Mercy, we found you here...

▬ Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. ▬

▬ If I should have a daughter…Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. ▬

Living

Three Sinclair children
Three primary colors
Three eating utensils
Three course meal, so finely introduced to me by the Capitol!
Three books in a trilogy
Three wise men
Three lines in a haiku poem
Rock, Paper, Scissors -- the three main highlights of the Sinclair childhood.
Snap, Crackle, Pop -- still my favorite three.
Three wheels on a tricycle. Who rides a bike with only two?
Third time's a charm
Veni, Vidi, Vici -- the three words I will pronounce as I stand behind that victor podium.

Three training stations.
Three minutes without breathing, three days without water, three weeks without food
Three blind mice, poor things.
Three leaves on an unlucky shamrock.
Three hands on a clock as time just ticks my way to death.
Three things to do when you're on fire – stop, drop, and roll, although I doubt that will help me much here.
Three different sizes and yet I've always been a small.
Three strikes and you're out.
Three Fates, because I know mine isn't bright.
Three types of particles. I always liked fiction better.
Three Olympic medals for the strongest of the first, second, and fourth districts, but never ours.
Three ring circus – Cricket. Oh gosh, does that girl frighten me.
Three states of matter; why can't it just decide already?

District Three
Three Ring Notebooks. My mind still contemplates the thought of having my diary back, now merely ashes scattered across the interior of the training center, and more importantly, the center of my guilt-touched soul.

snakes

fights

birthday parties

– My Fears –

spiders, snakes, really high trees, small spaces, dark places, old faces, spoken words, first impressions, pens, birthday parties, big dogs, winning, thunderstorms, scissors, fire, the swimming pond, my parents, truth, remembrance, change, falling behind, peacekeepers, reality, fights, never conquering my fears, the reaping, death, night, silence, rocking chairs

Chapter One

By the time I had come to, I was lying face down in the withering grass, dizziness washing over me gently, the waves lapping around my weary body and evaporating the dread rapidly arising inside. It took a while for my eyes to gently flutter open, and even longer to gather my bearings and try to make sense of where I had ended up. The sounds of battle were still going on overhead, and the painful throbbing sensation in the back of my head made me dizzy and weak as I tried to pull myself up into a sitting position. Stars filled my eyes and the pit in which I was sitting was covered in vines criss-crossing and becoming entangled to create a hazardous path. The few items I’d accumulated in the Bloodbath were scattered all around me, the satchel slung over my shoulder. Determined to do something, I started stuffing the items into the satchel and decided to try standing up.

That was when I heard the yells.

Amongst the panic and fear in the voice that came from all around me, echoing in the deep pit I had found myself in, the one word I could make out was snakes.

I was dumbfounded, left wondering what to do, when I saw her. I knew she couldn’t die, you lied to me! As I looked up to the opening of the pit and saw Faye standing there, preparing to jump down, I bit down on my lip to keep from squealing in delight. She hadn’t abandoned me. I wasn’t to die alone. Leaping down into the pit, I felt certain that she would come bounding over to me, but I’m mistaken, for she does not even glance at me as she cautiously makes her way through the maze of snakes. Instead, she had spotted another tribute – friend or foe, who knew? – and appeared to be sneaking up on them to pinch one of their items.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t help but send a silent prayer, ‘Get the weapons!’

But our luck hadn’t been great, as of late, and so I hadn’t been hoping for too much when I saw her plan. I was struggling just to stand up, and yet as I found my feet, I knew that weakness could never be an option, that even when you wanted to lie down and sleep, you had to keep going. And so I stood and watched from afar, unsure of where I stood in this world. I had to be strong, I knew that all too well.

(But you’re not that strong, are you, Belle?)

- sorry its rushed and awful, been busy D:

Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away
And the other
Watches him close
From that wire

A lightweight scream erupts behind me and I quickly turn around to see my insect net in the hands of the girl from District Three, Faye. For a second, the girl's low volume wails take my mind away from Benat, and I'm left wondering how she managed to sneak up with me without getting my attention. I'm also curious as to why she chose to grab the most useless item in my backpack - but I'm not going to argue. I want to yell at the girl. I want to tell her to give it back to me because it's mine, I earned it. But what do I need it for? And what can the girl do with it that will increase her odds anymore than mine? I'm left standing there, praying for words to evaporate out of my mouth, and for a second, I think they do, until I realize that's not my voice but Elodie's.

"What the hell is going on?" she cries. I'm relieved she's alive. Now, we only need William and I'll be reassured. I want to answer Elodie's question, but I'm as clueless as she is. I wish that wasn't the case; I wish I had all the answers to all the problems, but I don't. I'm just a silly, naive girl from District Ten. And I don't want to change. But I know that if I let the arena mold be, it'd be better than trying to stand my ground. I looked away from Elodie and caught the gaze of Belle, the girl from Eleven, Benat's District-mate. My eyes wandered to the four of them; Benat standing tall, Faye in the snakes, Elodie looking as puzzled as the rest of us, and Belle watching from afar, and I kept trying to connect the dots, but none of them seemed to go together.

