to the heat | {hannah/dustyn} | blitz

He was a boy with dirt on his shoes instead of blood on his hands and he was a boy who cried tears of sorrow when his name was called, not tears of joy. He was a boy who felt safe in the five a.m. light when the other souls still battled for rest and he could find solace in himself all alone.

He swallowed his courage with a silver spoon and ignored the bitter after taste. Ginger claimed they were totally fine but she handed them over with a question mark hanging in the air between the two of them and the mystery would go unwarranted and unanswered. He cough, cough, coughed as they entered his system and Ginger had smiled.

"In an hour's time, you'll be golden."

He would never be the golden boy, though. "Stay tough, stay gold," his father would lecture and he would grimace because how would he ever do that with hair like the moon and his eyes a pale gray? His soul was meant for silver, not gold.

However, he had never felt more alive than in the moments before his death. Blood and iron and adrenaline were a perfect cocktail to lead him into his kamikaze mission. He would have to ask Ginger for more before he went up into the arena.

The sun was starting to bathe the room in more natural lighting and he held his hands out to absorb the sun's embrace through the skylight and God, he may have come there to die but in moments like those, he only found himself dripping with life. Real life that made him yearn to prolong it. Maybe he would have it in him to fight after all. Maybe he would trade the dirty shoes in for bruised knuckles and a headstone for a crown because, no, he was not dead just yet.

He was not dead yet.

{table: zoe}

AND MY HOPES, THEY ARE HIGH
I MUST KEEP THEM SMALL
I TRY TO RESIST
BUT I STILL WANT IT ALL