Boardwalk Dreams [Cici]

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

I don’t know how long it’s been – maybe a week, maybe a year, but the Capitol and everything in it has become such a distant memory that I know there’s no turning back. Yet, I still feel like the same person, just not in the same setting. [/i]The paint on my nails has been chipped off, replaced by dirt that no matter how much I try, will not come out from beneath my nails. My hair – I’ve stopped trying to finger through it, having accepted the fact that the knots will not be undone.[/i] Then there’s my clothing, muddied and tattered and worn to the point where its Capitol origins are probably unidentifiable; but if someone passed me by right now, I’m quite certain they’d notice just how out of place my fragile face looks in this vast wilderness.[/i]

Even with the amount of time I’ve spent out here, I still fall behind. I know I’m slowing down Rum Tum but I can’t help it; I wasn’t built for this kind of endurance. Honestly, I still don’t understand why the heck he walks around in a jacket; I feel as if I might die of heat stroke any moment. [/i]When we reach District Eleven, I am definitely stealing someone’s shoes. I’m quite near giving up on mine, for I can just feel the blisters forming on my feet from all of this endless walking. “Keep up, keep up, Fre-ye-yeah,” Rum Tum calls, moving even faster.

“Ugh,” I groan, trying to pull my feet along. We’ve been walking for ages and I know it’s only minutes until I hit my limit. Where are we going anyways? [/i]Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet becomes unsteady and I know I must be passing out or something, but when I look down, my eyes meet small grains of pure gold. I stop and bend down, scooping up a handful of this golden mystery and watching, mesmerized, as it filters through my fingers. [/i]I throw my shoes off my feet, letting my toes sink into this delightful feeling as I trek further up the hill. But what is it? I search through my memories, through the many things I’ve been taught, until I find the right word. Sand, my brain identifies, which means there must be…

Water, in humungous amounts, pouring onto the land. The ocean.

“Rum Tum, look at--!” I run to keep up, but when I spot him, he’s far to my left, approaching some sort of ruins. I pull my eyes away from the ocean and towards this new source of excitement, trying not to trip over the wooden boards that litter the beach as I run towards Rum Tum. “Here here, it’s here!” He says as I approach. “You’ve never seen anything like it! There are mirrors and toys and figurines, and rusted out cars and—“ He works to unlatch the rusted gate. “So much from long ago, so many treasures, it’s really quite amazing,” and the gate shrieks as it finally opens, like that old swing set in McCormick park that the Capitol always said they were going to replace. “It’s truly the greatest thing you’ll ever see. They’ve got pictures too, of what people used to look like, little bits of paper with their faces and—It really is a carnival. My mom showed me this and I—well I guess now you’ll know. But I never thought I would be back again. I didn’t think this place would even still be standing!”

I can’t believe my eyes.[/i] This place makes the basement full of ancient books I’d discovered so long ago seem so miniscule. I walk through the gate slowly, letting my eyes take in every detail of this destroyed kingdom. “The Carnival,”[/i] the sign before me reads in faded paint. I feel like I’m walking through a dream – a very surreal dream.[/i]

Fallen tents, destroyed counters, an enormous wheel that stretches towards the sky: was this what people did for fun? [/i]I find a little booth near the entrance, slanted and near ready to collapse. My feet lead me inside, tickets scattered across the ground. There’s a little note on the wall that reads,

[/color]

And so forth…Was this what the machines were for? To ride…like a car?[/i] I take a couple of steps further into the booth and poke my head out of the smashed window. “Excuse me, sir,” I call out teasingly as Rum Tum puts his hands on one of the machines, “You’re not allowed to touch those rides until you purchase tickets. We’re going to have to kick you out if you don’t comply.” I pick some of the scattered tickets off the floor and walk out of the booth, tossing them into the air. “Good thing we have extras,” I smile. I slip one of the tickets into my pocket, just recently having picked up Rum Tum's habit of collecting things.

