what doesn't kill you | tom

When the fire finally started, she fell backwards in surprise. The small flames had tried so hard to mischievously lick her face when she thought they were so unlikely to appear after and hour of striking a flint and desperately breathing onto the sparks.

After a moment of staring at the fire, she started as the infant blaze began to die it. Quickly grabbing some sticks from her pile, she began dropping them on top to try and save it. However, there was nothing she could do as the minuscule inferno choked and--with zero grace--sputtered into nonexistence. Taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes for a moment, reminding herself that it was progress.

Opening her eyes, she looks at her hands that were slowly becoming bruised from grasping the flint too hard. After, reminding herself that this was nothing like the pain of dehydration or starvation, she took another deep breath to center herself, and continued.

Back at it, and there she sat, crouched on her knees, striking at the flint. It started to become formulaic in her mind and she was transported back to her room where she sat on her computer, staring at her IDE and working on a piece of code for hours into the night. When something didn't work, she'd pour over the algorithm, taking every function apart until she found what was wrong and fixed it.

Shaving magnesium onto a pile of steel wool, she sighed before she started striking again. At least her algorithms were all nice, misunderstood math. They were cold and cruel on the outside, but when you got to know them better, they would reveal the secrets of automation and calculation. Fire, on the other hand, apparently stayed icy no matter how long you worked to understand it.

Suddenly, another spark sprayed and the steel wool started to burn. She leaned her face down to breath and gently coax her newborn fire into childhood. This time, it worked, and it began to burn. Remembering her mistake from last time, she began to surgically place the small sticks, her heart thudding in her chest. The fire began to grow, hungrily devouring the offerings and she began to put larger and larger pieces of wood on the flames until it became a fully-fledged blaze.

Standing up and stepping back to admire her accomplishment, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and took it in. Finally time to move onto something else.

After giving herself a second to pridefully watch the flames die out, she turned to find another station that would suit her. She walked over to the open area filled with holograms, looking at the control panel. After an inspection of the machine, she mentally filed it away for future use before turning around.

She hadn't noticed him before, but she and the other tributes were clearly being observed. Kassia had no idea how long the gamemaker had been wandering the training center among them, but the clear reasoning behind it clawed at her conscious. She knows she wasn't supposed to get mad, that she should expect the gamemakers would watch them to know how to torture them in the arena, but she had thought that they would give them the solace of observing from afar.

Rather, this one clearly preferred to get his hands dirty before sending kids off to die. Biting the side of her lip, she felt her chest grow heavy as she did her best to not appear bothered by his presence. But it was no use. He was simply a devil pretending to be a god, and there was no place for that incompatibility in Kassia's brain.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she approached the malware-in-the-flesh standing in front of her. "Nice place you got here. I'd love to move into somewhere just like this, but I heard the Capitol real estate market is going crazy recently. Do you know how many children's lives it costs a month in rent?"

She extended her hand to him. "When they tell you that you go to the games and meet your maker, I wasn't expecting him to be this personable and stalkery. Your name's butter knife, right? I'm Kassia, it's terrible to meet you, but you'll be seeing a lot of me when I'm alive a few weeks from now."

Looking up at him, she grins, putting on her best sardonic, I'm a kid and you want my guts displayed on a T.V. screen smile.