the {w o r l d} was lowered man by man [meghan]

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Two hundred and twelve pounds of a monster comes crashing down like a thick, great redwood being axed down from the forests in the north. Falling, falling and falling before smashing into the ground and blistering the undergrowth into a ripped tangle of weeds and roots. Ripred.

[/i] The sheer impact of my weight on the blue training mat causes nowhere near as much carnage as one of the trees that I remember hacking away at with my father’s axe many a season ago, yet still it sends vibrations through the mat and to the wooden floor. A few onlookers almost lose their balance as the monstrosity collides with the solidarity of the earth, the unstoppable force against the immovable object. The wind abandons my chest, rushing out from my body and leaving me hollow. My mouth gapes open in a silent scream. I must look a fool.[/i] The force of the ground rushing up to meet me in one painful collision is like nothing I can describe. It fuels me, makes me angry. My brow creases and my carnivore teeth vice together. My thick, tree-trunk arms tense and my fists ball tightly. I lean on my elbow and push my deadweight body briskly to roll myself onto my belly. My ebony eyes find the one who dropped Kilbey Zaha.

I snarl, my palms flatten on the mat and push myself up to me knees and then eventually to a standing position. The boy is a trickster, like nothing I have faced before. He is scrawny and fragile, his blonde hair curls in sandy locks around his bright blue eyes and pale skin. His face is blotched and freckled, whilst his frame is gaunt and bony. When they matched me up with such a feeble thing, I had laughed, I had thought it a joke. I am king in these parts, the mountain, the unbeatable. [/color]Six foot five and two hundred and twelve pounds against a boy half my size and half my weight. Looks are deceiving. [/i]The situation is such a parody that a smile creeps onto my face. How did someone as weak as this have the strength to top the giant? [/i]He didn’t.

I remind myself that it was me who tripped me over. He’s clever, is the reason. He doesn’t need strength to defeat me, because he uses my own strength against me. Smart. Most people try to, but I’m usually ahead of the game. Not with this mouse of a boy though, I underestimated him.What’s more, he seems to be something of an acrobat. Every time I get near him he slips away from me, like trying to grasp water. How slow I must seem to him.[/i] The longer the fight goes on, the more tired I become. That’s his game, wear me out and then strike when I have nothing left. I see why they paired me up with such a feeble opponent, because they knew I would become arrogant, they knew I would let my guard down. I had not prepared for this.

I stand, my shadow looms over the rat of a boy. His face is blank, unafraid. He has done this before.[/i] I swing a punch which he easily sidesteps before slipping behind me. I turn and he stands in the same neutral position. It quickly becomes annoying, frustrating and most of all tiring. My teeth grind and I force myself to remain focused. To become agitated is to become weak. That is what he wants.[/i] I swing another tree-branch arm which he ducks, slipping under and pushing my back lightly. My own momentum throws me forwards to my growing frustration. I keep my balance and halt at the edges of the dull blue training mat. As I turn to face him he is again in the same blank position. He’s like a ghost, untouchable and pale.

Grab him, Kilbey. The thought infects my mind. My meat-hook hands would vice around his twig-arms and snap the bones like matchsticks. See him avoid that. Grab him, now! I move forwards and swing both arms to try and catch him. He hops backwards before leaping above my hunched body that had to lean down to grab him. I have missed. [/i]The horror dawns on my face as the boy is in the air above me, his feet slam down on my back as he springboards away and I crash face-first into the mat again. I hear a few distant laughs and I know that they are directed at me. Fury, anger, rage. I bottle them, I don’t let them take over. How humiliating. I’ll show him, I’ll make him squirm. No one puts me to shame, not Kilbey Zaha.[/i] I’m respected around here, and I can’t be seen to be made a fool of by some ratty little shit.

I discipline myself as I rise to my feet again. The drab, gray, motionless face of my enemy gives me nothing to go with. He shows no fear, no determination. It’s like he’s a robot. A little jumpy robot that springs around whilst calculating my every move. Machines are flawless, exact and precise. I dislike the cold face, metal casing and his still eyes. I can’t read him, I can’t intimidate him... He’s frustrating.

