anything you can do, i can do better [kael and esther]

One swing and I hear a door slam behind shut me.

Trees hang above us like a decorated canopy hanging on a thread just below the sky. Mild light is weeping from the sky and bathing me in what little warmth has begun to surface from the remnants of a devastating winter. Silence is fleeting and shattered, constantly pierced by the grunts of 'hard working lumbers' who were told to gather wood for the rebuilding process. Still, despite that, I feel completely alone in the tiny woods. I'm far from lost. In fact, I feel right at home. Tucked in between the trees, with no peacekeepers breathing down my neck, hacking and cutting at trees again is nostalgic.

Wielding an axe still feels as natural as it did last year. I didn't need to be told how to hold the wooden handle, or the stance I had to take when cutting it or the position of my hands. Everything just clicked together, like a jigsaw puzzle. The moment I stepped off that train the peacekeepers put an axe in my hand and told me to start hacking away at trees. Rebuilding would need to happen. A week ago I would have scoffed at the idea of holding an axe again (unless it was to cut off someone's fingers) but a lot of things can change in a week.

This is a prime example of how the mighty fall.

I would always sneer and scowl at the thought of a career district. A person who would never understand the feeling of abandonment, hard work or anything in between (I still feel it, sometimes I still feel the heavy weight of the sign hung across my neck) just the very notion of it makes my skin crawl. I suppose in that sense the tsunami is a godsend, teach them some humility at least, saved by the people they look down on; isn't that ironic?

I chuckle silently at my thought before grunting. My axe bites into the timber so effortlessly. I'm smiling at the dents I'm making. Pride won't let me admit it but I actually kind of miss this, to an extent that is. Back when I lived in an unrealistic dream that the typical day job straight life would work after seeing a stranger's fingers get severed from his hand. A naive dream that I wore like a crown on my dark curls for a good half a year.

A dream that ended the day the letter (that sits in my pocket to this day) found its way into my hands. Two doors slammed shut that day; they're called ignorance and naivety.

I love you, Kae.

A chill runs down my spine as I strike at the tree again, this time I censor the grunt. The door swings and slams shut again, I don't need the distraction. At least I'm making progress, unlike a lot of people around here. It's so true, looking at the tiny dents people have made in their trees when we've been working for almost an hour now it would be difficult to believe they're from District Seven; surely I must be some kind of anomaly. I wonder if they would be proud.

I swing and slam the door shut once again, I can't afford to think like that. After what feels like several hundred swings and thuds my tree looks almost ready topple. I stop and sigh, with no peacekeepers ready to shout at me if I slack, I feel a tiny (barely noticeable) break is in order. My free hand flies to my forehead and I wipe my brow, ignoring the fact it's turning so red from the friction.

In the corner of my eye I spot someone glance at me.

I hate that.

No reaction, I notice that it's a girl, quite a pretty girl at that. Long chestnut hair and pale skin. She's not anywhere near my size (only a few people were) but she's definitely a massive step-up from what I'm used to. The majority of girls look like they've ran into a brick wall one too many times.

Still, it seems she's only an outlier in the looks department because she's hasn't cut anywhere deep as I have. I've already made a judgement. She doesn't have the weight of fake abandonment hanging from her neck or a pocket full of the memories of a dead father. She probably doesn't feel the heavy ball and chain of the past against her ankle that comes with the rattles of the past that ring in my ears every single day.

That's why she's no better than everyone else here.

I laugh softly at her attempts at whatever she's trying to do. "What?" My question is careless and one-worded, light in the air but sharply directed at her. She doesn't know it yet, but I've already slammed the door in her face.

My question cuts through the air like a knife through soft paper. It hangs in the air, lingering and unmoving. I never knew what exactly to expect from this question, only an answer. Too many times I've had people gazing or looking at me for no real reason. Eyes of different shades and colours are a crystal clear memory.

The day I was dumped at that doorstep with the weight of abandonment around my ignorant neck. A door opened that day, a door to ignorance and fake promises. False hope was good at the time but that's what made it hurt all the more when that door slammed in my face. Glares and curious gazes stretched across my childhood, like a never ending roll of film. He's the boy that got left here by his parent, poor kid. Words (or variations of the sort) would accompany their stares. I was never told why she left, only the that she was gone. Given X but never given Y I was forced to endure the stares of other Summits but never quite know why.

Stella dying only made it worse. Suddenly the spotlight was on all the Summits right after a new door was slammed in our faces. The lighting to my path was the rows of curious glares and sympathetic gazes that sat in parallel to one another. Options closed by the slamming of the door, we bit the bullet and grudgingly followed the path set out before us by the stares.

The stares similar to this girl.

I'm left looking at her, analysing her every move. She doesn't look half bad, even when she's not exactly very happy. Probably because she's not exactly an intimidating person. I slammed the door in her face the moment I met her; I've never reopened it to anyone. People tend to be much prettier once I've slammed the door in their faces.

My eyes are narrowed on her, honed in and anticipating. I take in every detail, from the way her brow furrows to her dropping her axe. I'm breathing shallowly when she scowls and when she speaks it's like slicing tension with a pair of scissors. "I don't remember speaking to you, is there a reason you are questioning me?" She says, venom spat in my face I don't even recoil when it burns against my cheeks like acid.