"How do you tell the difference between a snake and a woman?" and I'm not sure if he's talking to me, but then he looks my way and is smiling at me and I don't care who he's talking to. It's like I was the witch in that Wizard of Oz book, and he was the bucket of water, and he just melted me. And sure, I've had cute guys smile at me before, but the way Benat smiles... It's like he could tell you that everything's going to be alright and you could actually believe him. "One is an evil, venomous, cold-blooded killer... and the other is a snake." I didn't laugh at his joke; didn't chuckle or snort; only pondered on the truthfulness. Snakes are relatively harmless, unless, of course, you harm them. But humans? We're defensive people who're quick to judge and even quicker to snap. And we're cold - our hearts freezing as the days get shorter and our lifespan does, too.

"But seriously... I didn’t expect so many of you would get a chance to get a peek at my bits and pieces... I usually charge for that..." I laugh a bit at his joke as my cheeks simultaneously redden. I mean, I saw his penis. No offense to Elodie, but that's probably one in a dozen. But, to be honest, I never saw a boy naked (well, one time, I accidentally walked in on my dad when he was taking a shower, but I don't think that counts). I try to avoid eye-contact with him, and I stare down at my feet as my eyes travel the path of his to Faye lying in the bed of snakes.

"What do you say we calm down, and settle this like fair competitors? We’re going to go one way, and then you can go the other," Benat offered, and that was the only thing I really expected him to say. I didn't expect for him to lash out on Faye with his... His what? I'm really not sure if Benat is loaded at all - well, I guess I kind of do - but then I remember him with his blowgun, and I'm relieved he has some type of weapon. I reach into my backpack to make sure the only thing Faye stole was my insect net, and then I start talking to Faye.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," I promise her, "But why the insect net? I mean, that's the cruddiest thing in my bag. You could've at least taken the sunglasses to protect your eyes or something..." The only thing I'm really mad about is that Benat isn't mad. I mean, I wasn't planning on attacking them, either, but still. We can't just let this girl take our stuff, because if we let her do it now, she might get the idea that it's allowed. "And you," I say, eyeing Belle with a chubby finger pointed at her, "Do you have anything to do with this?" I had met Belle in the Training Center, and I had met Faye, too, but I don't want to get close to people here. I want to act like I'm going to die in a week, because chances are, I will.

Two birds on a wire
One says come on
And the other says
I'm tired
The sky is overcast

there's a sick little suicide in all that we do
you decide, which one's for you?

Asunder cartwheeled, end over end, a jumble of neon-clad limbs descending into darkness. He landed face first into the writhing pit, his backpack secure but his arms twisted awkwardly beneath him. They ached, from the day, from the fighting and falling. He’d never felt a burn like the feverish one coursing through his muscles. He lifted his right arm and then the other before realizing that the thing wiggling beneath him wasn’t a vine or a snake.

It was Owen Rook.

He heaved, too embarrassed to produce anything coherent. His chest contracted, the words stuck in his throat as he rolled over, his backpack jabbing him. It took him a moment to realize that the case of arrows had slid down was poking him in his bony ass. He groaned, twisted and thrashed until he was kneeling on his ankles, staring at Owen. Asunder offered him both open palms in apology. “Whoops?”

He’d never been particularly good at apologies. Part of that was his family’s fault; they’d never taught him the three part approach, or anything even resembling sincerity. But part of it was his own: he simply couldn’t get his body under enough control to not assail everyone around him. If he apologized for every trip, bump or push, he’d find that of his words were ‘sorry’ and that just wasn’t any way to live. He curled his hands back into his lap, breathing deeply, taking stock of his body and his surroundings.

It was dark, night-time dark, not cave-dark. They were deep within the earth, but surrounded by life. The hissing and slithering was evidence of that. But there was more, something else living down in this pit. “Did Pyrian make it?” He asked, knowing that at least Owen was close. He found that while he was used to make darker place, he didn’t feel comfortable in this pit. Not even close. Not even compared to the mines.

After counting his arrows by hand, Asunder dug into his backpack, looking for one particular piece of bounty. When his fingers closed around it, he felt a profound sense of relief, like the greeting of the evening sky after a long day hacking away at coal. He fumbled with the device for a moment, and then finally snapped the nightvision goggles into place. They were a miracle. Everything around them that had been just noise and no visual suddenly lit up green, green as the grass, green as the granite counter tops in the Capitol. Asunder rocked back, shocked by the clarity of the world, before he really focused on what was in it.

Tributes.

Tributes everywhere.

“Uh, uh, we’re surrounded!” Asunder shouted, knocking an arrow. He couldn’t hold it quite straight, his fingers already bent with arthritis. But he managed to get one steady, just for a second, and then let it fly.

[ Asunder attacks Faye; arrow #1]

[dice=200+4000]

[Arrow in Neck -- 7.0 damage]