Before A Fall [Kneedles]

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cyrus
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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 18, 2012 22:10:16 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 18, 2012 22:10:16 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

"Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child, believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome, grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life."

[/color]

There are flashes of color as we run up the hill together. Fireworks. We’re singing a song—I can’t remember the words—and everyone around us is annoyed. But we don’t care, because it’s summer, and we’re young, and everything is beautiful. I wrap my arm around you and I see that precious smile, the one that you never give unless you just feel, and we laugh because we forget the next verse. And I giggle as I tackle you down to the ground in the grass. Your bigger body nearly crushes mine as we crash down together, you on your back, and me crawling up on your chest. I look into your eyes and you cock your head left, and then right, like you’re some kind of bird. And then I move my head in unison with you, and we laugh and laugh until our sides hurt.

But it’s a dream, man—that’s all it ever was. Even when we were living it.[/color]

It’s a long way to get where I’m going. Do I even know the way away from here?[/color] It’s been long enough for me—I’m so hungry, my clothes are all torn up—and I curl up next to the rotting corpse of some long dead tree. The sun beats down overhead and I cross my arms across my chest. I want to cry out because there’s nothing left I have to give. I’ve been drinking dirty water and eating rotten fruit for days now. My s—ts have been watery wet, and a few times I’ve had trouble keeping down what I’ve been eating. F—king sucks. It’s a game now, how long can I keep walking before I just throw myself down on the ground and let the dust whip around my body and cover me up. And I grunt along the wastelands, the place where there’s nothing but low grass and a few trees every few miles. It’s hot, hot heat that makes me drip sweat and my tongue cotton up.

I should stop thinking about you, I should stop thinking about who you were…[/color]

Fireflies. They dance around you and you say how remarkable they are. They light up the whole world, just for us, like the stars, except you can catch them in your hands. And I call you silly, but it’s a sweet silly, one that makes me wrap an arm around your waist. Because even at fourteen you’re amazed by such simple things, it gives me a chance to be amazed, too. We don’t think about the woman inside, the one who’s coughing blood into a tissue. Or the man who sits at his work table, glasses on the edge of his nose, never speaking to you unless you’ve done something wrong—because he doesn’t know what to say to you, because you’re so different. Because you were nothing that he wanted you to be.[/color] And I say, let’s never go away from each other, at least not for the summers, let’s never forget about the summer because it’s magic. Because I can’t bear what it does to my soul not to see you as happy as this.

When did I stop believing in magic?

A few birds circle overhead and I’m trudging along through the browned grasses and reeds of the wastes. I’m starting to think about all those old stories. The ones that mother used to tell to us when we would sit in bed, and you’d be shaking about some small slight you’d experienced that day. [/color]That was always your way, taking something so much harder than you needed to. There was a place, a place with innumerable goodness, that all good little boys went. A place that was far and away from here, warm and sweet and full of good things. You ate it up. You begged her to tell you of this place, this holy place where only the good boys of Panem went.Because you needed something to believe. You needed something that would let you believe all the pain and suffering wasn’t just how the world was.[/color]

I remember when Cousin Henry died that summer. He’d fallen down in the middle of a walk to the market. Couldn’t explain what it was, at first. Just something with his heart that gave. He was your age, though you two never spoke more than a few words about one another. But you were so sad about it. I remember, I remember sitting in bed the day after it happened and you saying, what if he didn’t go to the place—what if he wasn’t a good boy?[/color] And you tossed and turned in your bed until I came over to you, and I moved back your bed sheets and wrapped my arms around you. And you tossed and turned, bed coils creaking, until you finally started weeping—because you were so sad—because you didn’t want to go the way that he did. You didn’t want to just fade away, because you thought you weren’t good enough. You thought that you would never get into that place— it was too good for you.[/color]

I’m a f—king mess. It took all the strength I had to get out of the last district I’d wandered into, and I didn’t have anything to show for it but my bruised body. You’d think for a place that valued self-preservation, they’d be kinder to someone that was trying to make it on his own. No f—king way.[/color] Instead I get kicked around like a dog, like I’m some blight on humanity. F—king c—ts. It’s not like it’s better out here, though. Not where the sun burns my skin, and the f—king plants make me s—t blood. Yeah, it’s rough. It’s worse than rough, it’s insane. It’s me choosing to get away from everyone and everything because I have nothing, nothing, nothing to go back to. No one that could give a s—t less. But that was panem, right? That was this whole f—king place. Where people smiled and were so happy to do what they wanted, but they f—ked you royally if you ever needed anything.

But I hold you and say that you’re good enough to go anywhere. And I kiss you on your forehead and tell you that there’s nothing better than this—the two of us together. And that this was what it felt like, when you were good and were moved on. Just a warm feeling, like arms are wrapped around you. And we catch fireflies and sing songs that we don’t remember. And you looked up at me as though you would lay there forever. You looked up at me as though you were never going to leave me, never sleep, never say goodbye. And I said, we’d be there together, singing those songs and running up hills. Because brothers never left, we never forgot one another.[/color] And you fell asleep before me, while I stayed awake to watch your mouth hang open and your breath move the hairs hanging down into your face.

I could’ve given up. I could’ve said, that there wasn’t a reason to do it anymore.[/color] I’d tried, I’d tried and I wasn’t cut out for it. So I could’ve just eaten something rotten or poisonous, and let the sleep wash over me. Yeah, I’d probably vomit up everything first—my face would get real white and I’d leak from every space I had—but I could fall asleep forever and forget about this. The sun was hot overhead and I couldn’t imagine that I had much left to drip into the grass around me. Had to be near the end of my rope, with the chapping of my lips and the pain in my hands and feet. But life is cruel and rotten that way. Because just when I was going to give up, there was a rusted old fence split open along the hills of the wastelands. And there were hills of grain, and rusted ramshackle shacks in the distance. A f—king hillside of broken down houses, no doubt one of the poorer districts.

So I couldn’t just lay down and die then. Not me, not the one that held it together. I was better than that, than you, than them. I wasn’t just going to go away and drift off into nothing because things got hard. I was going to find a place to curl up into a ball and sleep this all off—to start to forget about you. Because that’s what I’d needed to do—I needed to stop thinking about this and hurting. Not that I was dumb enough to think that you’d just vanish from me. But I’d be damned if any of this was going to put me into submission. No, I was too good for any of that. I was stronger than that. Stronger than most anyone else.[/color]

The place smelled like s—t, everywhere. Stunk an ungodly smell, and more than a few times I could feel the bile at the back of my throat. It was the kind of smell that crept up into your mouth and stung your eyes, almost like you tasted what rotten flesh was supposed to be like. I held out as long as I could before falling to my knees and puking in the grains of some field. When I brushed the s—t off my chin, I coughed a bit and tried to steady myself. I thought I didn’t have anything left to give, but after the first time, I kept stopping to have to heave onto the ground. Because the fucking bastards that lived here apparently loved the smell of s—t.[/color] I was dizzy from it, but kept walking along a gravel path that broke from the waving grains I’d been wandering through.

I came upon a run of sheds made of wood as I trudged along. There were a few wandering pigs, covered in mud—I hoped the brown was mud—and they poked their noses in and out of the huts. It would be dark soon enough, and from what it looked, there wasn’t anyone coming around these parts anytime soon. I licked my lips, still tasting like bile, and forced my way inside one of the houses. The roof above looked as though a decent fall of rain might collapse the thing on top of me. My company squealed and trudged around me, not caring so much to my presence, if only because I probably smelled so much better than they did. I was half surprised to see that they weren’t diseased—people around these parts couldn’t be that smart to know how to keep things clean—but tried to push the thoughts from my mind. Instead, I curled up in the hay.

And we’re running, up a hill. There are flashes of color, and we are singing a song. We don’t remember all the words, but it doesn’t matter. Because I tackle you to the ground, and we laugh and laugh until our sides hurt. And I see you smile, which forces me to smile. And we’re warm, cuddled up with one another on the grass, laughing and smiling together. Just me and you, Cyrus.[/color]

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Last Edit: Jul 18, 2012 22:15:00 GMT -5 by cyrus

kneedles

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 19, 2012 5:04:16 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 19, 2012 5:04:16 GMT -5

In the early days, when Scutcher still wore short pants and Tallow kept her hair in two blue ribbon-tipped braids, Loomis Tansy took it upon himself to teach his children ‘lessons’. These weren’t like the lessons of now, forged in blood, made of cruelty and of hardness but were relayed at the kitchen table of the old farm, their father winding bootlaces around his fingers or rolling cigarettes. “We aint never had it easy in this family, not like some people,” he would say, piercing robin’s egg blue eyes flickering over them in a brief sort of appraisal of his children. Reaching out, he’d pull Tallow onto his knee. “Hard work got this family where it is. Aint never borrowed nothing we couldn’t pay back or taken hand outs; aint ever owned anything that weren’t gotten by the sweat from our own brows.” The sentiment had more effect in a house, spoken by a sober tree trunk of a man.

There wasn’t much of those days left, vanished in a churning quagmire of muck, hacked off from the flesh like a diseased limb but it was engrained all the same. Tallow was better than squalling pigs and the shit of district ten, better than the bones of her ancestors but theirs’ and her father’s hubris was hers.

They did not speak of their troubles at school, even if it was obvious for all to see. Shit Tallow, what’s wrong with your brother’s face? Was usually met with a short sharp, Fuck you in the ass -that’s what’s wrong. Scutcher and Tallow kept their secrets clutched close, grasping tightly at the ragged scraps of their pride. If their closeness was strange and twisted, then what choice did they have? It was in their DNA. Perhaps there were other people who would understand them, but Tallow daren’t find out, content to keep it in the family. They didn’t need no one else, not when Tallow could be her brother’s everything; sister, best friend, mother, father and lover too. It was The Tansy’s private business, refusing to take charity or handouts, too proud to take whatever love someone else might offer her.

Wouldn’t daddy be proud of them?

