to end is to begin [tune + tex]

to end is to begin [tune + tex] Jun 22, 2022 21:19:36 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Jun 22, 2022 21:19:36 GMT -5

T E X

The walls in Twelve's quarters talk but only in whispers, hushed mumblings of tributes long since gone and forgotten slipping through the shadows in the dead of the night, fighting against the neon glow of the party lights that stab through the windowsills. It's not enough to destroy him but enough to keep him awake night after night, sharpened claws pulling at frayed heartstrings until they snap. Silk and satin slips to the floor for the third night in a row as he pulls himself from the bed with nothing other than the moonlight as a guide, the Capitol parties even having given way to the night.

With something sinister in his gut he makes his way out towards the living room, cringing at the way the door creaks on rusted hinges, another piece of property yearning for maintenance but not enough crowns in the District to demand it. The glow of the lights are robotic, metallic, and it's like he's walking into his own coffin as he makes his way to the kitchen, pulls a mug worth more than his own life out of the cupboard and makes some warm tea. He breathes but doesn't feel his own lungs, hears a heartbeat but feels so hollow in his chest, brown eyes sweeping around the room and choking back a sob as he recognizes how painfully lifeless everything is, like the living space is hardly clinging on to the life it has left. In some ways, it is.

Everything in this damn quarters feels like it's already half dead, himself included.

"Couldn't sleep either?" He hears Tune's footsteps before he sees her, lets the words slips from his lips and fall into the dead space they both exist in now. He's said almost nothing to his own district partner nor to his mentors, stitching his lips shut and swallowing back the words that lie heavy against his tongue, but he's heard their footsteps and has felt their energies seep into the atmosphere of the place. He feels the shadows drag against his skin as he turns to watch his district partner enter, quick to shift his gaze from the hallway towards the window as soon as she does. In the distance he sees lights flickering, celebrations still dragging on as they count down their own deaths, he breathes a heavy sigh.

"It's weird." He says to Tune and the ghosts in the walls, "I don't want to be here..." There are images of smog ridden skies and cruel summers that dart through his mind, rumors of who didn't make it through the cold of Twelve's Winter and counting the dwindling numbers of his own classmates to confirm it. He should consider himself lucky to be here, away from Twelve, dripping in jewels and gold and all the food money could buy. He isn't.

"...I just...don't really wish I were back home, either."