dead before the day is done// t+f+a

There is quiet familiarity in faces. Passing by them at different times throughout the day. Sometimes you know their names and their stories, they could be your mother, father, friend, enemy. They all, however, are constants. I never understood how important they all were until I was ripped away from the comfort of what I know.

Waking up that first morning in bed that was not mine stung like a knife as the panic settled in, taking over until the events of the day before bled back into my memory. The room twice the size of what I was used to and a window that dared not show me what really was outside. The comfort of the blankets promising sweet lies of luxury that began to make my skin crawl.

It was all so detached from everything that I have ever known.

Hallways were empty, the few faces that were not foreign were nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was confronted with the silent ones, who’s eyes seemed emptier than their missing tongues. I knew they had their own story filled of woes, hardships that would make mine seem small.

“Good morning.” I smiled trying to memorize their faces. The intricate details of a wrinkle above one’s eye. The way they moved slowly from one place to the other with their own specific movement. I knew I shouldn’t speak to them, but I was never any good at living life in silence.

For someone who had spent much of the last two years by myself, I still did not know how to be alone.

The other tributes still a mystery, not even all their names have crossed my lips. Too preoccupied with the reality that had yet to hit, acceptance still waiting for my embrace. Maybe I had nothing in common with them, I feared the only thing I shared with Revel was the district we hailed from. That had never stopped me before. Marcus and I could have not been more different, but it worked. Sometimes differences were just a connection disguised as a challenge.

Harbinger warned about getting too close, but you did not need to know someone to have a conversation with them.

We all had one thing in common, an impending fight to death currently hidden behind the perfectly tailored curtains of the capitol.

I had been a little too eager, the training center still empty…crawling with only the most dedicated of the tributes. One of the four’s bared a resemblance to my district partner. The closest thing to a familiar face, false sense of comfort kicking in I didn’t hold my breath making my way over to her. Confident in a skill that developed in a drunken wasteland of trouble. I tell myself that it is what I am going to have to do to survive, learn their stories on the way. Make sense of it all if I can.

A rather optimistic take on it all.

“Hey, I’m Tsiuri” I put a smile on my face, a routine act in the traveling circus show of misery. “I’ll owe ya one if you could help me out here, we don’t have any of this in eleven.” I tried to laugh it off, accepting that if she would even bother helping…nothing ever came without a price.

But maybe it was a mistake, because I felt the wolves closing in ready for a taste of blood. Another career from one, a face I would much rather avoid. This wasn’t the bar; I had no power here. They ran the show, and I was still trying to figure out my place in it all.