She’d been thrumming like a harp under her skirts all afternoon; the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, her shoulders stiffening and hands grasping out for want of her brother. Waiting until her mother had cleared away the last of the laundry the two of them sat ironing, the pathetic woman humming tunelessly all the while, Tallow announced to her parents casually that she would go down and help Scutcher get done for the day. There were no looks exchanged, no sighs or tuts to indicate that they knew or cared only a small, distracted, okay, dear from her mother and a belch from her father. She could have laughed because it was hilarious, could have cried because it was just too fucking sad.

The sunset was the colour of rust that evening, the dying sun lost behind the swell of the rain clouds hanging ominously in the air. Scutcher was leaving the smokehouse, travelling towards the pig arks but stopping to light a cigarette when she found him. “You aint gonna be too late tonight are you?” she asked softly, walking with her brother.

Scutcher shook his head, looking skywards, “Storm’s comin’. I just need to check on a couple; Drover might have mange.” Tallow pulled a disgusted face that made Scutcher smile a little; she didn’t know who Drover was and didn’t give a fuck, they all looked the same to her. But the thought of mange made her curl her lips and wrinkle her nose.

“You don’t have to come.”

“I want to,” Tallow hooked her fingers through his, stopping outside of the pig house holding the pig stricken with mange, unaware of the stranger lurking inside, their voices carrying inside. “I feel like I aint been helpin’ out around the farm enough. Specially not after…” she didn’t finish. Noreen Lexington’s death hanging in the air between them. “I just mean that a good sister would help you more.” A good sister would do a lot of things differently really, Tallow couldn’t help but think.

Scutcher didn’t know all the right words to offer comfort, but if he could have done he would have and that was just as good to Tallow, if not better. There was something more sincere than words in the way that he firmly shook his head, making her smile again. In rare fit of childish exuberance, she darted forwards and stole the cigarette from between his lips, dropping to her knees and crawling into the pig ark. With a weary sort of sigh, more how an older brother should be towards his little sister than Tallow and Scutcher ever were, he followed her.

“Don’t smoke in here, it aint good for the pigs,” he repeated for the hundredth time. Tallow raised her eyebrows and took a long toke, blowing smoke rings into the air.

“Smokin’s good for mange.”

“No it aint. Give it here. Give it.” Scutcher started forward, slow and clumsy, but Tallow shuffled backwards, holding up the cigarette as high as she could and poking above his hip bone where it tickled. He laughed, she held the cigarette clenched between her teeth and poked him again.

“Tallow, quit it,” he said wrapped around a sputter, but she didn’t. Tallow kept on poking him in the ribs because there was something musical in her brother’s laughter – something wonderful about its rarity. Even during happier times, Scutcher’s laughter was infrequent- he didn’t get most jokes and was weighted down by whatever pressing task on the farm tugged at his brain. Hearing him laugh was like catching the strains of a mockingjay travelling on the air, since they rarely made their home in district ten. Laughing too, Tallow darted forwards with pinching fingers, twisting away from his hands flapping at her, trying to get her away.

Finally he caught her, around the middle, the force of the boy who didn’t know his own strength knocking her on her back and into the hay. Reaching out, Tallow grabbed Scutcher by the collar and brought him down with her. Feeling his laughter through his shaking chest, a small scuffle followed- the way they’d fought when they were kids, twisting hands, intertwining legs and light pushing. Slowly, they began to tire and Tallow’s robin’s egg blue eyes locked on his, the last of their games dying in their throats.

She put the cigarette out on the ground somewhere behind her, not realising how close she was to the boy lurking in the pig shed.

Tipping her head up, Tallow let her lips find his in a brief kiss fired like a warning shot. Her eyelids closed and fluttered like butterfly wings as she kissed him again, wrapped her arms around his body and felt the soft pressure of her big brother above her, bones and clothes and skin joined together with clashing teeth and tongues. Pushing at Scutcher, she knelt up and he followed suit, facing each other. Like always, Scutcher’s expression was serious as a heart attack, though a shy smile lingered at the corners of his mouth as she reached out to stroke his cheek, tentatively leaned for a kiss that she smiled into, pressed deeper. The only sound was their breath now, heavy, febrile and shared between them, exchanged on the tips of their tongues. It filled them with new life and vigour as everything suddenly became rushed and manic; as fevered as the first time, though the motions were now practised and familiar.

While getting swallowed up in deep tangling kisses, Tallow fumbled with Scutcher’s shirt as he undid the buckle of his belt. She pulled her dress over her head, scrabbled at her underwear, slipping it down her thighs and throwing the bundle of her clothes somewhere deep into the darkness of the pig house. He pulled down his pants, Tallow unhooked her bra, stripping down until they were both stripped naked, shivering and burning at the same time.

“Sit down, Noodle” she murmured, almost finishing with just the way he looked up at her and obediently sat in the hay. Biting her lip as a strained sigh escaped for between her teeth, Tallow slid into Scutcher’s lap. If this was the point where the earth was supposed to collapse in on itself, the buildings shake and shudder, the fields rip open like ragged wounds then whatever higher power controlled these things wasn’t watching them. It made sense; these days were too dark to see a hand in front of your face properly. So there were never any catastrophes, only a slight hiss from Scutcher.

“Shhh, mom and dad are…uh…uh…they’ll hear us,” she keened softly over the sounds of pigs grunting. Though she pitied her parents for not knowing what was going on under their own roof, that they would find out was a constant fear.

It wasn’t like her to care what anyone else thought, but even Tallow had to concede that this was just a step too far. The daylight always came too quickly, its glare too harsh and bright; it shone relentlessly over their fevered, dark entanglements when they belonged so obviously in the shadows. Tallow could care less for herself really, but if anyone ever found out, if their parents heard something or one day walked in on them then what would happen to Scutcher filled Tallow with dread. They’d send him away, Tallow was sure of it, but not before Loomis did something. There always had to be a lesson, always had to be a way for him to recover some of his shrivelled up pride with fists and brutality. She was more like him than she would ever admit to and understood her father in a way that Scutcher just couldn’t.

Burying her nose into his shoulder, Tallow looked deep into the pig house, biting down as a spike coursed through her but not daring to leave a mark in his already beaten up bruised body. The shapes of the pigs moved in the dark, and she ignored them, clenching her eyes shut for a moment. But when she opened them, they locked onto something that didn’t belong. The tip of a shoe.

Whole body tensing, Tallow’s heart got tangled up in her ribs and for a minute she didn’t dare breathe. Pulling away to look up her, Scutcher stopped and frowned, “Tallow?” But her mouth hung open and impotent, staring at the shoe, hoping she was mistaken.

“Elias…Elias is that you?” she tried weakly, clutching at straws, but of course it wasn’t. “The fuck?!” Crawling away from Scutcher, barely able to hear herself think over the sound of the heavy thumping over her heart, she peaked into the hay, letting her eyes get adjusted to the light.

Tallow looked at the earth and the earth looked back, two glittering stones blinking.

Shrieking, Tallow’s instinct took over and she drove her fist towards the shape.

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Last Edit: Jul 21, 2012 1:47:01 GMT -5 by kneedles

cyrus
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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 20, 2012 3:33:08 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 20, 2012 3:33:08 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel… and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was…”

[/center][/i]

Why won’t I wait for you? I’m running forward, up the hill, but you’re lagging behind. You trip and fall to your knees, but you laugh to let me know that you’re okay. I can tell you’re embarrassed though. You’re smiling, but it fades as I push forward, and I’m yelling at you because you’re slow and stupid and why can’t you ever just keep up. We’re running just as fast as we can, both of us, but you’ve never been a good runner. You’ve never been a good anything. F—king run faster, f—king get up here, f—king catch up to me. But you’re too slow, you’ve always been slow, you’ll never catch me…

One of the pigs lets out a high pitched squeal, and I’m awake. There’s a thin layer of sweat on my skin, and a thin layer of bile that’s coated the side of my cheek. Must have dripped out while I was sleeping. The pigs wiggle around and I let out a soft moan. Every f—king things hurts.[/color] My hands were still locked and looked like a pair of claws. I could barely open my mouth, my tongue like sandpaper as I breathed in the rotten stench of my new home. I wanted to heave again, but I had nothing left to come up. Instead I felt a pain in my ribs as I lay on my back to stare up at the ceiling. I felt the hair on my neck raise and for the first time in days, I was afraid. I’m going to f—king die in pig shit.[/color]

And then I hear the voices—the sounds of people coming nearer—arguing over something. A boy and a girl. I roll onto my side and try to cover myself in the hay, but it’s mixed in the pig shit and I can’t bring myself to rub it into my clothes. I’d rather die. I’d rather die than get any more f—king pig shit on me.[/color] And so I lie there, shivering, my whole body quaking as I’m afraid that I’m about to be found. They go back and forth, and the smell of tobacco sweeps into the hut. What I wouldn’t give for a long f—king drag of a cigarette.[/color] Even if I didn’t smoke them, there was that elusive coolness that seemed appropriate in the moments before certain doom. Didn’t everyone smoke a cigarette before going off to war?

The girl plants the fiery remnants of her cigarette right next to my forearm and it takes every ounce I have not to shiver-shake from my spot on the ground. They don’t see me. They won’t see me. ~~They can’t see me.~~[/color] I can almost taste them next to me. I hear her speak, “Sit down, Noodle.” A command to the boy, forceful and firm. I’d heard the tone in some of the older girls back ~~home~~. A woman who knows exactly what she wants.[/color] The jangle of the belt told me all I needed to know about what was to happen—and for my own sake I held my breath not to interrupt. They were lower districters for sure. Who else would f—k in a pig house?[/color] I close my eyes, even if I’m not facing them.

We’re together in bed, my body on top of yours. You in your favorite pair of Fourty-Fifth Victor Trunks, and me in an old pair of athletic shorts. I’m still so small, so skinny my ribs show. It’s embarrassing against your muscular frame. I admire what working in the factory has done to you. Your breathing is soft and your thick arms wrap around me tightly. We’re too big for this now—you just shy of your sixteenth birthday—and me just becoming a teenager. But I like the feeling of you against me. You’re strong and smooth, wrapping me up like I’m your teddy bear, there to protect you from danger. And I relish it. I press my head to your bare chest and move a hand down along your skin, tracing where the few hairs have cropped up down toward your elastic waistband. A sigh. I’m curious, too. You’re so much like me and so not—so different—that it’s hard for me to understand. But the world doesn’t matter—the outsides of this little bed meant nothing—only your warmth against me, your frame, your skin. My skin and your skin, brother and brother, together.[/color]

There’s a slurping sound and I try to shut my eyes tighter. The breathing is hurried, and I want to bury myself deeper in the slop underneath. Only I can’t move, only listen to the freaks enjoying themselves, unawares—or maybe they just enjoyed a voyeur—completely at ease to have pigs farting around in the background. They’re going to f—king leave soon. They’re so gross… doing this here, right now… why the f—k would they ever… what a couple of low lives…[/color] But I can say nothing to stop them. I can only listen as a few more quick kisses were exchanged. And then his voice came out, “Tallow?” And I felt the hair on the back of my neck raised again.

