i can see you | ulysses & jayson (day 3)

U L Y S S E S.

What they don't tell you about the arena is the beauty it can contain. It's always survive, survive, survive. Elevated on a perch of boulders past the water, we can see everything. The lavender skies remain, and streaks of white clouds are brushstrokes in the world far beyond our reach. I wonder how they change the skies like this. Is it because we're in a dome, and they just alter the field's opacity like painting glass?

Feet dangling at the edge, I take another swig from my canteen, watching the sun stay still over the horizon. The Capitol can control the sky, they can move the sun. Hell, they can do whatever let Torian grow antlers and Caspian grow fungus across his cheeks. How can they do all that, but still create all of these problems? The technology behind it all goes completely over my head. Even the scientific theories that Torian might have… none of it would make sense in Eleven. People die at home, and people starve. Can't solve that, now can you?

I can't seem to look Caspian in the eye today. Ever since he killed Numair, I've kept an arm's length distance. With Torian, too. I suppose I feel guilty. Numair was only kind to us, putting two and two together to know now what he did. And Perry, she didn't lift a finger against us after I swung at her. I called that shot, to run in and attack. All for water that I'm sure they would've just let us take without a second thought! Caspian tried to be brave, probably because I went in headfirst without another thought.

Daniel, you're always stirring up trouble in a place that never needed it. That's what my Grandma might say if she was here. Maybe my charge made her heart skip a beat. Trouble's gonna catch up to you, eventually.

I was reckless, that's the truth of it. You fight some horses and then you think you can handle taking a human's life. Nope. I wasn't even the one who did it, but the guilt and responsibility still persist. Baked in like a poison pill to the mood.

Two days again, the thought of twenty-three instead of twenty-four would make my throat tickle, but no one's in high spirits. Morale's low. I don't like that feeling. It needs to be shaken immediately. We can weep about it at the reunion.

I stand on the boulder, bouncing two rocks over to Jayson's side. His tattoos rotate like frames of a film. If there's anyone in the alliance that I trust myself to be around in this moment, it's him. He didn't fight, but I think he would've if push came to shove.

I sit beside him, unstrapping the helmet from his head. It's safer now that we're out of trouble for the foreseeable future. Plus, that shit must get nasty to wear for too long. Ugh, gross. "There. Now I can see you." I lean closer to talk. About anything but what happened earlier in the day. I'd rather eat thorns. "What would you do if nobody was watching us in here?" There's a suggestion hidden away in my question. We're in a fucking reality television show, but there's no way that the cameras are on us all day long. Surely the fights are the desired content for the Capitol.

Now, we have time to breathe, be ourselves, and do what we want. For the first time in this reality show, there's no facade. Just us, the real us.