I laugh and past the many destroyed set-ups, games it seems. “Fish Bowl Toss,” “Balloon Darts,” “Go Fishin’” “Five Pin Bowling”[/i] and so many more, but the remnants are few, darts and pins and balls scattered across the deck. My eyes fall upon a machine that says “Fortune Teller”[/i] across the top and I stop to look. “Insert 2 quarters,”[/i] the machine reads. Quarters – what even is a quarter? So instead, I figure out that if you kick the machine a couple of times, a card falls out. I do it enough times that I get two. “Rum Tum,” I beckon for him to come over. I hold the two cards to my chest. “In my hands…” I joke with dramatic emphasis, “…lies our futures. This one’s mine.” I hand it to him. “And this one’s yours that I’m holding. You know your past, I know my past, so let’s shake our future's up a little bit. I’ll read your fortune, you read mine, but we can’t tell each other unless it actually happens. Okay? Ready? Look.” Rum Tum's card reads…

[/color]

I laugh out loud. Didn’t know you were the party type, Rum Tum. I wish I could say something aloud, but alas, I slip the card into my pocket. “C’mon,” I say, running to the next thing my eyes settle on: a machine labeled “Carousel.”[/i] I leap over the rusted gate and climb onto the ruined structure. Bars protrude from the floors, penetrating directly through figurine horses and all the way up to the ceiling. Some of the horses have become detached completely, fallen over, destroyed, so I try to find one that seems at least fairly sturdy. “I call the white one!” I shout back to Rum Tum, as I hop onto the horse, putting my feet in the metal stirrups and holding onto the bar. I feel like a child playing make believe as I hold onto my stagnant horse. “Get on this one,” I say, pointing to the horse next to my own. “We can ride them to the edge of the world, past the edge of the world!” From where we’re sitting I can see the sun slowly descending, the waves reaching for the sand, reaching to take us with it, and I don’t think there’s any feeling better than this.[/i]

“This is the edge of the world.”[/color][/justify][/size][/blockquote]

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

Rum Tum hops off the horse for a second, but my eyes are still stuck to the ocean. Kormiko and I were supposed to find the ocean. I’d given him my last pet goldfish for goodness sake,[/i] even after the many years of lies my parents had told me about my goldfish going on vacation and my goldfish having narcolepsy when they were really just trying to hide the truth that they were dying all over the place because that’s what goldfish do! They just swim around their little tank until they die! That’s what I used to do too.[/i]

We wanted to see what life was like beyond the fishbowl. We were supposed to take that last goldfish and drop him in the saltwater and see if he could swim because if he could swim through that wild new territory, couldn’t we?[/i] And here I am, a goldfish learning how to navigate the ocean, but not with the person I expected.

I am a traitor to the only love I’d ever known.

Most of all, I am a disgrace to the goldfish species. [/i]

Still, it feels better to move on then wait for something that will never come, so I swallow the sadness and seal it with a smile.[/i] I watch as Rum Tum carries a noisy machine to where I’m sitting. It’s playing…music, not like the music that I used to play on my piano or the music that I used to dance to at parties or even the music I listen to when I’m alone in my bedroom. This music is nothing like anything I’ve ever heard.[/i] I climb off the horse and kneel down to take a better look at the odd machine with a huge disk that spins around and a big hornlike thing at the end that almost looks like the golden cornucopia you see on television. Just a little bit.

“How about this?” He says. “Who’d have ever thought people like us would be sitting at the edge of the world? With music and—All of this. It’s all ours.” And it’s no fantasy. It is all ours: forgotten but real, more real than anything else I’ve ever known. “I could show you the mirror house. Or we could climb to the top of the… ro-lar-co-star. There’s a beautiful view up there.”

