't school, it was a prison. The units we were required to take weren't made to get us anywhere, they just wanted to stick us into this constant loop, beating us relentlessly to fall, fall, fall. I'm tired of my teachers drowning me, but there's nothing I can do. "You have to go to school," they say, my father and mother and all of my brothers. They don't know, don't know how even the teacher avoids my eyes. I'm almost certain that even they don't know why they do it, their gazes flickering from my right side to my left, where Jacqueline usually sits. I took that seat beside her in every class we have together, to keep her close to my heart, within an arm's reach. I will not let harm come to her, will not let those blue eyes fade to grey. Not like mine have. But this is a class we don't share, one on the weapons used by the Capitol during the Rebellion. (But I know, I know it's so wrong, I know that you can kill an army with one hard look, she's told me stories and she knows best.)

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 10px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] If I had ever understood what I was doing, I don't anymore. I'm moving on a different wavelength, my mind telling me 'No, this is a bad idea, back out while you still can,' while smoke filled my head and told me to go, go, go. There's nothing safe about this entire idea, there's no way out. I refuse to runaway before a job gets done, and there's a huge chance of getting caught later. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or in a coupl of weeks. But I don't know what the punishment is for children who try to burn down schools in the District, schools that I'm sure the Capitol once paid for so they'd have somewhere to lock us away. Somewhere they could put us and never have to pay attention to again. The thought sickens me just enough to make me stay, to keep me safely rooted to the ground and not even think about backing off. Maybe it's partly the ethereal girl in front of me, the one with fire for hair and the same glimmer trapped in her eyes, under her skin. Maybe it has something to do with how she doesn't back down, but I know I shouldn't let it on that she's found a crack in my walls that I didn't know existed and she's chip, chip, chipping away at the bricks. "Honey, those few papers are only going to smoke. Besides, you should keep them, you might regret doing that, because no offence you don’t look like the type of girl that would do something like this." I can feel her words melt some of the ice in my veins and turn it to something that has laid dormant in me for years. The smoke filling my vision is poisoning my thoughts and making my head feel full, and I know that I should be afraid. That I should be warning her of what I might be able to do, but even I don't know and I want to find out. I want to see this prison go up in flames. I don't think I'd mind if some of the people were conveniently trapped inside, but I know not to say a thing. I know that's not normal, and that will have her running for help. For now, I need this girl and her experience, because I'm a child of the ocean and sparks have never been anything to me. But I want to watch them all burn. Deep breath, black air filling my lungs. I can feel it sticking to my insides. "So sorry, I didn't realize I was going to be running into a pyromaniac on this fine day. I'll make sure to come better prepared with actual kindling next time. Not that flimsy toilet paper is much better than my homework." Even sarcasm doesn't come through on my voice. It's all the same monotone that scrapes at even my own hearing, but I can never seem to copy the way other people speak with inflection and lilts. They'll never realize how lucky they are to show something simply by opening their mouths when I'm hollow inside and everything about me shows it, from the greyness of my eyes to the tips of my sand-white hair and the way my tongue doesn't seem to curve around vowels like they're things to cherish, but instead biting monstrosities that all deserve to be pushed out at once with no care at all. "And you can't see me past the flames in your eyes or you wouldn't be calling me anything sweet as sugar." My voice drawls on before I snap my jaw shut, clenching it tight for a second in a little punishment. I don't get the chance to go on anyways, my attention captivated by the oranges and reds not just crawling or climbing but exploding up into the air, the heat on my face suddenly becoming something I have to step away from. I'm a frozen girl and this is not what I'm made for. Some instinct that had never had a chance to creep out is telling me to run, to back away from the hungry flames and not look back until I was far enough away to not be suffocated by the smoke or hear the screams of the less unfortunate trapped inside of a collapsing dungeon, buried