There were a few seconds that I could’ve had to run. I could’ve tried to get up and tried to get out of this godforsaken place, but I was too tired. “Elias…Elias is that you? The fuck?!” Her shrieking brought me up out of the hay and slop. My eyes stared through the darkness to catch hers, if only for a moment before she brought her fist down into my stomach. It knocked the wind out of me, and I fell down again onto the ground. I tried my best to back up against the wall of the hut as my body convulsed and I began hacking onto the ground. I couldn’t brief, and my stomach wanted to empty its emptiness yet again[/color] as though it had forgotten there was nothing left to give.

“F—k you… you dirty c—t…” It’s all I can grumble out as I hold onto my stomach. She’s nothing, whoever she is. F—king in a pig house, and she’s going to be my killer. If I had to die by her hand, or his hand, I would at least be able to say how I really felt. “What the f—k… what the f-f—k…” I lay back against the wall in a sitting position and close my eyes. “The f—k are you doing here…” I stumble out, as though I have rights to being the one sleeping there.
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Last Edit: Jul 20, 2012 3:34:26 GMT -5 by cyrus

kneedles

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 20, 2012 15:21:24 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 20, 2012 15:21:24 GMT -5

Trying to overcome her initial panic, wrapped around the shriek and the blow to the stranger’s stomach, Tallow’s eyes narrowed as she tried to make out a familiar face, work out why he was here and most importantly what they did now. “Scutcher, can you please get in front of the entrance,” she said a little more sharply than she should have done- certain for now that letting him leave was the worst thing that could happen before she could figure out what she was dealing with. She didn’t take her eyes from Naif but heard the shuffle as Scutcher moved to block the exit, awkwardly trying to cover his massive erection with his hands but not exactly successfully. Fumbling in the straw, Tallow found her dress and pressed it to her body with one hand, while lurching forwards she made to grip at the stranger’s throat.

“We live here you little scrote, what the fuck are you doing here? And who the fuck are you? One of the Thompson kids?” Tallow hissed, more asking herself than him, given the way her hand crushed his windpipe.

Digging her nails in a little, she forced his head up and studied him. He was the right age, about sixteen or seventeen maybe, and the Thompson kids were wilder than the Tansy kids and fucking weird every last one of them, but she was pretty sure they were all soulless ginger freaks and in the dusk Tallow could make out a head of blond hair. “Oh fuck…you aint an Emberstatt are you?” she asked lip curling with disgust. Tallow couldn’t figure out who else would dare or even want to come this far out of town and sleep in a pig shed than some disillusioned community home kid, in the same mould as Swallow Anne. But the community home kids looked a damn sight healthier than this stranger; cracked lips caught the light of the rising moon and there was a gauntness to his face, a wild look in his eye and a strange waxy pallor cast over his skin. If she didn’t have him by the throat, couldn’t feel the pulse of his blood through his skin and the jerking of an Adam’s apple, Tallow might have guessed that he was something supernatural—a ghost or a poltergeist—lurking in the shadows, ethereal and strange.

If he was a community home kid, that’d be a little easier though. Swallow Anne said a lot of the older kids ran away, got fool ideas into their heads that they could make it into the woods, or find away to track down their perfect imaginary parents waiting beyond the district fences- no one would miss him that much. Because, and maybe this was the panic talking, or maybe she was thinking perfectly clearly, they were almost certainly going to have to kill him. If he’d been there the whole time then he would have heard and if it ever got back to her parents they’d send him or her or both of them away. And Tallow would rather die than be parted from Scutcher, would rather kill than let it happen.So she’d do the actual murder, a knife pressed into the main carotid artery the way Scutcher had taught her- she was strong enough to do it and not have to put Scutcher through that. But when he was dead, reduced to just meat and matter, her brother could handle the butchering part. Just like a pig, bled out and chopped into manageable chunks.

They could burn his clothes, his shoes and teeth in the smoker and just feed the rest of the corpse to the pigs. Scutcher always said that if they got hungry enough they’d eat just about anything; the year that their father had lost his leg, the new mothers had gotten spooked and devoured all of the their babies in a single night. A single body wouldn’t be much bother.

Turning to Scutcher finally, ever so briefly, she noted the confusion in his eyes- the slow dawning distress, which could lead to some sort of freak out and was the last thing she needed right now. So Tallow smiled, kept her voice carefree and light. Pretending that there was nothing wrong, that everything was going to be okay- the way she always did. The lies were always so exhausting, too; wearing her down to the bone, leaving jagged tooth marks in her tongue until she just wanted to scream. Tallow Tansy never would though.

“Noodle, I need to you to find your clothes okay? Put ‘em on and then go up to the smokehouse and get a rope and your knives,” she said casually, as though simply asking him to fetch her a cup of tea. She heard him scrabble in the hay again, finding shoes and shirt and pants- locking onto Naif again, flashing him a look that said, you picked the wrong fucking pig hut, before calling, “You want some help with your belt?”

“I think I got it. Rope and my knives?”

“Mhmm!That's exactly right," a flicker over at him and a beaming smile to show he'd done good. " Just remember that.”

He left, and Tallow shoved Naif’s neck and subsequently his head into the walls of the smokehouse. “You got about five fucking minutes to tell me who you are, what you’re doing and what you heard before I stab a hole in your neck so big I could fist fuck it.”

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 21, 2012 14:12:16 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 21, 2012 14:12:16 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

O muse!
Sing in me, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...
A wanderer, harried for years on end...

[/i]

I hadn’t stopped coughing before I felt the girl wrap her hand around my throat. I made a few short shrieks as my lungs cried for more air. Our eyes locked and I could feel the burn of her stare against me. I had done a bad thing. I had caught them. I had invaded their space.[/color] The boy disappeared outside, his naked ass the last thing I saw of him before he blocked my own exit. Not that I had a chance of escaping her grasp. I was so tired that the most I could manage was the rise and fall of my chest and a blink of my eyes as I looked at her. I let out a few more rasping sounds as she pressed closer. Her face was not unpretty, better looking and cleaner than I expected a lower district girl to be. And her eyes betrayed her as well—she was far more menacing than the career I’d faced in district two.

I’d always been good at finding myself in places I didn’t belong.

I skipped class that afternoon, if only for the thrill of saying that I didn’t need to learn whatever it was that they were teaching. And so I’d straggled along the empty streets of district six, all the way back to our gray brick house with a flat roof and depressingly opaque windows. Mother was in her room—she was always in her room—and father was at work. The quiet of the house relaxed me. It was rare that I ever had the space to myself, with you always tagging along somehow. I had meant to lay down on the couch and listen to the radio, but a glint of light from our room had me look up and over at the door. It was ajar, strange for you, the one that always wanted order and complained when I left a single plastic green army soldier on the ground. I placed my knapsack down on the floor and slowly stepped along the old wooden boards until I could a glimpse through the crack of the doorway.[/color]

“We live here you little scrote, what the fuck are you doing here? And who the fuck are you? One of the Thompson kids?” I bet she lived in a f—king pig hut, piece of f—king trash that she was. F—king a boy in the dirt like a no good dirty whore.[/color] But I let out another cough and shook my head. It hurt to do so from the days before and I winced. I licked my lips and closed my eyes. I had no good ideas of escape, no lies to tell, no witty retorts for her rage. Only a few more gasps for air as she clutched onto me with her nails digging in deeper to my sweat slicked skin. Again she pressed me for an answer. “Oh fuck…you ain’t an Emberstatt are you?”

I could see his body on top of his bed. He was naked, bare, flushed in the face. Pressed against the bed and gasping in a clumsy, confused way. His strong arms in front, grasping onto the bed as he held on, and the small scars on his back from the little injuries he endured at the factory sheen with sweat. This was a private moment that wasn’t for me—it wasn’t for anyone—just for my brother, lost to his own explorations. I should’ve pressed the door open then to ruin his fun—I had begun to vacillate between wanting to torture him for his bizarre self-discoveries that should’ve been so obvious to everyone else, and coaxing him through his confusion—but instead I watched this secret moment without a word. It was more than just wanting to see him—to see this, to know this, something I could never, should never—it was a confusion I could never explain to anyone, least of all Cyrus.[/color]

What lie could I give that she would believe? In a place as desolate as this f—king lower district they were all bound to know one another. They probably had all f—ked one another in one of these pig huts, too.[/color] Her glare was more frightening to me than the grip on my neck. No, she wasn’t the type of girl that would show any mercy, even when I screamed out for her to stop. And she didn’t have the look of stupid on her like the big dumb career I’d faced before. She wasn’t doing this because she felt it was the right thing to do—as misguided as the career had been, he was following the law—but this was personal. I’d seen and heard something that terrified her, something that made me wonder what was so forbidden about f—king in a pig house, other than the diseases that probably awaited the musty cellar between her legs. Not like a girl like her would even care.[/color] I coughed again, and felt a bit of drool slip down my chin. I closed my eyes again and shook my head, only able to croak out another pathetic noise while I was in her grip.

