into an early grave

It's been months since Oblivion found Jasper in Nine, broken. Part of him thought that was all he needed to do, just find him and everything would fall into place but it didn't. Not on that first night, nor in the weeks after. Then one day Oblivion woke up to new orders and a train ticket and that was it.

He thought it'd hurt more, packing his bag to leave Nine after spending so long looking for Jasper but it didn't. Maybe part of him ached, splintered off of him and stayed behind, stubborn, but the rest of him just felt strangely calm.

He'd done what he set out to do, he found Jasper.

And Jasper didn't want him.

For a while, he just moved district to district, never stationed anywhere for too long.

Eventually, he was sent to ten, out to the remote pieces of the district to oversee the harvest and make sure all farms were filling their quotas. Numbers were only rising since the drought twenty years back, but last year there'd been less than expected sent to the Capitol. It was Liv's job to make sure no one was lying.

But when Oblivion arrived, he could see that they barely had enough food for themselves.

He donned a straw hat for the summer months but freckles bloomed across his cheeks anyway. A family gave him rubber boots for the monsoons, another invited him for a meal. So he taught them how to fudge the numbers in a way that was less suspicious.

Somewhere in there, he stopped wearing the white uniform. The palms of his hands grew callused. He started dreaming again, then random napkins at dinner in the tiny Peacekeeping outpost turned into a pocket sketchbook. He wrote things down, sealed them in an envelope and sent them back to Nine, never needing a response.

Part of him thought he could die out there.

The the orders came, outbreak in Six. All spare units were to make their way there to lend a hand in the containment efforts. With the harvest over and no seniority, Liv was deemed complimentary. He was handed a ticket once again.

Two days later, he stands outside the entrance to a quarantine overflow tent, clipboard under his arm and a Captain barking orders. There's a list of names on the clipboard, people past saving that he's meant to locate inside and verify their deaths. Once found, he's supposed to tag their body and radio in for transport to a mass grave. They need to be moved immediately to make way for more of the sick, just people shuffled around like cattle as if they're not even people at all.

It's horrifying in Six, too busy and it smells like rot.

But there's too much urgency to process the surreality of it.

The Captain hands Oblivion a mask and waves him into the tent.

"You have your orders."