dancing lights and sleepless nights [teddy&flynn]

FLYNN GARNER
YEAR OF THE 91st

I am forty-eight feet down in the ground with a pile of bodies crushing me, pushing me further and further into the dirt. One is my friend. One is my cousin. The other six have their names tattooed into my memories. How far deep am I going to go until I am too far from being pulled back up? Every year is just a repeat of the one before. I tried to make it different this year, but my own family…

When Alice Ballinger’s axe took Quinn’s last breath, I left the room. I did not leave a trail of meltdowns or stain the escort’s frock with wine. I just left. Away from the cheers and the mournful faces but to the wall length window where I have found comfort before. My mind wanders with the busy bodies who go about there evening, leaving their television screens to go live a life. I can resent the Capitol residents, but they did not choose to be born here, like I did not choose to be born in District Six. I don’t know who I am meant to resent right now. Alice Ballinger for killing my cousin? The escort that pulled out her name? The High Council who continues this every year? Right now, the list is longer than the bodies that are piling on top of me.

Now I have to plan to return home, facing my aunt and uncle and begging them for forgiveness. My own family, it is not like I can fake some words and never see them again. Fuck, it is just not fair.

I sit with my knees tucked up tight to my chest, my arms wrapped around them, and my head leant against the glass of the eight-foot window on the sixth floor’s entrance hall. Whenever the elevator makes its travels up and down the twelve floors, I hold my breath whenever it sounds nearby hoping so damn hard that it does not stop on this floor. Though a teeny tiny part of me wonders if a friendly face and a shoulder to dampen is all I need right now.

Instead, I am left with the awakening evening of the Capitol, dancing lights as the sky draws to darkness and the muffled anthem of the nightlife down below. They have all just watched a bunch of kids get slaughtered and now they are lining up the shots in the clubs and switching on the karaoke sets.

Just how do they brush those sights away from their mind?

I just let them manifest as nightmares, reserve them for a few weeks from now. A night where I will get a less than an hour’s sleep because everything just replays and replays.

A morning where I rock up to college with a pile of apologies because I am exhausted.

Maybe I should just be numb. I am going to have to be if I want to save lives.

The elevator is silent but there is definitely someone stood behind me, I can see legs in the reflection of the window. A head full of familiar curls and a frame much taller than me. My neighbor, roommate, brother or whatever he is to me.

”Teddy, what am I meant to say to my family when I get home?” Is all I can ask, my eyes still planted on the sights down below. He has never had family in the games before, for once he might not be the perfect person to speak to right now.