I laugh. Even I know how it’s pronounced. We used to have a couple of rollercoasters in the Capitol, back when I was younger, but I’d only ever heard about them. People lost interest in them I’m guessing, just like anything else. “Roll-er-co-stir,” I correct Rum Tum, proud that I can identify one and probably one thing only in this entire park.[/i] I think about the fact that he already knows this place and wonder how many times he’s been here? With whom? Who showed him? I push that curiosity away for a moment so I can ask, “Is that the mirror house?” as I point to a purple building and immediately stand up, beckoning Rum Tum to follow. Before I can even look back to make sure he’s coming, I enter the purple building, not sure of what to expect. [/i]What I don’t expect is the wide, stubby creature staring back at me, enough to catch me by total surprise.

“Oh my god, Rum Tum.” I look down at myself and then back at the mirror before me. “I am definitely not this fat.” I panic for a few moments and then turn to my right to see someone different: a tall skinny creature. “Okay, that’s more like it.” I move along the little hallway of distorted mirrors until I see normal old Freya. Oh man, I need to do something about this hair. I keep moving through, mirror after mirror, distortion after new distortion until I find myself trapped by my own repulsive reflections. It’s bad enough to see the wild mess I’ve become; it’s worse to see that disaster of a girl distorted even further; and it’s absolutely horrifying to have seemingly infinite multiples of that image surrounding me. [/i]I find an opening and keep walking, but then I’m lost again. This maze is probably built for six-year olds to navigate and still I can’t find the end.

“Rum Tum?” I call like a child in the dark. “Where are you?” I try to retrace my steps back to the beginning of the maze, trying to find him. “These mirrors are liars and this place is like a freaking prison. Plus my hair looks awful and I’d rather not stare at it any longer.” Capitol behaviors coming back – some things never change. Sadly, the quality of my hair is not one of those things.

“Let’s get out of here, climb the rollercoaster or something,” I say, still lost and clueless and quite a bit humiliated by the fact that I can’t find my way through these stupid mirrors as I try to find Rum Tum.

ooc - sorry if this sucks. Not even proofreading it because 2:30 AM -- yeah I think I should actually sleep.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/color]

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

“Boooo!”

“AAAH!” I scream, stumbling into the mirror behind me until my brain is finally able to process that it is only Rum Tum. My heart will not stop racing.

“Oh my god, Rum Tum,” I haven’t moved from my spot against the mirror, my hand still to my heart. “I think I just died. You’re terrible.” I finally move, my lips curling into a grin as I give him a playful shove. “You’d better watch your back. This girl knows how to seek her revenge.” I look around until I finally see the exit out of this stupid maze; it’s about time. I make sure Rum Tum is following before I head towards the rollercoaster, half-skipping, half-running and sometimes adding a little twirl into the mix just because I can, because out here I can do anything I want, be anything I want. [/i]I am an explorer, a queen, a ballerina, a ticket salesman, anything, and everything. “Keep up, Rum Tum,” I mock, recalling the many times he has repeated that phrase to me as we trekked through the woods.

We finally reach the bottom of the stairs to the roller coaster. Next to the entrance is a falling board with a picture of a man holding a yard stick, a little line marked off at thirty-six inches. Well…I think we’re tall enough for this ride.[/i] I look up and suddenly my eyes meet the sky, which is slowly darkening. I stop in my tracks. “Oh! Look at how bright the stars are! I’ve never seen them like this!” There were no stars in the Capitol. For the first fifteen years of my life, I’d only read about stars in books and in pictures of the galaxy. Even our sixth grade field trip to the planetarium could never compare to the sight of actual stars lining the sky.[/i] My mother told me that we can’t see the stars because of light pollution; well then turn off all the lights! And while hiking through the woods with Rum Tum, it was difficult to see the sky above the trees, but out here, there’s nothing but stars.[/i]