She marches up to me and I don't even recoil.

It baffles me how she can be so angry even though I'm exactly the same sometimes (Kae, you are impulsive. Kae, you are abusive. Kae, I see through you now) which is funny because I should understand her the most by that logic. It's a shame that beneath all the equations, people and lies the one thing I've never quite understood to it's fullest has been myself. Doors after doors have been slammed before me but my book remains unscathed. How am I what I am?

Some things I look back on them and it just baffles me why I did the things I did (Kae, do you not think what you do before you do them?) and even now with hindsight I've never understood why. When I look back on this I've wonder why I don't even recoil when she's right in my face; at least as close as she can be to my face because she's pretty short. She looks like she want to start something.

"Perhaps you have an issue?" She asks me, venom dripping from her tongue. The door remains closed, I don't re-open it for anyone, even if they do have a pretty face and a feisty temper.

The door remains closed, perhaps that's why I'm still smiling.

"Issues?" I ask my voice a sharp spear in the glinting sunlight.

My face drops into a mockery of fear. "Oh, I'm so scared; please don't hurt me(!)" Fear's always been foreign to me. However, sarcasm's like an old friend.

There's a grey cloud forming over her head. Like an apparition it's slow to form, slow to move but solid nonetheless. A label, a weightless burden already formed over her from my own opinion and views of what she is. From the grey cloud it rains letters, letters falling around to bond and form a simple word.

Aggressive.

It doesn't matter what someone's intentions are, the moment you pull out sarcasm everything turns aggressive. Slamming the door shut, I expected her to turn away as if nothing happened, mumble something about mean boys and go back to her work. After all, she was the one that started it, whatever this is and I'm simply going along. I'm still standing straight, looking directly at her, my face still cracked by grins of sarcasm and mockery. I can't take her seriously, not when I slammed the door in her face a mere few seconds ago.

She can flash the word in my face all she wants but I won't flinch because I've seen it all. Dead parents hanging over my shoulders and a sign of abandonment digging into my neck nothing can make me flinch now any more. Especially not some stranger with a grey cloud and a ten letter word looming above her head.

She steps to me like a terrier. In the corner of my eye I spot her knuckle clenched, turning white as a ghost, all I can do is blink. Here we go again.

Her fist flies and I feel it connect with the bottom of my jaw. I swear, I feel her fingers creak and groan but I barely register it. My head snaps back with the force and weight of all my arrogance and indifference. The door was slammed shut but her fist punctures through the wood like it's nothing but paper. I hear ringing. A small grunt escapes my lips and I move back, my foot instinctively moving back to stop me from toppling right over like the pillar of lies and naivety that was built for myself a long time ago.

A cold fire rips through my veins. She just fucking punched me. The signs are all too familiar, the sudden force, my head snapping back, the dull pain throbbing in my jaw. I've experienced it hundreds of times. A policy of mine, when someone hits you you hit them back twice as hard. A personal policy, not taught to me by an overprotective father but years of experience and refusing to be pushed around. I can't remember the last time someone hit me first any more.

A dull throb pounds in my jaw like a drum. My fists clenched at me side I steady my gaze back to the overly-aggressive girl that just hit me in the jaw, ready to unleash a hurricane onto her to tear her cell from cell. I could kill her if I wanted to.

I numb at the sight of her leaning against the tree, clutching her hand to her chest like a broken toy. "FUUUUCK!" She screams. Cold fury fading away I internally at the thought that she's hurt herself. We share a similar pain, unknowingly bound in that way.

"You are such a puffed up ignorant asshole!" Her words are a blunt sword, hitting but failing at their purpose. If anything I'm more confused than hurt at this point. She doesn't even know me. Judged by a stranger, I hate that.

What baffles me even more are the waterfalls streaming down her cheeks from her eyes. If anything, I should be the one crying; after all, I'm the one she hit with all her force. "Its families like yours that make this world shit, fuck you, and everything that has to do with you!" She throws words of venom at me with all her force, but I don't even flinch when they burn into my cheeks. As if possessed by a ghoul she suddenly falls to her knees; she looks as if she's in breakdown's door.

She must know I'm a Summit.

A new dark cloud is forming above her head, this one forming quicker than the one before. The letters spelling aggressive dissipate, fading away like a shadow in the dark. New letters rain down, joining and forming to create a new word to label her.

Unstable- I take a mental note of that.

A whole new kind of annoyance fills me because I hate being judged by a stranger who attacked me without even knowing my name. I hate the six letter name that hangs on the back of mine and the curious stares and cautious glares that come with it. Nothing will beat the weight of abandonment that hung around my neck at six years old, I was too ignorant to notice it at the time but at sixteen it feels ready to snap me neck like a fragile twig.

I scowl and drop my axe, I don't need that for this. Two steps take me closer to her. "Firstly, you don't even know my first name," I begin, contempt dripping from my voice I won't allow her to get away with what she just did.

"Secondly, you don't know the first thing about me." I sneer before pausing, allowing it to sink in.

"You think you have it harder than everyone else? Well you don't, grow up," I pause, before adding my own personal touch, "so how about fuck you." I stop, just right.

I don't need to beat someone up to prove a point.