under lost battles and body counts. A new collection of dead to be added to the hundreds in the districts, this time dying for nothing but a prank. I wonder briefly how much it will take for the whole place to fall to the ground. Then I face the stranger, for nothing else can really explain this bizarre girl who really ought to have introduced herself before this, and flick my hair out of my eyes as if it'll help me see through the smoke. I dig through my bag for a second, and I know it probably looks like I'm searching for a way out. Or maybe something unimportant that I wouldn't mind sacrificing to the flames, but everything I own is an accumulation of useless scraps anyways. There's nothing that I've been given in class that I care enough about to risk my pride over, but she doesn't know that. My fingers clasp around a cool, metal bottle, and I pull it out with a twisted smile. "Cleaner for the boats. After school chores." I slosh the liquid inside, swirling it around as I stare at the damage so far. There's no way that the walls will really light up, not in a bathroom where everything's a disgusting sort of damp. For a second I wish I knew where the janitors put the cleaning supplies since dumping a bottle or two of rubbing alcohol on the floors and walls would bring the entire room down in minutes, and enough of a trail would have the hallways ablaze too. There's only enough in my bottle to keep the flames going, but after that even I know it's up to chance. Inanimate objects, no matter how they flickered and licked, didn't have a mind of their own. There was probably an equal probability for success and failure. I didn't want to fail, not when I was being watched. There would be no real second chance. Hell, there may be no more anything after this if I got caught. I uncapped the bottle in my hand and judged the carnage, hoping I wasn't misjudging as I gestured for the other girl to step back. I didn't want to do her any damage, not if I could help it. She was sharp-tongued, sure, but I kind of admired that in an odd way. It was refreshing to see someone with some real soul. Though not as refreshing as it was to step as close to the exit as I dared in case someone passed by and caught a glimpse of me, just in case something went wrong, and half-threw, half-splashed liquid all over the walls, turning the fire a strange mix of a blue brighter than the sky. Brighter than even the clearest river or the sporadic patches of unpolluted seas. A dazzling, unnatural colour that made me want to jump in the air and scream, my arm high in triumph as I watched the walls catch and smoulder where the flames licked. 'I won't let you win.' I don't know if the thoughts creeping into my mind are for her or for the tyrants who stuck me in this building. Either way I find it rather fitting that I - we, because I guess it is like that now - should burn the whole place down. Or at least as much as we can manage. I swallow my euphoria and ask her instead, "Better?" in a way that I hope makes it obvious that I already know that it is.

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 0px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] Through and through They want to walk all over you Run where they can't follow Wait underwater with me Swim 'til you're half asleep I know there's something wrong with me, I've known for ages. You can't ignore things like that, can't just shut off your mind to observing everyone around you and noticing time and time again that they all work differently than you do. Move differently, talk differently, laugh differently, smile with their hearts and their eyes and open up their souls to let the world in. To let anyone's curious fingers probe and touch and mess up all of their wiring. It's good that I'm different though. I don't want people digging around in my head and destroying everything I've worked so hard to build up. I'm stronger than all of them because I won't let anyone inside. The only thing I can do is swallow back the bile in my throat as other people spit out beautiful lies and tug on everyone's heartstrings, playing them like the delicate instruments brought back by Victors so they can show off to all of Panem. I am not a toy. I am not a skill to be acquired. I am not something to be tamed. The dancing flames tell me that, sing to me and whisper their heat over my skin, raising the hair on the back of my neck. For the first time in ages I don't feel like I'm burning from the inside out. I feel like I'm on fire from the outside in. I'm burning and so is this bathroom. Soon enough, the walls will be ash and everyone will be free from this disaster, if only for awhile. I feel something slide down my face as my eyelashes kept fluttering, kissing my cheeks before running away again, butterfly wings that were too afraid of my skin to touch down for long. I brought my