“Noodle, I need to you to find your clothes okay? Put ‘em on and then go up to the smokehouse and get a rope and your knives,” Her voice shifted from one spitting acid to silky smooth, and yet it filled me with even more terror than before. Rope and knives.[/color] She meant to kill me. She meant to tie me up and slit my throat, or worse, and end my pathetic existence. I wiggled a little in her grasp and let out another little yelp. I don’t want to die here, I don’t want to die with them. I don’t deserve to die here. I don’t fucking deserve to be touched by her, this f—king c—t.[/color] I tried to throw a sideways glance at the boy, some pathetic look screaming for him to help me[/color] , but he was too busy gathering his clothes and following orders to pay me much mind. And so I was left with her.[/color]

“You got about five fucking minutes to tell me who you are, what you’re doing and what you heard before I stab a hole in your neck so big I could fist fuck it.” I let out another little groan as I shifted in her grasp. I finally could feel myself starting to give, and closed my eyes to hold back the tears. What the f—king hell… I just want this to be over, I just want to get out of here![/color] But closing my eyes and wishing wasn’t going to get me anywhere. When I opened them again she was still there, waiting for me to explain just what I’d seen and who the hell that I was. If only I’d believed in those stories of the beyond, I might have felt a little comfort.

“N-nothing… I saw… nothing…” I rasped out as I threw my head back against the wall, trying in vain to get out of her grip. “I don’t know who you all are and I didn’t know this was your place… I just need a place to stay the night, that’s all. I just couldn’t get any further… you all came in and I didn’t… I was sleeping and… I’m sorry. I’m sorry but please… just let me go, just let me get out of here… I don’t know you and you don’t know me, I don’t even f—king care if you two were f—king around…” The last words fly from my mouth and I feel them sear into the air. And I was always good at finding the wrong words to say, too.
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Last Edit: Jul 21, 2012 14:20:28 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 21, 2012 19:04:12 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 21, 2012 19:04:12 GMT -5

I don’t know you and you don’t know me, I don’t even f—king care if you two were f—king around. If there had been some vague hope that she wouldn’t have to go through with killing him, it died as the last words escaped his throat. Tallow couldn’t help but momentarily sit back and sigh, pressed forefinger and thumb to her temple, trying to quiet the roar of blood in her ears, the rush of her thoughts careening inside of her head. But of course he’d seen and heard everything; they’d thought they were alone, locked up in the privacy of the pig house, unchecked and unguarded in their entanglement. And the boy was like a light switch, casting a harsh glare over hidden secrets. Honestly, sometimes Tallow didn’t even like what she saw. It was messed up, she was as sick and as twisted as their words would make her out to be. But that didn’t mean it had to stop, didn’t mean that everything didn’t feel right… alone in the dark, holding her brother close. We just have to be more careful, is all. Get rid of this one and learn from it. Never let it happen again.

It was only a matter of time though, some churning sensation in the pit of her stomach seemed to whisper. Sooner or later the truth would come out again, and then it might not be so easily contained. This whole business could never be anything but doomed.

But it could never ever be forgotten- not by Tallow at any road; lingering in her mind like the scent of the earth after a rain. Even before they’d really started, she couldn’t will the wanting away, only had to pause for a moment to taste her brother’s tongue, to feel the rasp and the reality of him pressed against her. The thing about it for Tallow was that once they’d started this, begun the slog down this dark and twisting road, she couldn’t see anyway of stopping it and certainly no way of turning back.If it ended now, Tallow could see herself sneaking off to a barn, up against a trash can with some stranger, forcing herself to look at whoever else she was fucking, knowing that the minute she dared to shut her eyes it would be Scutcher’s hands exploring her body, him parting her leg and pushing inside of her. But it would never be any good. She’d always come with his eyes, his touch playing over and over in her brain.

And people said that Scutcher was the fucked up Tansy kid, they should have spent two minutes, just two inside Tallow’s head.

So she had to steel herself, had to do what needed to be done to keep him. Tipping her head towards him, Tallow forced her mouth into a thin line, chin tipped in the haughty way she’d perfected so well,“You and I both know I can’t just let you walk out of here,” she said coldly, “’sides, you look like it might be kinder to just put you out of your fucking misery.” Sitting back on her calves, she unpicked the buttons of her dress before putting it on again, fingers not even trembling a little. It needed to be done, and Tallow- for all her running around, getting drunk with Swallow Anne- tried not to shirk her responsibility, especially when it came to Scutcher. We look out for each other because there’s no one else in the entire world for either of us. If they send him away they might as well take my lungs out too.

Scutcher took his time in the smokehouse and all Tallow could do was watch the rise and fall of the boy’s chest. She’d joked about putting him out of his misery more for affect than anything, but fuck it if it wouldn’t be the kinder thing to do. If it was Tallow backed into a corner like this, Tallow facing the threat of death she would have fought, bit, scratched and screamed- whatever it took. This boy though, he seemed beyond that. Whatever spark of life a person had in them was gone, leaving a pathetic mewling creature pleading in front of her. Tallow almost wanted to grab him by the collar and scream ‘have some dignity at least,man’. That line about not knowing who Tallow or Scutcher was had to be bullshit though. There was something in his face, now she could see a little clearer in the dark that Tallow knew she knew- but still couldn’t place where. From school, from a drunken hook up, she didn’t know. But any kind of recognition was enough to see him killed.

“Storms coming,” she said lightly, like any neighbour would say to another when discussing the weather. In perfect coincidence, from somewhere beyond the horizon came the ominous rumbling of thunder, marking the fall of heavy rain on the tin roof and Scutcher’s entrance, holding a length of rope and a frankly excessive collection of knives, ranging from the heavy meat cleaver to the razor sharp, slim line knife used to make the first, lethal cut.

“I didn’t know which knives to bring, so I brought all the ones I could find…” he mumbled, chewing on his lower lip. Initative- not Scutcher’s strong point, but she had more than enough for both of them.

“ Good, that's real good, Scutcher,” Tallow smiled, before sliding her eyes back to Naif. “We might need ‘em all. Help me get the rope around him.”

Scutcher hesitated, eyes flickering from her to the boy in the hay- the gears now perhaps shifting, piecing together and realising what she intended the rope and the knives for, and if not perhaps sensing at least that something wasn’t right. “Tallow, I-”

“Scutcher please,” here her voice cracked a little, eyes looking up to him imploringly. How do I make you understand what’s gotta happen now? But he didn’t move from his spot in the doorway. “Scutcher DO IT,” she barked, sounding for all the world like their father. The way he flinched, dutifully sinking to his knees made her heart break.

“Why are we doin’ this, Tallow?” he asked quietly, turning then to Naif. “You done something bad to the pigs? Thievin’ or somethin’?” He remembered when their dad had caught a rustler , Tallow guessed. Just a kid too, he’d said when relaying the story at the kitchen table, trying to make off with a piglet. There’d been a rope too, while their mom had called the peacekeepers, though their father had wanted to ‘deal with the little fucker’ by himself.

“No Noodle, it’s worse than that,” she said, trying to knot Naif’s wrists together. “He saw us…remember? Doing that thing we do when we're alone what nobody aint supposed to know about…like how I told you. But don’t worry…don’t worry,” she put a hand to his face as a flash of panic ran across his eyes, “I ain’t gonna let nobody send you away okay? I promise. We’re gonna deal with this now, and he won’t tell no one. You just gotta hand me that knife.”

He didn’t exactly hand it to her, picked it up and gripped it hard, but Tallow- finding the right mix of firm and gentle -pried it from his fingers. Dipping her head to kiss the bones of his knuckles, she looked up to him, filling as much reassurance as she could into a gaze.

“I love you so much.”

Now her hands were trembling, “I fucking hope you’re a community home kid,” she murmured, more to herself than anything. “I know I recognise you someplace…but I suppose it can’t be helped now.”

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Last Edit: Aug 5, 2012 5:26:07 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 21, 2012 23:00:19 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 21, 2012 23:00:19 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

I could see her through the darkness, the sick sneer on her face—it wasn’t like the delight that Carver had when he brought about his own brand of justice—rather it was the thought that she had to kill me for what I’d seen. It was a mixture of fear with certainty, one that welled up and kept her grip firm on my throat. There was something strange to it, the fact that whatever I’d stumbled upon was so forbidden. And the two of them, the boy that seemed something special

[/color] and this harpy, they’d see to it I was never heard from again. So what if the two of them porked one another until the pigs came home, I could give a s—t less. I don’t care if he did her like a dog, it was none of my business. As long as they were happy with one another, and not hurting anyone.[/color]

Sometimes we can’t explain what makes us tick, we’ve got to have others do it for us…

He kept shifting back and forth, his breaths getting shorter as he thought about her, calling out her name, Tatum , a name that I heard so many times in his sleep it made my skin crawl. Who was this mystery girl? I had asked around at school but there was no Tatum—not a single one in our whole district—at least, she wasn’t a woman that was our age. And yet every gasp from his breath, with the long hold of his hands, was Tatum, Tatum, Tatum. I narrowed my eyes at the cry of her name, the one thing that made me hate him to the very core of his being. He was mine, but he was calling her name. He was calling out for someone who wasn’t us, who didn’t hold him at night, who didn’t keep him in his thoughts every waking moment.[/color]

“You and I both know I can’t just let you walk out of here, sides, you look like it might be kinder to just put you out of your fucking misery.” Her voice brushed against my cheek and I let out another little groan. Every bone in my body ached, and I could feel my sand paper tongue as it scraped against the roof of my mouth. It was a wonder I was struggling at all in my condition. But something pushed me further. Something—perhaps the fact that I saw myself as better, as higher than these pig f—kers—that I was not like them and deserved a better end. And someone like her, someone so ready to extinguish me for her own personal f—king gain, no, that wasn’t someone that would get the best of me. I sucked up some of the mucus into my throat and hacked. But she drifted away from the impending doom to lighten the mood, strangely. “Storms coming…”

And he called out for her, his whole body heaving, wanting, desiring this mystery to be ensnared in him. I let out a little gasp at it all, that he this was his one desire, that she was on his lips at the moment his symphony reached its crescendo. What could she possibly give him, what did she possibly know about him that I did not? Who was the one that assuaged his fears and stood up for him when others called him a retard? When others wanted nothing to do with him for his awkwardness and inability to explain to others. But in his afterglow he still muttered Tatum… Tatum… Tatum… and it struck at me like a knife. I moved back from the door, stumbling back toward the couch, where I gripped both hands against the plush surface angrily.[/color]

Scutcher, the one that seemed a bit touched by something, came back with the knives and rope. It wasn’t long before they set about tying me up—but not without hesitation. He muttered to her, unsure of what she was doing, and for the briefest instant I thought there might be some dissention in the ranks. But she coaxed him with her little voice at first, and then with a yell, and before long he was tying the rope around me. And now my heart began to pound in my chest, and a shiver ran through me. This isn’t a game. This isn’t them getting me to the point of breaking. They’re actually going to f—king slit my throat and feed me to the pigs.[/color] I was ready to s—t myself then, if I still had anything in my bowels, at the prospect of what was to come. The glint of the knives in the fading sun made it all too clear. I let out a few frightened gasps as I wiggled in my constraints.

