Ring Ring, Mother Crustacean {Marcus & Sage} Day 3

Normally, Sage wasn’t one to laugh at the pain of others, but seeing as Marcus had already done it to him at least once, he didn’t think twice about doing the same. As the Lobster Telephone had latched itself to Sage’s back, his ally burst into laughter. Though, that laughter ceased as another one of the creatures made its home on Marcus’s leg. Instead, the laughter began to make its way out of Sage’s chest instead. The boy actually found Marcus’s reaction to it all quite humorous. It had been quite a while since Sage had laughed, and he certainly hadn’t done so in the arena since now, so maybe this was good for him.
“Sorry man, but I guess that’s what you get for laughing!” joked Sage. When his ally called the lobster a ‘crusty crustacean’, however, this only made his laughter continue to spill out of his lungs. As Marcus chilled out, Sage stopped his laughter, but still had a grin plastered on his face.

“At least the pain isn’t too bad, eh?” his ally questioned. Sage nodded. Marcus was right. It was much less painful than he had thought it would end up being. “They aren’t too bad, I guess. Maybe later they’ll fall off and they could potentially be food. Now if only we could find some water.”

Sage agreed. They definitely needed some water soon. After all, when Sage drew a water jug, it just turned out to be full of tar. That was when he had the thought to empty it. Perhaps if he could get all of the goopy, sticky tar out, they could get some water in it when they found some. Therefore, Sage took out his water jug and unscrewed the top, tipping the container upside down to let the tar start seeping out on its own.
“It’s going to take a while, but when this sucker is empty, we should be able to fill it with water if we find any,” the boy said.

That was when something a bit odd happened; Sage could hear the ringing of a telephone coming from behind him. It was coming from the telephone attached to the lobster that had made its home on his back only moments before. Raising an eyebrow, Sage looked at Marcus.

“I’m gonna answer it,” he said. Then, reaching around behind him, he took the phone off of the receiver and spoke into it.

“Hello? This is Sage. If anyone is there, please don’t murder me,” he gave a nervous laugh and hoped that there wasn’t going to be anything reaching through the phone to kill him. Then, he heard a voice from the other end.

"Salome. Uhhhhh..." the other voice said. Sage recognized the name, Salome, to be that of another tribute. Shrieking could be heard in the background of the phone call, and then the girl spoke again. What she said, though, seemed quite odd. "Kind of being chased by butterflies... how are you?"

Butterflies? Sage wondered to himself. It really sounded odd to him to be running from butterflies, but perhaps they were vicious.

"Butterflies? Never mind, uhm... I'm okay. Have you seen Seth anywhere?" Sage said in response, still quite confused about how the butterflies could possibly be so bad that shrieking and running was needed.

The other voice responded again, "Seth? Seth..." there was another pause, followed by more shrieking. Whomever Salome was, she didn't seem to know who Sage was talking about. At least that likely meant he wasn't being chased by butterflies as well. "Mmmm. I don't think so. Where are you?" This girl seemed surprisingly calm for being chased by killer bugs.

Sage had to think for a moment. Where exactly was he? He wasn't sure. Unsure of quite what to say, he tried to wrap up the phone call, grateful that he wasn't in the same
situation as her.

"Uhm... not quite sure, but I'm not being chased by any butterflies. Should I leave you to that?" he said to her.

"Oh yeah. I should probably get back to that. Nice talking to you!" was the response. It was almost as if Salome had forgotten she was running for her life.

"Right..." he said with a short pause. "Stay safe, I guess." Then, he hung up the phone on his back once more, looked at Marcus and shrugged. Things were just getting weirder.

A bit jealous of his ally when it was revealed that his water jug contained chicken broth and not tar like Sage's, the boy decided he still needed to remain polite. After all, whenever he'd said something even remotely rude to Marcus, the guy looked like he wanted to murder him. He tried his best to avoid this the next time he spoke. Marcus had killed someone already, and Sage didn't want to be the next victim. Being killed by an ally certainly wasn't the way he wanted to go.

"Luck of the draw, I guess," he said, trying his best not to sound disappointed.

When Sage had hung up from the rather strange phone conversation with Salome, Marcus asked him if Seth was there and how he was doing. Sage's heart skipped a beat when he remembered how close Marcus and Seth were. They were like he and Affron were, so Sage was sure that Marcus was worried about Seth's well being. Unfortunately, Sage would not be bringing any news about the other boy. Though, at least he wouldn't be bringing any bad news.

"It wasn't Seth. I'm sorry, man, but we still don't know where he is," Sage informed his ally with regret. He hated not being able to bring any positive information, or any valuable information at all, for that matter, to the conversation. Now Sage just had to hope that Marcus wasn't going to murder him for now bringing the news he wanted to hear. He'd be reasonable, right? The boy hoped so.

Finally having worked all of the tar out of his water jug, the boy put it away into his bag again. It was at least usable now, in case they actually did come across a water source later. For now, though, Sage knew they needed food as well. Since Marcus had chicken broth, Sage took out a crayon from his bag and drew something for himself. He wasn't sure what to draw at first until he read the name of his crayon. Granny Smith Apple. This helped him determine that he would draw just that, an apple. Using the crayon, he draw the simple shape of the apple and added the stem at the top. It popped off of the ground and he picked it up.

"Thank Ripred for these crayons," he muttered to himself. Then, he glanced at Marcus again.

"I'm really sorry we don't know where Seth is, man. I'll help you find him if I can, though, okay?" he said to his ally. Sage genuinely wanted to help Marcus, but he wasn't sure if that help was wanted in return.

