<---.façade.---> {South}

Luca Bennu Stentori

[50686E][006363][034769]

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For an Avox, waking up was the easiest part. Some might find waking up hard, knowing that the day will only bring hell, but for Luca it was different. Waking up wasn't as good as getting into bed and submitting himself to sleep, but it meant he'd made it through the night and he was at least allowed these few moments to lie here and rest his leg. Waking up wasn't as bad as the chores, the beatings, the cruel words and looks. Waking up may mean opening his groggy eyes to another terrible day, feeling the ache return to his back and leg and sensing his own weariness, but it was better than what lay ahead. Luca couldn't be called an optimist. He wasn't trying to think the best of the situation, waking up, the window into horror, but was just being realistic, while the other Avoxes around him scorned their bodies for allowing them another day. Despite all, Luca was glad he was alive. Alive meant there was still a chance for something more. Whatever that something was, he was unsure.

All around him, Avoxes were rising from their cots, stretching their backs and giving silent greetings to one another. Luca joined them, swinging his good leg and his lame one out of his cot and limping towards the line for the bathroom, picking up his simple uniform as he went. The girl in front of him, Lexi, smiled good-naturedly as she waited. The drafty room was filled with about twenty Avoxes of both gender. Moldy and set deep in the basement of the Training Center, it smelled like its occupants, damp and worn, a defeated sort of smell. However, just because they were defeated and all Avoxes, that didn't stop acts of desperation. Just last week, Luca had woken up to find another Avox weaning the bloodied, soiled bandages off of his back to plaster on his own wounds.

It wasn't that they were treated any worse here. They just weren't noticed as much. With masters and mistresses, they were noticed far more. They got the necessities when they needed them. However, here, as Luca noticed, no one as much as batted an eyelash in their direction unless they were in trouble. Yet, Luca found he liked it that way.

After dressing and washing his face with the water pumping out of the sink, Luca limped towards the stairs. Avoxes didn't have the luxury of an elevator. With each step, jabs of pain went up and down Luca's lame leg, leaving grimacing when he made it to his floor. Time to attend to District Two.

It had been a little over week since his old mistress, a lady obsessed with the color purple, had bit the dust. It had been quick. Too stubborn and self-absorbed to notice her fluctuating weight and the disapproving stares of those around her, the woman eventually succumbed to a heart attack, a freak accident in the Capitol with their high-tech doctors. Luca had been home on the day of the incident and heard her fall. Unfortunately, the stupid woman had locked herself into the bathroom for her evening bath and by the time Luca had pried the door open, she was long gone. For his inability to revive his mistress, the Peacekeepers gave Luca the worst beating he'd ever had in his life time.

They would've killed him or worse, sent him down into the Underground to work, but Luca was in luck. A trainload of tributes were arriving tomorrow. And that meant they need Avoxes to attend to them. Luca was sent to the Training Center and assigned to those of District One. It was an odd sort of arrangement. Luca sent here as his mistress had died only to attend to the living dead. Those doomed to die.

Luca limped through the door of District Two's mentor, one of them, who was out, and began tidying up the room. Clothes lay all over the place, the bathroom a war zone with various make-up containers and whatnot. Luca felt the ache in his body as he bent down to pick up the clothes, but he didn't mind it. By now he was used to it.

With the tributes having been sent to their certain death, the Avoxes's new duties were attending to the mentors. After that, Luca was unsure of what he would have to do with the tributes and mentors gone until next Games. With the limited communication options between the Avoxes, he was only able to catch few things, but it seemed three things could happen: they'd help with the Victory Tour, go Underground or attend to the Gamemakers, who spend the year preparing for the next Games. Whatever happened, Luca just hoped there would be light.

Light. The one thing he found himself clinging to for sanity in his frustrating world. He longed for its soft glow, its reaching, warm fingers, and its promise of safety. And its reminders of her. He knew he shouldn't cling to her, but she found her way into his thoughts. The way the light had illuminated her glowing eyes, the smile playing across her lips and her voice. Her bright excited voice. It seemed that every Capitol girl with long blonde hair that Luca saw was her, each excited laugh was her's and every flash of light was a message from her. Despite all of his attempts to wipe her from his mouth, Luca found her popping up everywhere. If only he could see her again...

Throwing open the blinds to bring light back into the room, Luca let the sunlight wash over him, feeling it soak into his skin. And suddenly, he was on the gentle rocking of a boat in District Four, the sunlight heavy upon him, kissing his skin, as his father cast his line. But, no, that wasn't his father, but a girl with purple eyes and long, long blonde hair and they were bathed in a web of yellow and orange light, lanterns drifting around them...

Luca physically shook his head as if that would rid his mind of the memories, but they clung to him like bees to honey. Luca hurried away from that warmth before it could hurt him, leaving the tidy room behind him.

As he limped hastily down the hall, he instructed himself. All he had to do was get through the day. Get his duties down and then go to bed. Then, suddenly, a terrible realization popped into his head. Luca stopped short, stomach jolting and groaned aloud, the only audible sound he could produce. Tonight all the Avoxes were needed for a special gala. A party for all the mentors, stylists and prep teams. A masked ball, it was. Another silly party for the Capitolites to dress up for, get drunk at and gossip about the next day. Luca rolled his eyes. No, he would never go. He couldn’t stay around those people for too long. There were all foolish and shallow…well, except for Ze-no one, except for no one. No, he would figure out some way. He would not go.

Hours later, Luca irritably adjusted the mask on his face. Whoever was throwing the party had demanded that even Avoxes were squeezed into suits and had masks on. Another way to further humiliate the slaves. Standing on the side of the magnificent ballroom, Luca waited, his only job to stand around and wait for someone to order him to do something. The white rose in his lapel denoted him as an Avox, a slave. Luca watched as women laughed shrilly, men drank until they began staggering about and couples danced. The bright palettes of the ridiculous clothing the Capitolites wore was blinding and the music was deafening. Luca was about to try and go see if he was needed in the kitchen, when he saw her.

His heart stopped. The blonde hair…and when she turned to laugh…those eyes! Those were her’s, from behind that mask. That illuminated, bright face, though obstructed by the mask, was her face. It was Zell. Luca felt his stomach lurch and his heart race quicken with longing. Zell. And again, his eyes were filled with the yellow glow of light and a girl who actually paid attention to him, an Avox…

Without anymore thought, Luca did something he knew he’d pay for later. He removed the rose from his lapel, the one that said he was an Avox, slipped it into his pocket, hiding it, and limped off into the crowd, after the long-haired, violet-eyed beautiful girl.

The one who wouldn’t leave his thoughts.[/color][/size][/blockquote]