“Why are we doin’ this, Tallow?” I heard him ask, and looked from him to the girl. Yes please… please… have some mercy… please… oh ripred, please…[/color] She was unmoved by his question. His voice was lacking a sort of—certainty—for it to ever have been taken seriously. Instead it was more of a musing, one to be corrected by the girl and then regarded as truth. She wasted no time reminding him of my crimes. “He saw us…remember? Doing that thing we do when we're alone what nobody aint supposed to know about…like how I told you. But don’t worry…don’t worry, I ain’t gonna let nobody send you away okay? I promise. We’re gonna deal with this now, and he won’t tell no one. You just gotta hand me that knife…” There was a genuine fear amongst all of us, hovering over us, though very different but altogether united. I could do no more than look as she reached for the thing in Scutcher’s hand and moved toward me.

But I wasn’t to be undone. Oh no, he could cry to her all she wanted, but I was here. I was the one that was here and in his room and took care of him. And he should be disgusted for what he was doing. He should be ashamed, ashamed for what he did and what he was thinking. Because he wasn’t thinking about me. I whipped around and smacked open the door, causing him to sit up in his bed and attempt to throw the covers over himself. But we knew—the both of us understood—and I lashed into him. You are disgusting… you know that, Cyrus? You’re f—king gross. Doing that in here. What kind of person does that, in our bedroom, doing that… thinking those things… He ought to have been ashamed.[/color]

“I love you so much.” I heard her say before angling the knife towards me. The next sentence was blurred out with the beating of my heart, and I could feel my whole body begin to shake. My eyes came down hard against my cheeks and the tears began to burn down the sides of my face. What did I do to deserve this, huh? What did I f—king do to get split into pieces in a f—king pig hut with some dirty kids?[/color] And as she moved in, I could hear the faintest olive branch part from her lips. “I know I recognise you someplace…but I suppose it can’t be helped now…”

“Naif Malloc… my name is Naif Malloc… p-p-please… I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t even want to be here…” I pressed my head back against the wall and cried out again, wailing as I tried to keep away from her blade. “I’m from district six… I… I… I don’t have anywhere else to go… been wandering around for so long… my brother… Cyrus… in the games… please… please… I’m sorry, I’m sorry… don’t kill me, don’t kill me, I don’t have anyone to tell anything… just don’t kill meeee…” I wail out this last word, ashamed of myself, ashamed of my cowardice, and most of all ashamed that I could not be as brave as he was.
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Last Edit: Jul 21, 2012 23:06:02 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 22, 2012 17:43:22 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 22, 2012 17:43:22 GMT -5

“Well…” she started, mind still running through what he’d just said. Not sure if it was true, not sure if this was just something that he was saying to weasel out of death whatever way he could. It was oddly specific though, wasn’t it? Too detailed to be any lie that she would have come up with on the spot, and Tallow liked to think she was a good enough liar to usually spot the mistruths in other people. Tallow remembered wanderers as a girl; the gypsies that sold jewellery and hair braids at the market- they were different to Naif though, and perhaps she felt a curl of pity for him. Who knew how long he had travelled? What he’d seen on the way, frightened and unsure of what to do for food. Though Tallow didn’t know much about the other districts, the opening ceremonies and their usual performance in the games suggested that district six was not the outdoorsiest of the districts. If she had to go into the woods with Scutcher, Tallow was sure that she could make it. This boy barely had.

“There’s no one around to miss you, then.” She raised her knife, eyes locking in on the right spot of his neck.

“Hold still and it’ll be over quicker,” said Tallow, a little softly now. Knowing what she knew, Tallow would try not to make it hurt- as far as she could, because dying always hurt no matter what anyone said about finding peace. It wasn’t that his story didn’t move her if only a little; she wasn’t completely made of stone, but he’d lost his brother- he’d understand why she had to do whatever she could to keep him. As long as Naif was in the district, she told herself, not daring to think to hard in case talked herself down from the edge of this vast precipice as opposed to simply plunging down it like she needed to, he could still gossip about the things he had seen up at the Tansy farm. He knew their names now too, he might talk and Tallow couldn’t risk it. It would still be easier to silence him permanently. Maybe you’d have done the same for your brother; I don’t even know how it is for normal siblings any more.

Two hands wrapped around the knife as she leaned over him, holding tight enough to turn the knuckles on her skin white.

If only his Adam's apple would quit bobbing up and down so she could remember where the carotid artery was.

Human necks weren't like pigs.

As she let the knife drop through the air like a kingfisher darting into the water, she felt a roaring breath like the ominous rumble of thunder rising through her.

Only, her hands stopped mere inches from Naif’s throat, unable to move any further. Where in other’s it might be their sense of right and wrong or compassion stopping them from killing, Tallow had Scutcher in lieu of a conscience (another reason why they couldn’t ever be parted, he basically her soul and ripred help the world if Tallow lost that). His hand was wrapped around her wrist, stilling her knife, keeping her hand fixed there.

“Cyrus helped Noreen,” he said, now it was Scutcher’s turn to be firm. Tallow still hated the way he said her name. It was strange that he should remember that tidbit about the district six victor before she did, but he’d had more of a vested interest in the games this year that she had for obvious reasons. Tallow remembered now, Cyrus Malloc, the tribute who’d survived the remnants of Noreen Lexington’s doomed alliance only to be killed by the kraken. She had to hand it to him, he’d had balls. He’d had…troubles too. Tallow had seen it a mile off, one of those people in life who’s brains would never let them have it easy. No wonder he’d had big balls. People like that have to, just to keep trying to stay alive.

“He was good and Noreen won’t want us to kill his brother and I don’t want my sister killin' people like this….you aint even holding the knife right,” he tilted the knife in her hand, and for a minute she thought he was giving his blessing but Scutcher then lifted it out of her fingers and set it on the hay. Her mouth opened a little as she watched him and whispered one thing she never thought she would do him.

“So what do we do?” Tallow asked, like a lost little girl asking her big brother for help. “What if he tells?”

It was as weird for Scutcher as it was for her, and for a minute she thought the pressure of deferring to him might have been a little too stress-full, but instead he turned to Naif and chewed on his lip, “We can... ask him… not to?” Ask him not to. Ask him. Sometimes Tallow was proud that she’d protected enough of his innocence that he could still think of solutions like this, other times it was just frustrating how naïve he could be, others…she just didn’t know what else to do.

“Right…” she said quietly. “Right.” Reaching forward she grabbed at Naif’s collar, “We aint gonna kill you tonight. But that doesn’t mean I won’t…or report you straight to the peacekeepers for hanging around this district.” Okay? Her look towards Scutcher seemed to say. I hope you’re happy…you do know that this is all for you, right? “You’re a lucky son of a bitch."

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Last Edit: Jul 23, 2012 1:17:32 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 23, 2012 3:05:32 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 23, 2012 3:05:32 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

“Well… there’s no one around to miss you, then.”

How many empty chairs had there been at your funeral? How many had you known in your life, maybe a few hundred, and none of them braved the rain to come see you off? Just a few sorry faces and a man you didn’t know. We all sat there in our white chairs, waiting for no one that was to come. But why would they ever want to remember a boy that didn’t bring them joy. A boy that mixed up words and shook and flapped his arms when things got too rough. Even our parents were tired of you, weak from all the pain that you’d brought them. And in their pain they saw nothing of me—the boy that they said gave them everything you did not—only the despair in having lost a son they hadn’t loved. You were quietly turned to dust, retiring like a shadow underneath the setting sun. Forgotten, unmissed, and unloved.

But what was the use of it all, anyway? There was no need to celebrate death, when death was just the clock winding down to nothing. There was no far beyond, with rolling hills and endless sunsets where the good little boys went. Those made up stories never comforted me; they made me want to know the truth. Not the silly, made-up ending that let us sleep at night. Because if it wasn’t true—when I realized soon enough that it was all made-up to stop you from shaking—I would lie awake in my own bed picturing nothing. I would clear my mind, or try to anyway, and think about just never being at all. What would it be like for everything just to end? They made me want to know what it felt like for darkness to overtake my eyes and for the breath to be torn from my lips, for everything to just fade to nothingness. Because that was all there was when we ran this pathetic life down to its nub—a blackness so coarse light never escaped. We became nothing but the darkness in a void, forever empty. Forever alone. But I suppose the loneliness couldn’t hurt—for how would we ever know we were alone if we never thought, never felt, never knew.

“Hold still and it’ll be over quicker,” she says as she moves closer with the knife. I’m still weeping then, but my voice is hoarse and I can barely get anything out. I can’t say the words for her to stop. I don’t know if I even believe that it would do any good. There’s the certainty about her, again, that tells me she will finish this because I am not supposed to live

[/i]. [/color] How horrible in the last moments that I’m struggling to think of anything to distract me from the knife nearing my throat. My heart pounded as the glint of the blade drew back, and I let out another little yelp. F—k her. F—k the boy. F—k Cyrus for ever having been born.[/i] [/color] I didn’t close my eyes, though. A part of me wanted to see death—I wanted to know what the world would look like as I dissolved down to nothing.

Will it be okay there, too? [/color] Your eyes are locked with mine, a greenish blue with flecks all over. I draw a hand down your side and pull closer to you. Of course it will… because whatever you do is perfect, Rus. No one ever does anything like you. [/color] It makes him grin. He was so thoughtful—he reasoned through everything, it could be like pulling teeth getting to a point—and now he wanted to know the truth. But if you love me… why wouldn’t you… why couldn’t we… [/color] He pauses, his face strained. His hand brushes my bare skinned back and I close my eyes. Because they wouldn’t understand. That I’m yours, and you’re mine—forever, that no one knew you like I did—and they never would. There was still that shame hovering overhead, one that would mark me forever to tell me I was a freak. Because you’ve never been anyone but mine… special… to me… for me, Rus. [/color] But his face is screwed up now as I say this.