hand up, feeling down the path to wipe away the foreign tear that had cleaned away some of the soot from my face, burnt dust or dry wall or maybe something that was put in these walls to poison us, some kind of mineral that was slowly choking the life from our lungs as we sat in our chairs and listened to the teachers ramble on and on about how we would all die. Stealing our breath and our health and with it our desire to even live, to fight for our families and our future children, something to numb the desire for rebellion. I wouldn't put them past making a poison like that, but if they had, they wouldn't have made it so easily washable. I wiped at the salty water on my face and hissed as I felt the streak dry before I could get it, the flames starving and gluttonous and running out of things to consume. I didn't realize she was looking at me until she was speaking, and I didn't realize how my chest was burning until I took too long to really hear her. The smoke was choking me, was probably choking us both. Whatever was in the cleaner made the air thicker, made the smoke darker and bit at my throat every time I tried to inhale. I follow her on somewhat shaky feet as my head starts to spin and the world tilts to the side, even though I stay upright, pretending that the walls are doused in venom that will eat into my skin and the floor will break if I lurch forwards. "Look, let’s get out of here before we burn ourselves and before some stupid teacher comes snooping. I don’t want to have to leave you behind when the teacher’s come calling for blood." The words bounce off the sides of my head before I get the chance to start to laugh, taking in more of the smoke as my body responds to how I'm shutting down and my legs suddenly itch to run. I don't let myself, don't let myself be weak in front of this stranger even as every hair stands on end. This is a District of pure air off salt water, refreshing and smelling like freedom and distant places that we'd never see, things that could take us and lands that we could build kingdoms on. Faraway castles that we could crown ourselves as queens. She's talking though and I'm still laughing, drunk on chemical flames. "I like you kid, what’s your name? I’m Evening, just call me Eva, everyone does." Her words don't register until her hand is around my wrist, and then we're running and I'm not sure why. Then the sound hits my ears, over our pounding feet and my thumping heart. I twist my hand to take her's in mine, tangling our fingers so that we can rule together, our coronation the echo of crackling flames and a teacher's enraged wails. I don't know if I whisper or shout or just say my name, can't tell anything except how any kind of voice scratches at my throat and seems to come up with puffs of ashes as my lungs try to remember how to breathe air that's almost clean. "Desdemona, but don't bother with all of that. Just call me Des." I want to scream it down the hallway so everybody knows. I want to carve it into every wall of this school and hope only those chunks survive while everything else crumbles. I want so badly to let everyone hear that I'm not one of their moulded corpses; that I won't be a wax model to be controlled. But I know that I can't. Not with Jackie to keep safe. She'll get out now. I know she will. She's probably not even here, already gone. She would have heard the hungry fire before we even set it. She would have known. She's somewhere far, far away, fleeing on her little rabbit feet and hiding away in her beautiful, broken mind. This whole building ought to collapse, fall right on all of their heads. They don't deserve to live. They're not District 4's future victors and survivors, they're going to die. Fall to a better Career or even worse, someone tiny and weak and teary-eyed as they plunge a knife through their spines. Nothing will come out of my home if they're what we're relying on for the spoils of another Games one. Sitting at a desk won't teach us all how to survive, it'll teach everyone why we shouldn't bother when the Capitol is always going to be at the top laughing in our faces. "You should have kept your lighter so we could burn every last support of this school and watch it crumble." She probably thinks I'm insane, and the thought makes me grin. She's right if she does. "They'll try to put it out, you know. They'll probably splash water on the walls and screech. I hope that was filled with grease and oil and it just spreads it. Let them explain if the whole place burns down like it should. Let it be their faults. It was always their fault anyways. If they taught anything worth knowing this wouldn't happen." I don't know why I'm talking, but for some reason, I can't stop. "If the whole place goes up in flames, you'll watch and wait with me, won't you, Eve? Or are you gonna ding-dong-ditch on me just when things get good?"