The hand-to-hand combat station has always been one of my favorites. I hold a pretty decent record in one-on-one fights, having only lost three times. I’m on a four month unbeaten run, my last loss coming down to a disqualification. Let’s just say I let my temper get the better of me and ended up ripping locks of golden hair from the scalp of some privileged pretty boy. Not this time.[/i] I call myself an expert at unarmed combat, yet I cannot find a way to beat this kid. He’s faster than me, more agile than me... He knows what my weaknesses are and he knows what he’s doing next. He’s my opposite, which means he is my weakness. Yet surely if he is my weakness, then I am his?[/i] He lacks strength or resilience. The sheer raw power that I possess would be enough to render him unconscious in one hit, if I could only hit him. I can take a lot of hits, especially weak hits like his. He’s smart in that he’s using my own weight against me, but he’s going to need to get me pretty tired to knock me out.

I grind my teeth again, a habit that I have inherited from my father. Come on android, make your move. He calmly circles me to my irritation as I rotate on the spot, my gaze transfixed on his. It’s then that a flash of silver catches my eye and I glance to the right. It’s a knife being caught in the sunlight. It’s wielded by a girl who works frantically away to improve her skills, she’s impressive alright and not bad looking either.
SMACK!
I curse my ego all the way down to the ground as the boy’s knee connects with my skull, sending me crashing down to the earth once more. I feel the wind leave me again and the boy manages a smile. He did that on purpose.[/i] He knows me. He knows my ego. He knows that I couldn’t resist such a distraction, no matter how minor. All he needed was a split second. [/i]

"Do you yield, Zaha?" The instructor asks, his old eyes looking over factory-new spectacles. He holds a clipboard, pen ready to stab away at the paper in blood red. A fail. No chance, not this time.
"No, sir."[/b] I push myself slowly to my feet, panting hard. The robot boy tilts his head at an angle.
He takes the time to taunt me,
"Maybe you should, you’re looking pretty tired Kilb-" His voice is cut off because a thick, meaty hand clamps around his face. Muffled sound tries to escape as my hand clamps round his face. He may have only needed a second to take advantage of me, but I’m not one to hesitate at an opportunity either. The size of my hand against his face is comical. My hand spreads across his entire face, my fingers gripping above his eyebrows and his forehead, whilst my thumb hooks under his jaw in a vice grip.

I have him. His hands try to pry my fingers away, but he is too weak and growing weaker as my grip tightens to slowly crush his face. Slowly, like crushing a can, I squeeze. He screams from behind my hand, muffled and desperate. I have no doubt that he has yielded, but I care not. He humiliated me and now he needs to be punished. The shouts of other Careers are white noise, hidden behind the scream of revenge that rings through my ears. An inky-dark smile oozes onto my face as I bring my lips close to his ear.
"Next time, you’ll know to keep that mouth of yours shut." I clamp my hand tighter, other careers are trying to pull me away, my stray hand swings like a construction crane and knocks them back. The instructor’s voice booms above everything else.

"I SAID ENOUGH!!" My trance is broken and I release my grasp. The boy stumbles backwards, his eyes hollow and mortified, still standing on wobbly legs.
"He didn’t yield..." I say, flexing my neck muscles in anticipation.
"I suppose you think that’s funny!” He curses under his breath, knowing that there was no way that the boy could have given up given that he couldn’t speak. I turn to the boy, who looks at me with all the expression that he didn’t show before. He has changed back to a human.
"I-I... I y-" Again he is cut off as my right hand drives into the side of his head like a battering ram. He hits the floor in less than a second, his eyes shut and his mouth loosely open. No one yields to me, because I don’t give them a chance.

I don’t need the instructor to tell me that I’ve won, I simply leave the training floor to the stares of my colleagues. Once again I am the center of attention, to my annoyance. I can’t go a day without there being some kind of incident, it seems. Once I have reached the isolation of the locker room I slam a fist against the cold metal of my dull-red locker. It does not dent, designed with the toughest alloys in Panem. I rest my head against it, panting hard. Why do I do this to myself? I let people get to me, so I feel some sick desire to punish them. It’s happened before, first with Indrik Pantheon, then at the Panem Olympics, now today’s incident. When will it end? Sure this blind rage would be useful in the Hunger Games, but I’m not even sure if I want to be a part of the Games anymore. I just want to be successful. I swear viciously to no one in particular and grab my towel from the cabinet, sitting my heavy mass down on the creaky wooden bench. I wipe the sweat from my brow and stare at the ground some more. Today I was my own enemy. [/color][/size][/blockquote]

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talking
narrating
listening
emphasizing
thinking

lyrics: "Sounds like Balloons" - Biffy Clyro

graphics: me

notes: guess who's back-back-back? Kilbey's back-back-back.