What? [/color] But he looks down at the sheets and trails a few fingers along my skin. What! [/color] He’s thinking—I can always fucking tell—but he won’t say. What! WHAT! Damn it Cyrus![/i] [/color] And the rage comes out of me even worse now, even more fearsome as my hands grab onto his shoulders and force him down onto the bed. F—king what. F—king what! F—king, you know damn well, f—king, thinking about that, thinking about… thinking it…[/i] [/color] And you’re ready to cry you’re so hurt, but I don’t care because I want to rage [/color] and I want to hurt you with every last bit of my being. But you’re too reasoned for that— But I can… I can be someone else’s and yours, Na, I can… can’t I? ‘Cause you said what we have is special and—[/i] [/color] But I’ve f—king had it with his daydreams. He has to choose. He has to f—king make a choice if he wants to feel the sweetness, if he wants to sigh and feel this love. And then, then he starts in on it— Because when we all head away to the beyond it won’t matter… [/color]

Not with that nonsense, not that ripred-damn nonsense. [/color] He’s stunned, I can still see the look on his face, of hurt and confusion. No such f—king thing, damn it! You and your f—king stories![/i] [/color] He opens his mouth and I see a fit coming on, but it doesn’t stop me. I’ll tear him down, I’ll bring him down, and the house down, and the whole f—king district to the ground if it meant that he would never think of anyone else but me. Because life was too short to waste on a dream. You don’t go anywhere when you die, Rus. You’re gonna be down in the ground—and you won’t feel anything, you won’t see anything, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Just like when you close your eyes. Nothing. [/color] And he gets real quiet and starts rocking back and forth, back and forth, and lets out his little yelp. And I swoop in, wrapping my arms around him, my body against his, closing my eyes, shushing him. But I’ll always be here… like no one else… I’ll always be here… [/color]

It should’ve ended by now—the memory went on for too long and I’m expecting it’s happened, and my brain just delayed it because of all the blood that was leaving me. But it hadn’t, there hadn’t been a cut of the knife against my flesh. The boy had reached out to grab onto her, he had stopped her from taking my life and letting me escape into nothing. “Cyrus helped Noreen,” He whispered, and I let out another rasp. They knew… they knew him? They knew Noreen? [/color] And in his quiet way he disarmed her, speaking of Cyrus’ goodness. “He was good and Noreen won’t want us to kill his brother and I don’t want my sister killin' people like this….you aint even holding the knife right.”

My blood curdled—safe, now, from the b—h with the blade—angry that the shadow hovering over me had the last laugh. For in all my bravery, in all that I’d faced and tried to do on my own, every turn I had been saved by Cyrus in some way. He was perfect [/color] , even in death. He was a wonderful thing that people respected. One that could be revered and seen as a hero. That even the pig f—kers of district 10 could see that he had been something special. My Rus, special. He was special. He was so ripred-damn special. [/color] He took the knife away and cast it to the ground with a thud, and I let out a small sigh.

But in the pause I looked to the girl. They were—related? They were together, they were two of the same family, and she had… done the evil, the taboo, the thing that was unforgivable to be seen by anyone[/i] [/color]. And in their ignorance, they had let me see into their little world. But why? Why with him, why with this boy? Why with the retard, the boy that was obviously touched in the head. He was not handsome, he didn’t even seem as though he would appreciate her love. He was ignorant [/color] , simple even, and unworthy of such affection. And she—evil and altogether twisted, she had tried to kill me. And she would’ve followed through it, too, had he not stopped her. Because that was what evil did—it dipped in and made things that could have been beautiful ugly.

Because what we had had, it could never have been ugly like this—you were too good, I was too good, we were too beautiful together—I shook in my constraints and felt a dizziness overcome me. As they debated just what they were going to do to me, I shivered, thinking only that we were perfect, that you were perfect, and so beautiful, that it could only be beautiful and right and— but perhaps it was just the state I was in, that none of my memories were so close as to actually being (and who would know, now that you were dead)?

“We aint gonna kill you tonight. But that doesn’t mean I won’t…or report you straight to the peacekeepers for hanging around this district. You’re a lucky son of a bitch." Of course, if I had been luckier, I wouldn’t have found into the two of you. [/color] It’s what I wanted to say, but the words didn’t come. Instead I kept shivering against the wall, and as I opened my mouth, felt my teeth chattering.

“I won’t t-tell anyone…” I whisper out as I look to Scutcher. “I’m sorry… please… I just wanted a place to stay… I’m so tired… please… could you help me?” I wiggle my hands and the glint of my brother’s ring shines in the fading light. “I just ran away ‘cause I had no one else… you’ve got to understand… he was… he was…” everything.[/color] [/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]

Last Edit: Jul 23, 2012 3:16:29 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 23, 2012 12:30:57 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 23, 2012 12:30:57 GMT -5

There still wasn’t anything about this situation that Tallow liked, and-her moral welfare or whatever aside- she was still pretty sure that killing him would have made her feel better. Asking him to keep a secret required a lot trust, required a lack of control that was simply outside of Tallow’s vocabulary. The next best option of course, was to keep him tied up in the pig house for forever where Tallow could keep a close eye on him- but that wasn’t going to happen either, she had to reluctantly admit as Scutcher began to untie his bonds. What she needed, and quite desperately too was a way to keep him close, to figure out a way to dig her claws in.

But Tallow didn’t know Naif, didn’t know what made him tick the way she did Swallow Anne, Scutcher, Jack Lexington, her parents and most of her friends. She needed more time, a place to think, somewhere quiet. “I won’t t-tell anyone. I’m sorry… please… I just wanted a place to stay… I’m so tired… please… could you help me? I just ran away ‘cause I had no one else… you’ve got to understand he was… he was…”

“Oh my ripred,” Tallow burst out angrily, barely able to hear herself think over the sound of Naif’s pitiful pleas directed at Scutcher. “Do you ever shut the fuck up? Whine whine whine…I’m so tired, I’ve got no one else. Did they throw you out of six for being such a little bitch.” Tallow knew nothing about six, but could only imagine how much better it had to be than ten. They bred them smart in six ,right? Wasn’t it supposed to be filled with doctors, trading in medicines could have saved their father’s legs and caught the fever in Scutcher’s brain as a baby before it had damaged it? It didn’t stink of pig shit either, Tallow was willing to bet her life on. For some reason, looking down at Naif she felt like it was her duty to educate him on the ways of ten. A little ‘lesson’ like her father might have taught them, sitting at the kitchen table and unlacing his boots.

“Well guess what, you’re in my district now, where we either nut up or shut up. No one gets to be tired in ten, because that’s when a wolf might get in to your cattle or your pigs might get spooked and start eating each other and if that happens you fucking starve and you fucking die. No one in ten relies on having no one else because no one has enough to start giving out hand outs. Not that you should want them to…fuck charity. Earn your fucking sorry ass life, kid. Work for it.”

Work. Tallow suddenly was struck by an idea, one that she hoped would pass off because it was fairly good. If she found Naif a place close by then she could keep a close watch on him, make sure her threat of imprisonment or worse stuck- it couldn’t be on the Tansy farm because they had no room obviously, nothing to spare and Tallow and Scutcher still needed the pig huts to be private (they way that they were supposed to have been before). So it was just as well she knew someone who owned a farm and owed her a favour (Tallow Tansy kept a close record of people who owed her favours, always waiting for the opportune moment to cash them in).

“So I ain’t gonna just let you stay here, sleepin on our land, beggin’ our food. There’s a farm though…I could get you some work and you could earn your keep. Sounds good don’t it, Noodle?” she asked turning to Scutcher with a slightly deranged smile, “Sounds like something Saint Noreen would have approved of, right?” Scutcher wouldn’t have noticed the strained sarcasm in her voice, but anyone else would almost definitely have done.

[/size][/justify][/color]

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 24, 2012 0:03:12 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 24, 2012 0:03:12 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

The boy freed me from my bonds and I collapsed against the shed wall. I couldn’t thank him enough for saving my life, for Cyrus saving my life, for the ounce of kindness that he’d managed to show me. I would have to thank him somehow, someway for what he’d done. It was new for me—wanting to give him something when nothing had been asked, but with my life having been spared, I would never feel good about myself otherwise. It would make my skin crawl knowing that I owed him something… something for this act. I turned my head back to Tallow weakly, and blinked my eyes slowly as she came into focus. The sky had changed to a rumbling darkness, with flashes of light from the heat lightning in the distance. She looked like something else entirely, with her hair blowing across her face and streaks of lights, as though she was a witch ready to cast some evil spell.

“Do you ever shut the fuck up? Whine whine whine…I’m so tired, I’ve got no one else. Did they throw you out of six for being such a little bitch.” She was mocking me. It stung, because I didn’t think it was so true. I had traveled through the wilderness to get to district two, to the beaches of four, to other places, braving a world that I’d never know. What the f—k did she ever know about hardship? But she still thought that I was some kind of joke, that I was just some pathetic boy that had a bad week in the woods. Well just because she was poor doesn’t mean that she’d ever known what it felt like to not have anything… I furrowed my brow as she spoke. I was better than this—they were too dumb to understand that, anyway. They didn’t know. They were ignorant.

She went into a rant about the harshness of district ten—about how poor it was, about how they were always looking after livestock—and I did what I could to keep my attention on her. I’m so tired… But as I felt my head slump forward, I gave her nod. They’d only put the knife down a few moments ago, I didn’t need them to think that they should just finish the job for me not being able to pay attention to her. Who knows how many chances I’m going to get? I knew little about this district, it seemed so far away when I had been in district six that I never gave it much mind. They were all backwater country folk anyway. In the games they never made it very far, unless you counted Mace. But my brother had been friends with one of them… the one that had kids… It was the last sentence that got my attention though. “Earn your fucking sorry ass life, kid. Work for it.” Since when did I ever have to do anything for anyone else… that wasn’t Panem, was it?