When a cannon sounded, Sage almost had the cruel, slight wish that it had signaled Marcus's death; that the boy had just dropped dead while sitting next to him. It wasn't him, though, and they had no way of really knowing who it was quite yet. Regardless of whomever this victim of death was, Sage didn't care. It wasn't him, meaning he got to live longer. Shifting his gaze to Marcus again, he was really starting to get annoyed with him, but knew he couldn't do anything about it, or at least that he shouldn't. As his ally assured him that he was fine, and that it was fine that Seth was still missing, Sage nodded.

Fine. If he doesn't care anymore, I won't try to help, he thought to himself. Drumming his fingers on his leg, Sage looked off into the distance and thought to himself for a little bit. A variety of things were flowing through his mind like streams of wonder and curiosity. Was Parsley watching? Did she think he'd make it home? What did his cousins, Rosemary and Thyme, think of the Games so far? Did they believe in his abilities to win? They hadn't even visited him in the Justice Building, so he doubted it. Yes, they were close, but apparently not close enough for what may have been a final goodbye. He tried to rack his brain for the last things he's said to each of them.

The last time that Sage had seen his cousins was on his sixteenth birthday a few months back. He's received gifts from each of them, surprisingly. It was 'surprisingly' due to the fact that they were just about as short on money as the other Scarboroughs; he and his sister Parsley. They'd been kind enough to present him with a new shirt and a loaf of bread, which made him very grateful. He could remember embracing each of them in a hug. When they left, they said goodbye. That was when he recalled what the last words each of them said to him were.

"Love you, Sage. We'll see you guys soon, okay?" Thyme had said.

That made him feel guilt; they weren't going to see each other again soon, if ever again at all. Though, the words he remembered that really pained him were from Rosemary.

"Just wait until you turn nineteen! No more reaping! We'll definitely have to celebrate that. I'll try to come visit after the next reaping, okay? We can all enjoy some time together again to celebrate our safety," she had told him. Though, they most likely wouldn't even get the change to celebrate his nineteenth birthday. After all, he hadn't even gotten that post-reaping visit, and it was all his fault. He had volunteered.

Realizing he had zoned out for a bit, Sage snapped himself back into reality, and glanced at Marcus again. He must think I'm really messed up. The feeling is kind of mutual, though he doesn't need to know that, he mentally told himself.

"Alright. Fine. I'll just shut up about him. Sorry," Sage said. He tried his best to not sound rude, but a little bit of a harsh tone seeped through into his words. He managed to make his tone a bit more polite for the next thing he said, though. "Let's just do what we have to to stay alive, and try not to murder each other quite yet."

After his disagreement with Marcus, Sage didn't plan on saying anything else. Though, there wasn't much he could do to restrain himself when the scythe he had in his hand started melting into wax like his sword had done to day before. He immediately let go of the item as it started to lose its form. Now, the boy was getting quite frustrated. After all, he hadn't even gotten the chance to use it. Trying to remain calm, he walked away from the now present black puddle of wax.

"Well, shit..." he said a bit more loudly than he had expected to. He didn't even know what to draw at this point. Sighing, he reached into his bag to grab a new crayon. He had two left at the moment; one labeled 'cotton candy' and one labeled 'razzmatazz'. Taking the pink crayon labeled 'cotton candy', he reluctantly began drawing on the ground again. If this was going to happen at the end of each day, it wasn't going to make him very happy.

Afraid that drawing another copy of a weapon he had made before wouldn't produce a real one, after seeing what happened when Marcus had tried to draw two water jugs, Sage had decided that he'd just draw something different. Though, it was hard to decide as to what. He thought for a moment, before eventually touching the crayon to the ground and starting his drawing. There was no point in getting too angry over his scythe melting, he decided, so he remained calm as he drew, keeping a steady hand.

The cotton candy colored crayon was an interesting shade, and perhaps not to most intimidating for a weapon, but he started to draw one with it anyway. He started with a long, somewhat thick line, making sure it would have good reach when it became real. Then, he proceeded to draw a handle at the end for him to hold it by. It was a whip.

The whip made its way out of drawing form and into reality. Then, Sage retrieved it, not bothering to glance at his ally. He knew that anything he said wasn't what Marcus wanted to hear, or if he gave the wrong look to the guy, he could end up dead. Sage liked living as of the current moment, so that really wasn't what he wanted.

The boy chose to ignore Marcus as he was drawing. Fights would surely ensue if he said anything more, so this time, Sage made sure to keep his mouth shut with his lips tightly sealed. Clearly, saying anything, whether it was directed at Marcus or not, did not make the guy from District Seven very happy. Therefore, to avoid conflict, the air was filled with nothing but silence. Sage's eyes didn't even glance in Marcus's direction as he took out another crayon from his bag. He wasn't too badly damaged at the moment, but knew that he should at least take care of his current wounds.

Deciding to utilize the crayon labeled 'razzmatazz', which Sage thought was a rather odd name, he started to sketch something that was rather small compared to everything else he had drawn so far. Starting with a small, straight line with a small loop on one end and a sharp point on the other, he'd drawn a needle. Then, through the loop on the needle, he drew thread. A needle and thread was exactly what he needed if he was going to fix himself up, after all. He needed to take care of himself at the moment, even if that meant ignoring Marcus. It's what Parsley and Affron would want from him. They wouldn't want him to not use the resources he had. Besides, Parsley had taught him how to make use of his surroundings, and that was exactly what he was doing.

Then, Sage took the needle and thread that had come to reality and began trying his best to stitch himself up. It wasn't the most pleasant thing, putting a needle through your own skin, but it was better than the weapons that had struck him the day before. He'd rather feel pain than nothing at all, anyway. If one grows numb to the pain in life, their emotions start to fade, and he wouldn't let the arena and the Games do that to him. Then again, he knew there were some emotions that he would never lose. His love for Affron, even though he was gone and never coming back, was something permanent. Sage was going to keep fighting in these Games, and it was going to be because he still loved Affron.