choose life | Ingran/Ronnie

Dull thoughts.

Angel's face sticks out in my head like a cut. Livid, it lives behind my eyelids when I shut them. I haven't ever had a problem with getting someone out of my head before but his face in the training centre said something his words didn't. I try to think of the last time someone had actually been attached to me and I can't. Not even my parents would have given a shit if I'd volunteered. If they were still alive then they wouldn't have noticed.

I stare at the wall, no interest in the room full of people behind my back. If someone wanted to, they could try stabbing me between my shoulder blades. I only wear a t-shirt for protection and my mind wanders. I consider what that might feel like, to get a blade there. I've never gotten a blade in my back before, people have tried though. I've been stabbed in other spots, like my leg that one time I was pushing my knee into that girl's throat. She'd wanted to live badly I guess so she'd plunged it into my thigh. I think if someone stabbed me there though I might die.

I eat a mouthful of rice, listening for the whistle of a blade. None comes.

Some cokehead wanders into view, shirtless and sweating, tray piled with meat. I'm not sure what he intends to do with it, he'll only throw it up later. He seems to be beginning withdrawal. I wonder why he'd volunteer. I guess he didn't know that there was no cocaine in the games. I peg him for an idiot. Fodder.

I have a rule that no one approaches me while I'm eating. Back in Six I stabbed an ally in his gut for interrupting my morning coffee. I didn't kill him. I allowed him medical assistance.

He didn't bother me again.

I wrap my hand around my knife, the dullness of it a disappointment. It'd be harder to gut this fool. Not as impossible as one might think.

I know what he's asking for and I have it already.

I eat another mouthful of rice and stare at him, listening still for the motion of a knife trying to plunge itself into my back.

"If I do?"