Do we have to do this? I’m standing in front of the bathroom door. Mom’s on the other side. She’s had another bad spell—her problems from working as a chemist always gave her spells where it was hard for her to move around on her own much—and she’d spent almost the whole week in her bed. One of us has to. She can’t do it herself. I shrug my shoulders and look down at the ground. But I don’t want to do it, it’s gross. Sometimes she had sores from being in bed. She can’t do it herself, she might get hurt. Well then you do it. I don’t want to. You’re older anyway. Okay. You never fought me for it. You never made me do anything I didn’t want to do. You always did what I told you to. But there were some things I shouldn’t have had to do, right? I mean, there were a few things that other people never had to do, so why did I have to do it? Why was it fair? But you did it anyway. You did it because I asked you to, and you never complained. Or if you did, I never listened.

[/color]

Why can’t you fight for your shitty ass life?

“So I ain’t gonna just let you stay here, sleepin on our land, beggin’ our food. There’s a farm though…I could get you some work and you could earn your keep.” So that’s where she wanted to take me. She wanted me to work on some s—ty farm and do hard labor and become one of them. Well the joke’s on you, because I’m never going to turn out like you.[/color] But how could I refuse? How could I tell her that I wasn’t going to go and work for whoever it was that she was going to get in my state? Besides, there would come a time when I could get the f—k out of this place, and she wouldn’t be able to stop me… or maybe, just maybe, I’d get the chance to hold a knife to her neck Just as she finished with her brother, I nodded my head and licked my lips.

“Where…” I say as I look from Scutcher to Tallow. “Where do I have to go? Who is it… I’ll do it… I’ll do anything…” This must have been what it felt to hit the bottom of the barrel. Sitting in pig shit, begging for a place to stay, some scraps of food, and a chance to survive. This was panem, here, the f—ked up s—thole that never gave you anything without a price. I would be shoveling pig shit or worse, with some stranger that was probably as f—ked up as she was, if she knew him well enough. I brought my hands up to my face, their horrible smell clouding my nose. Just say yes. Say anything, tell her that you’ll shovel her s—t and be done with it.[/color]

I’d have done it for you, though. I’d have done it for you for every day for the rest of my life. I don’t know why I couldn’t—there was something strange and awful about it, something too low and disgusting to do that. We weren’t that poor, we could’ve gotten someone to come in, a neighbor even, to do it. But I made you go, I made you… because I was too good for that…[/color]

“I’ll do it… I don’t care… just give me a chance…” I brought my hands down into my lap and folded them over one another. At the very least, I could try.[/color] “I don’t care if I have to chop up pigs with that one, just give me a chance. You got enough heart for that, don’t you…?”
[/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]

Last Edit: Jul 24, 2012 0:28:25 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 24, 2012 14:14:26 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 24, 2012 14:14:26 GMT -5

Appealing to Tallow’s heart- not a good idea. She sniffed contemptuously at the pathetic scrap of a boy in her pig shed, “I already said I’d take you didn’t I? And he aint just That One,” she added angrily, nodding at Scutcher- disliking as she always did the way that he spoke about Scutcher and what he did for a living. Only Tallow was allowed to think that pigs were foul and hate the way her family sat festering in the shit. If you weren’t family, you didn’t get to say anything. “He saved your life. You remember that.” Never mind that it was Tallow who was going to kill him, it was still a debt to Scutcher -and a debt to Scutcher was a debt to Tallow. In district ten debts were always repaid. With interest.

Glancing outside of the pig arks, Tallow saw that the storm was still rumbling as rain began to piece through the clouds, hitting the tin roof above them like scattering pebbles. “We’re going to Elias Poers’ farm,” she said softly to Scutcher. “You remember; from after the riot?” He nodded and she smiled, risking a quick glance at Naif before leaning up to whisper in his ear, as quietly as she could for Scutcher’s ears and Scutcher’s ears only, “You okay, yeah…down there? I’m sorry you didn’t get to finish. I’ll fix it later, I promise.”

Scutcher nodded, and Tallow narrowed her eyes at Naif giving him her most devious slow, twisting smile. Secrets and mystery were powerful tools, let his mind wander let him jump to whatever conclusion he wanted to. “But we should get rid of the knives first okay? Don’t wanna leave them around here for the pigs to hurt themselves, do we?” Tallow didn’t care, not really. The pigs could all bleed out, the place could burn around them until there was nothing left but flaking ashes. She just wanted her brother- the rest was little more than specks of dust, this boy included. And how easy it would have been to kill him, at the end of everything. “You run up to the smokehouse, put the knives away and catch us up down the road,” she instructed her brother, standing on tip toe to press a light kiss against his lips. “Uh,uh,uh wait a minute…just leave me with this little sharp one,” she grinned, taking the same knife she’d tried to slit his throat with. “Just a precaution.” Tallow winked at Naif.

Signallinh that Naif should follow her out of the pig huts and into the rain, she flashed him a strange little smile and giggle, “Funny old night, eh?” she said lightly, the water making her hair- always looking perfect if just a little mussed from the roll in the hay- stick to her face in clumps “Bit of an awkward situation all round really, right?” Then when Scutcher was out of earshot, on his way back to the house, she stepped into Naif, bringing the scent of lemon disinfectant, cigarette smoke and the heady scent that rises from between a woman’s legs with her.

“Bet you were pretty ticked off when your brother got killed, huh? Bet you wanted to hurt all kinds of people, wanted to make them suffer. Well you have no idea what I’ll actually do to you if you open your trap and my brother gets taken away from me. I don’t care if you try and take off. I don’t care if you try and hide and it takes me twenty years to find you; because I will find you and I will hurt you in ways worse than any nightmare you’ve ever had. Got that? Good boy,” Tallow patted his shoulder.

“Elias is good folk, I guess,” she continued, as though the last exchange hadn’t happened, “keep walking or I’ll cut you, has the farm all to himself. Pretty sweet set up really- wish my parents would fuck off too.” It’d make everything easier, cut down on all the sneaking around and fucking in pig sheds. But they had to die one day, Tallow would remind herself. Scutcher would never leave his pigs, she imagined, but that would be okay when it was just the two of them. Brothers and sisters could live together without much hassle if they were unmarried couldn’t they? Especially if they were like Scutcher and needed special care and attention. Saint Tallow, everyone would say, still looking after Scutcher after all these years and they could pork on the kitchen table in the afternoon without anyone being any the wiser. Perfect. “Yours not around either?” she asked, swearing that she’d heard Cyrus mention his family, or at least neglecting to mention that anyone was dead. Still, if Tallow was reaped she doubted she’d talk about her parents much either; they didn’t deserve her recognition.

[/size][/justify][/color]

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 24, 2012 19:19:33 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 24, 2012 19:19:33 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

So they would let me live, after all. They were going to let me walk out of here alive, on the condition that I kept their pathetic little secret safe. As if it were some all important thing—who would ever care in this ripred-forsaken place about the two of them f—king? They had to have more important things to think about than some ugly boy and some scary looking girl bumping their naughty bits together in a f—king pig house. From all I’d heard about they were on the verge of starvation or dying from some long eradicated (at least in district six) disease. But no, there was a… fear in them, in her, at least, that was obvious. And while she held the power now, it was something to stock away in the back of my mind. For though he’d spared my life, and she was giving me some sort of chance, I did not believe in the stupid turn the other cheek

[/color] method that Cyrus had so painfully[/color] displayed while he was alive.

“We’re going to Elias Poers’ farm,” She said it loud enough for me, and I perked up at the name. I had always had an easier time with boys—I had always liked being around boys—than when I’d had to deal with girls. And if he was some sort of ranch owner, he might even have a decent place to sleep and not some place covered in animal feces. Though I couldn’t expect too much from this district.[/color] The rain started to come down on the shed, and the noise made it hard to hear whatever she was whispering to Scutcher. Probably something about when they were going to come back and f—k.[/color] But I looked away from them, and out the doorway into the field. Lightning illuminated the walk forward. It looked like nothing but muddy emptiness: a landscape as desolate and uninteresting as the two of my hosts.

Something about the knives, about cleaning them up and making sure the little porkers don’t hurt themselves. I’m still dizzy as I stand, and have to hold myself against the wall. I place an arm on the wall—which gives a shudder—and turn in time to see that Scutcher is leaving. My stomach twists into knots, which I’m not sure is from hunger, or from the fact that I’m facing the witch alone. And she’s got the very same knife that she had before. “Just a precaution.” She says with a grin that tells me I can go-fuck-myself, because she’s the one that will always be in charge, so long as she can help it. But she doesn’t come at me and leave me a bloody mess on the floor. Instead she motions for the two of us to head out into the storm and to wherever we’re going.

“Funny old night, eh? Bit of an awkward situation all round really, right?” The fat drops of rain hit my body with a start, and I stand for a moment to let the water wash over me. My chest rises and falls as I hold still, letting the droplets splash against my dirty face and mangled clothes. It stings in the places along my arms where I’ve been cut. My wrists hurt from the rope, and there’s some swelling still underneath my eye from where Carver hit me in the face. But the rain cools me, it makes my teeth chatter as I let it cover me completely. We always liked the rain, we always liked to run in the rain and get wet and chase each other until we were too tired. Even though we didn’t have as much mud or room to run free, we just ran up and down the block where the tall apartment buildings loomed.[/color] She’s already ahead of me, and her voice changes from one of idle small talk to the venom she’d been spitting before.

“Bet you were pretty ticked off when your brother got killed, huh? Bet you wanted to hurt all kinds of people, wanted to make them suffer. Well you have no idea what I’ll actually do to you if you open your trap and my brother gets taken away from me…” The thunder bangs again and the rest is lost to me as I stare at her face. She still wanted me dead, and she would stop at nothing to make sure that I couldn’t say what I’d seen. Because it had been wrong. It was sick and filthy, and everything she had done girls weren’t supposed to do with their brothers… not ones that were so obviously damaged…[/color] They weren’t like us. They weren’t like you and me. You were beautiful… with a supple body and the greatest, most unbreakable spirit. One that infuriated and moved me—made me want you, to be like you… and you’d only proved that while you were in the arena…[/color] It was her sickness, that’s what it was. She was sick and twisted in this terrible place; she didn’t understand what it truly felt to love her brother, or anyone. Otherwise she would’ve been more forgiving—I would have been more forgiving—wouldn’t I have been? I can only stare, my shirt now hanging down and loosely around my neck. I hold my pants up with my hands, my narrowing waist a good few inches smaller than when I’d started my journey. “Got that? Good boy.”

