Drawn Together. [canvas/oz]

oz

We gotta get away and disappear
We're running out of time
The sun is low we'll go and break away
Fade into the light.

He was thirteen years old, yet he hobbled into the cafeteria with the limping gait of an eighty-year-old. His stiff joints creaked as he moved, shoulders stuck huddled forward, neck bowed and sunken eyes always roaming the floor. Two days, so far, of near constant exercise, with minimal food, water, and rest. The "Hunger Games Diet." Why would he eat when he could train? Food was a time waster. Food was a lie (such was the verbiage he used), meant to slow them down, coddle them all into this sense of false security, when the truth was, in a few days, they would ALL be starving anyway, while they pushed their bodies through excruciating combat. So start now, Oz told himself. Start now, so it won't hurt as much later.

And now his head swam; the earth spun and the floor somehow felt gelatinous beneath his feet. What kept him moving was the smell of food and the rumble that burst violently from his stomach, twisting itself around as it begged to be filled. He clutched at it, wincing. Yet he dreaded lunch. Yesterday, as he had scarfed down food, this thought had crashed into his mind, even though he hadn't been thinking much of anything before -- What if I'm wasting time. There were so few days left. The week was going by too quickly, too eaten up with events: the Opening Ceremony, the assessments, the interviews...It felt as though there were only so many hours he had to learn how to not die. To convince the world that he wasn't some bug that was going to stepped on. Because that was what everyone from home thought.

For the past week, it seemed as though all Oz had accomplished was proving everyone right. He could barely manage the training center's climbing bars. A thousand times, it seemed, he tried to climb from one side to the other. A thousand times, he fell over. The net had beaten hot welts into his skin, cross-hatched over each other, and felt like scalding water whenever he touched them. Everyone could see them. The other tributes, the Gamemakers. They all had seen him fail, again and again, relentlessly.

He tried not to talk with anyone. He didn't want to meet their eyes.

Back at school, if he had a day like this, he would have just left. Skipped out. Waited till it blew over, because it always did. But this wasn't going to.

Fear tingled in Oswald's heart. He realized suddenly that Mya was right: it was possible to die the wrong way. Because what if he died right now, as he was. A bug, smashed beneath some jack-boot, a glob of broken shell and insect blood.

No -- he didn't want to think of that. Anything but that. He had to get his head out of it someway. Back at home, if he had bad thoughts, he would just doodle something to make him smile -- he could do that here, right? His tray of food had napkins. A proper canvas for a middle school student. Now all he needed was a pen -- Avoxes were all around, he fled to the first one he saw and asked in a jolting voice if they could get him one. His desperation was obvious, but he really didn't care. He just needed that escape, before the implosion came. It was always waiting for him now.

As he waited, he slumped down into a chair at an empty table at the far corner of the cafeteria. Eating the too-rich food as fast as he could -- he practically finished after five minutes, when the Avox finally came back. He still had some soup left. He could finish it as he doodled. His hands shuddered as twisted them around the pen -- his joints felt all wrong, as though the bones were trying to fuse together. He tried to imitate a proper pencil grip as best he could, tried to imitate the motion of forming a proper line. A curve there...maybe a circle, here, there, for eyes...wiggle the pencil tip for pupils...what would the drawing even be? Just a shape, a shape...maybe a lump...a lump with a long neck...with hair...yes, with hair...with a hat...maybe it has big teeth...big hands...some sort of creature...something that doesn't exist...Only in his head, it all belonged to him, this creature, these lines, it was all his, it was made for him, no one could touch it but him...no one could touch it but him...