keep banging on that door (tom/mixandmingle event.)

Everything passes by him with a brush of cold air as he slinks out into the dark as the finale plays on screens in the night. Sneaking away from the home of another girl who he wouldn't remember the name of. Cigarette embers glowing in the night as he pulls out a drag of grey smoke that fills his lungs with ease. He can still remember the last District Six fight that he had watched. Parents screaming at his cousin to do more than hit himself, but Riordan never learned how to deal with it. The fact of reality and fantasy that bleed into one another. Death never seemed as cruel as that, until the finale on the screen ends.

Eyes only glance at the male who sits upon the boat with the girl from District Four dead. District Six had finally won, but all he could feel was disappointment. Riordan should have made it home, but even the foolish fall to death. All he does is roll his eyes and shoves his hand in his pocket and puts out the cigarette with his foot. Nights were always a time where thoughts seemed to take up too much time. It's cold and all he wants is his bed, but home was not a place that he could go home to at that time.

Ashes drift past his body as he notices the pile of ash that had blown mostly away from the burnt building that had collapsed from his doing. Tempus Opera House stood no more because Riordan never wanted it. Riordan never wanted it to stand without him. An admirable building that he can remember his parents would enjoy going to. It was nothing more than a reminder of the fact that he could never become what he wanted in life. Everything returns to dust eventually, even people do too. Riordan was buried near the Eckharts that they had also lost, but he didn't care. He didn't bring flowers to the graves like his cousin would have done.

There was no point in mourning the past.

Everything returns to the dust eventually.

The night echoes with the sound of music from a party that he had been invited to once before. He climbs inside with a smirk upon his face as teens party for the new victor and themselves. They dance like sweat and hormones that never give up. He finds the one that he wants. Watching them from afar as he approaches, hunger upon his lips as he finds his way through her guard, until it's over. They will sleep until the dawn of the morning, where he'd disappear back into the shadows like he's done before.

It's morning when he slinks out of the girls room with messy hair and a hickey that seems to be turning purple on the edge of his collar. It wouldn't be the first time he's been in public with one. They all knew the game that he played when he appears at a party. They avoid his gaze because no one really cared. He didn't even care if they knew what he did. All he could do was give a smirk to some guy as he slinks past him and into the streets where the golden sun shines down upon his skin. This was how his day was to start.

A day that was gorgeous in theory. A golden sun that shines down upon the cold people of Six that would be happily discussing the victor of Six that had broken their curse. Victors come from Six, but even a victor could never save them from the fate of death that lies heavy upon their shoulders. The ill still suffer in the hospitals. The insane still won't be treated with rights. He's seen it with his own eyes thanks to his mother. A genius in his own right of mind, but he hated it. The medical books that linger in his room that he's slowly been burning piece by piece.

It's only a moment where he's lost in his own mind with the thoughts of how to escape the mental stare down that he was inevitably gonna have with his mother when she finds out that he realizes the scene before him. A tree is all it takes before a girl walks into it. A curse coming from her lips as a small chuckle leaves his lips. Feet take him closer and she had to be two years younger than him. All he could do was look at her and speak the three words that any normal person would have said.

"Are you alright?"

Words come from her lips with truth.

"No."

A laugh leaves his lips as he crouches down next to her and looks into her eyes for a second. He's just checking to make sure she didn't have a concussion or anything of the sort. Easy to tell if she did. She was fine, just a little shaken up from what he could see, unless he was wrong. Wouldn't hurt to tell her that she probably shouldn't sleep in the next hour or two. He was going to speak, but just gave a laugh. It wasn't something he should do. People can handle themselves. He wasn't any sort of doctor and he would never be.

"Aren't we all? No one is alright."

Rising up to his feet, he now holds out a hand with a friendly smile, one that he hasn't mustered up since before he quit wanting to be a doctor like his parents intended. There's a reality and a fantasy, but he'd never find either because he was too focused on jut living. Never know when your time will come and he was gonna make the best out of his time.

"Alright, get up, Miss not alright. What's this thing that you are thinking too hard about? Long enough to walk into a lone tree."