“Elias is good folk, I guess… has the farm all to himself. Pretty sweet set up really- wish my parents would fuck off too,” She mentions Elias again and I perk up. Were his parents dead? My heart skips a beat. What was he like? Would he understand, would I have to tell him everything like I’d told her? Maybe… maybe he was good, and I could make up a lie that would be sufficient for him. "What's he... is he alone? How old is he... what's his deal...?" All of it comes out fast, faster than it should. I ask as though I want to know, thinking he's probably as awful as she is, or worse.

But I know that for all the talk I wouldn't be able to hide who I was from him. As if she would ever let me bend the truth around him, though.[/color] I stare forward as we walk along, my sneakers now coated in mud and soaked through. My socks are a soggy mess, squishing together with each step. It’s strange then, this little chat between captive and criminal. “Yours not around either?”

“No…” I start with a small voice, trudging along with her. It was easier to forget them, the useless pair that they had been. Like she would ever f—king understand what it was like.[/color] It mad my blood boil—it made me so f—king mad when people tried to talk to me about them. As if they would ever know what I was going through, losing Cyrus. Losing them. They were nothing—they were nothing and they had never been anything and ripred-damn it that anyone ever saw them as anything but useless. Two fools that had led us down this road, led me down this road, to where I was sleeping in pig huts talking to a would-be murder. Great parenting, mom and dad. Great f—king job.[/color] “I don’t have any parents…”

What did she want to know… what did she need to know about them? They were to blame for everything, anyway. They were the ones that couldn’t get their shitty lives together long enough for us to have had something. They let us fall apart and they drove him away—it was all their fault. I ground my teeth as I thought about the two of them, sitting at the front of the funeral, empty chairs behind them, grinning stupidly at the capitol praiser, the one doing the service. With stupid shit-eating-grins that didn’t mean anything for a son that never meant anything to them. And I don’t care how much the two of them f—king wept. They weren’t crying because they missed him. They were crying because they’d done such a sh—ty job in the first place. And I can see his legs, swinging back and forth, and the blood dripping down from his eyes. And her, wrapped up in the sheet like some kind of princess, cold to the touch and eyes glassed over. Both had died a long time before that, their own deaths were too easy for them.[/color]

“They’re f—king dead…” I say as we trudge along. I don’t care if she knows, or anyone… I hope they rot in the ground forever. Or better, that they rotted for some time before anyone found them. All musty and decomposing… their deaths as unnoticed as they should have been. “But then some people get what’s coming to them…”
[/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]

Last Edit: Jul 24, 2012 19:34:49 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Jul 31, 2012 13:41:39 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Jul 31, 2012 13:41:39 GMT -5

"What's he... is he alone? How old is he... what's his deal...?" At his questions, Tallow furrowed her brows, “The fuck you so eager about? You wanna date him, too? Fucking district six kids,” the last line said in an exasperated way as though she was getting sick of them, though of course she had no experience with anyone outside of ten. Naif was not the best ambassador, but it would be a lie to say that, on some level at least, Tallow wasn’t interested in learning more about the other district. Was it more like the capitol than ten? Did they have real life shampoos and cosmetics like she’d heard the capitol did- all those doctors and scientists, they had to have done. Not that you’d ever catch her asking Naif that sort of thing.

Scutcher caught them up, brushing her shoulder and walking close in a way that she felt a little more self conscious about now. Outside of her and her brother he was the only person who knew and she didn’t even know him, had no idea what he thought but had some idea at least. The same idea that everyone would have had. They just didn’t get it…and Tallow didn’t expect them to, which was the whole problem to begin with. So she stepped away from him a little, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and outstripping his pace so she led the delegation.

“He’s just a farmer, okay?” she called back to Naif. “His parents live somewhere else…I think he kicked them out or something and if you’re lucky he’ll only work you as hard as a fucking dog.”

They’re f—king dead…Naif began to elaborate about his parents and maybe a nicer person would have had the good grace to look sympathetic, would have felt bad about bringing up the topic at all- but Tallow Tansy was not a nicer person. She simply shrugged it off- if only she should be so lucky. But then some people get what’s coming to them…

And then, like a stray bolt of lightning coursing through the sky, Tallow stopped abruptly, a fierce look on her face as she lunged at Naif, knife raised again. “That supposed to be some kind of threat?” she hissed, balancing the blade between his eyes, a stray fleck of her saliva finding the tip of his nose. Safe to say she had not drawn the connection between Naif and his parents as much as she had taken it as a personal affront. Perhaps because in her mind she deserved something for all the bad things she’d done, felt sure that there was something ominous out there, some tragedy in the fucking post, stamped and addressed with her name all over it. “Because I already told you that-” Scutcher’s hand came to rest on hers again.

“Stop it…please. I don’t like it.”

Tallow raised her hands in a conciliatory fashion, stepping backwards. Her heart was still skittering nervously in her chest and she doubted that she would get a single minutes sleep tonight, fretting over this situation. But maybe Scutcher was on to something and endearing herself to Naif might have been for the best, trouble was…she wasn’t entirely sure how to take back the whole ‘trying to kill him’ incident from earlier. It wasn’t the sort of thing that led to people being bosom pals.

Luckily, they got closer to Elias’ place so she didn’t have to worry so hard about digging herself out of the almighty hole she’d inadvertently gotten them into. Rapping on the door, she turned to Naif, trying to smooth out all the anger from her face, “Listen…Naif…I know you’re tired and whatever so I’ll leave you to get settled. But I think I need to…talk to you a bit more about…everything…so I’ll be around.” I’ll always be around, she thought. Making sure you don’t spout any shit. Lucky Naif Malloc, you just got yourself a shadow with excellent hair.

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cyrus
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Before A Fall [Kneedles] Aug 3, 2012 14:07:21 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Aug 3, 2012 14:07:21 GMT -5

Naif Malloc

Narration
Thoughts
Other’s speech
What I Say
Exclamations

It must have been nice to have so much power. To be able to kick one’s folks out of his life—I was already beginning to admire this Elias fellow. If only life were ever that easy.

[/color] I’d never had the chance to get rid of my parents. They had stolen that opportunity from me. [/color] Instead they left me with images of their dead bodies, of blood, of giving up [/color] after already having given in [/color] to the desire that life wasn’t worth living. They would take the fucking easy road. [/color] But they had their pathetic beliefs about seeing things in the great beyond, as though there would be a life after this miserable one. With things being so bad, it was easy enough to buy into the morphling of the masses and think there was a silver lining way up and out of here waiting for us. Surely having to suffer so much entitled them to a better life after this one? They would think that, the greedy motherf—kers. [/color]

I could work if it meant that there was shelter and food. It would be nice to stay in a place for some time, rather than sleeping in pig shit and wandering around in ripred-knows-where. He couldn’t be too terrible—nothing worse than I had seen running around like an idiot—so I suspect he’d have me shoveling shit and working me to the bone. That is, if my body could handle it. [/color] I half suspected that it would be some time before I was able to do any type of heavy labor. But then, maybe he would do it to see how much I could take before braking me and giving me away. [/color] I wasn’t going to get my hopes up, not this time. Not when I’d nearly seen my throat cut and seen two siblings f—king one another in a pile of pig s—t. This district could be a lot [/color] worse if I wasn’t too careful. I shrugged at her mention of working hard though, because it would get me away from this stupid b—h. [/color]

“That supposed to be some kind of threat?” She whipped around now, at the mention of what I’d said about my parents. I took a deep breath, wide eyed, my whole body tensed as she held the knife toward me yet again. I was on the verge of s—ting my pants then, if they weren’t so empty, having forgotten that she was such a stark raving b—h that anything I said could be used as ammunition. I hadn’t meant it that way at all, but of course she would make it about her. [/color] I could care less what happened to her, just as long as she stayed as far away from me as possible. There was just something that screamed destruction [/color] about Tallow that made my skin crawl. She was a demon, plain and simple. The only thing that redeemed her spoke out and forced her to lower the knife.

“Stop it…please. I don’t like it.” Scutcher whispered between us and momentarily, it was over. I would have to do something for him—maybe if he liked to be touched, I could do something for him—because that would make him happy. It was the way of things—it’s what I could do to show him some gratitude. Cyrus had always liked when I gave him massages, especially his legs. I’m pretty good at that. [/color] It’s a thought that lets me escape from the insanity that’s just happened, and I cling to it like a shiny new coin. But Tallow is not finished. I don’t know if she ever will be. [/color] “Listen…Naif…I know you’re tired and whatever so I’ll leave you to get settled. But I think I need to…talk to you a bit more about…everything…so I’ll be around.”

I wanted to snipe back at her with a witty reply, but the door opened too quickly for me to say anything. An older boy—he was taller, and a bit squat—answered the door. I could hear the sound of music faintly in the background, and the light shone out onto the step of his home. It was much better maintained than the pig huts, and some of the other places I’d seen along the way. It had shutters, and real glass windows, as well as shingles on the roof. He dressed better than any of us, too—and smelled faintly of alcohol and tobacco. My eyes widened at the sight of carpet at his feet. He is probably nothing like these two. [/color]

“Well now…” He began with a grin creeping across his face. He stared at Tallow and Scutcher before looking me over. “What kind of trouble have you brought to my doorstep Tallow… Scutcher… and… I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this little one…” He took a step out to get a better look before wrinkling his nose and taking out a handkerchief. “F—k Tallow, what kind of garbage you spending time with now… Ripred… he looks like he got trampled by your sows and left for dead…” He stared again at me, cocking his head to the side. What was he looking at? [/color]

“Why don’t you folks come inside… I don’t assume that you’re here to talk about the weather…” He pulled the door back to reveal his living room, and my jaw practically hung open: he had a sofa and an arm chair, paintings on the wall, a wooden table, even a grandfather clock. Why on earth would he ever spend any time with a girl like Tallow? [/color] It was all I could think as I trudged forward a bit.
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