plot by cass and alecia
template and graphics by chime
faceclaim is miglė latušenkaitė
lyrics by the antlers

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 0px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] Through and through They want to walk all over you Run where they can't follow Wait underwater with me Swim 'til you're half asleep Something snaps within me but I can't for the life of me pinpoint just what it is or why it broke like string pulled taut for days. All I know is that suddenly I want to yell, that the yank on my arm is enough to have me whirling, to have my teeth clamp shut on the laughter that was bubbling out of me like blood from an open wound. This girl is not a goddess, isn't anything better than anyone else in this District, isn't someone to look up to or someone to hold any kind of esteem for. My head ran away as smoke crawled up the walls and flame devoured paint. The chemicals melted away my mind and left something ghastly behind, some mere whisper of proper thought that has kept me alive for so long. That has kept my sister and I safe from the prying eyes and the pushy voices of all those around us. The seconds in which I lost myself were the most dangerous in which I've ever lived, but she's tethered me back to this world and all it has broken. My heart stops pounding in my chest and I lift my chin with the dead expression I've come so used to wearing, hollow sockets where my eyes should be and lips sewn tight around the screams of my dying brother. A mouth that knows how to stay shut against the darkest of secrets. My laughter is a foreign echo around the room, a horrible reminder of my slip into a land of giggles and carelessness, of something as free as the shattered things that escaped as chemicals doused the walls of the bathroom and sparked it all up in flames. Whatever I was thinking to be so foolish, I'm glad it has disappeared just as quickly as it came. Even if my fingers still itch to see the place burn down. Now I know to be quiet, and more than that know better than to ally myself with a strange girl whose eyes dance with reflected destruction. Looking at her now, the bewitching crackle of fire loosens its grip on me, and as it falls away so does her enchanting challenges. "Let’s get this straight, Des. My name is Evening or Eva, it is not Eve. I’m warning you this time, but if you call me that again I will punch you in the face." I feel my lips turn up into a skeleton's smirk at her threat. She still has spirit, even if she's lost whatever respect I'd had for her. She's still better than the ghosts that haunt these halls, doing what they're told and crying when they're scolded by people who never deserved their obedience. She's not disciplined, not house-trained, not another marionette strung up on spider-silk strings, dancing around for the teachers and Peacekeepers and Capitol representatives to clap for. But that doesn't make her good enough to be allowed to speak to me like that. "I don’t ditch. But you would not know that, seeing as this is probably the first time you have burned anything. We aren’t staying here. You might welcome the idea of finding yourself tied to a post being whipped, but I do not. But if you don’t want to come with me then don’t. I am going home and getting some more shit to burn something else." "She was belittling me?" I almost felt another laugh threaten to build in my chest at the simple idea of it. I was used to many things. Glares, suspicious looks, cowering. A strange, questioning expression that I often found on my parents' face, as if they couldn't quite figure out if I was really their's, or if maybe I'd been switched at birth with some kind of faerie changeling who hid retractable claws on the ends of her pretty little hands and razor-edged wings under her raggedy dresses. Being spoken down to was not something that I knew. It was not something that I had experienced, nor was it something that I wanted to become familiar with. For a second, red threatens to swallow my vision whole and turn me into something disastrous, but I can stay calm. I can play. Deep breath. "Slip of the tongue." I'm not quite sure if it's a lie or not, or even if it matters if it was. The truth of it is that I wasn't paying much attention to what I was saying at all. Then, for good measure, I add in a drawl, "Eva." If she's so particular, it doesn't matter. I couldn't care less what people decided to call me, but every one must have their little sore points. If her's was based on a misplaced vowel, then so be it. I had better things to worry about. "You obviously just don't know how to not get caught," I replied with a shrug, looking around at the hall. I can't hear footsteps after us yet, but I know they'll follow soon. There's no way the entire place will go up, not when the teachers have already seen the damage done and must by now have it at least partially out. The rest of the students would probably be stuck in their classes, waiting patiently in their faceless rows, staring at a chalkboard filled with facts that they've always known. They'd be better off with a prison sentence. I can't help but think that maybe if the Peacekeepers did come after me and decide to try and break me that maybe then they'd finally get it. They'd finally understand that I'm beyond their realm, beyond the ties of their control. Maybe then they'll stop trying to force me into their moulds. A part of me wants to leave, wants to claw at my eyes until tears are running down my face, want to fall like a blubbering mess at a teacher's feet and explain how I'd seen her in the washrooms, how she'd savagely trapped me and made me watch her set papers and books and everything in between on fire with a few sparks and a splash of fluid. Make up a story spun from the sweetest of lies, peg it on a girl who might be just as broken as I am. Teach her a lesson for speaking to me as if I was anything less than her, as if I could just be deftly waved away and underestimated based on such petty things as experience. I've never needed to be a pyro to get a few kicks. I've been happy as a dead girl walking with a precious secret. Or at least as close to happy as I need to be. Still, despite how her voice is grating against my skin, something close to curiosity itches at me and I can't help but ask, "What else is left?"

plot by cass and alecia
template and graphics by chime
faceclaim is miglė latušenkaitė
lyrics by the antlers