I start running up the stairs as though I might be able to reach one when I hit the top, but the stairs eventually end, and there’s the riding car or whatever it's called, empty and rusted, the controls just to the right of me. Past the car, the tracks move up, reaching towards the sky until they hit a peak and then drop. [/i]Next to the tracks is a narrow platform that leads to the top, most likely used for maintenance emergencies. I fly up the rising platform without waiting for Rum Tum, holding onto the railing as I climb. “Wow,” I say once I’ve reached the top. I lean over the railing and look down at the world beneath us. We are king and queen of this torn fantasy, this beautiful place full of histories that only time has silenced. “It makes me just want to live out here forever, in the crevices of the world that they forgot to fill. I never want to go back.” And that thought scares me, because I know it’s so much easier to leave the past behind. But they all left this past behind, this carnival, and look where that ended up.[/i]

Still, no matter what anyone tells me, I know that I’m strong and I won’t let the fact that I was born in the Capitol degrade that. But standing under the stars makes me feel so weak, so weak for running away from my problems, as though forgetting the past would somehow lessen the pain [/i]I sit down and move so that I’m sitting on the actual rung of the roller coaster, right before it drops. I grip the rung tightly, knowing that if I were to somehow slip, death would eat me up in a second.[/i] I wave at Rum Tum to sit next to me.

“You know, this is a good moment,” I say. “And it’s good moments like this that remind you of other good moments you used to have and it’s so happy that it’s kind of sad, you know? Like, everything just changes so fast.” I pause and shake my head, too many nonsensical words pouring from my mouth while my mind just continues screaming Kormiko, Kormiko, Kormiko, Kormiko.

“Sorry, I’m curious so I have to ask, I know you’ve been here before, but someone showed you this place, didn't they? Who? I mean, you seem articulate enough to hold up a normal conversation so it’s not like you’ve been travelling alone your entire life, right?” I’m trying to be serious here and my stupid accent gets in the way, making my phrases sound prissy. Ever since leaving the Capitol, my confidence in speaking has diminished. I used to walk around with no fear of speaking down to people, but there’s no one to speak down to now. [/i]

“Remember how you said you were born in a group of wanderers. Well, where did they go? Do they have a secret hideout or something?” I turn to Rum Tum with an excited look on my face. “Are we going to get to meet them sometime?! With their drums going all rum tum tum. Oh, I would love that." And my mind falls into fantasy once more.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/color]

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]
“My mom took me here when I was about seven.” Rum Tum pauses before continuing.“She was the only person I ever knew growing up. She said that we were in a whole big group when I was born—“ Another pause, as though it takes a great deal of effort to release the words. “That we traveled and that there was this big mutt in district seven,” and he stares at the ground as a wave of guilt pierces my insides, although it has no reason to. My father engineered muttations. I wait for him to continue speaking. “That killed all of them, except her and me. So it was just us, traveling in and out districts. Keeping each other company. We were born wanderers and—“ And? And?[/i]

I can only imagine my father, sitting in his little lab with his coworkers, designing the mutt that destroyed the wanderers Rum Tum was born into. I shake my head. It doesn't matter; he isn't my father anymore. [/i]Rum Tum stops speaking and I resist the urge to say something; I feel stupid for saying anything in the first place. Still, I know I had to because holding in curiosity never got anyone anywhere. It got them an empty life with lots of questions.[/i]

There's always moments when you just need to wait and yes, this is one of those moments.[/i] I keep my mouth shut until Rum Tum speaks again. “We were supposed to stick together.” I can't help but think of Kormiko when he says this, but then I think of his mother. Supposed to? The way he says it... He stops and chews his nail, and I can't help but let a sad smile cross my face. I look down at my own nails; my mother would be unimpressed.[/i] “…forget it. Just… you don’t want to know about me. We should watch the stars instead.” I let the silence drown out the sadness for a couple of moments, not wanting to trouble Rum Tum any more than I already have. I look at the stars obediently. However, I can't do it. I can't just sit and ignore the world around me, the past, the future, the happy, the sad. [/i]Maybe Rum Tum can do it, maybe he can just push it all aside and make the most of the present, but what would the present be without the past?

“But the stars aren’t beautiful unless they have a reason to be,” I whisper, looking at him earnestly. “What makes you think I don't want to know about you?” I say, almost too sharply. “I want to know everything about you! Honestly, we're stuck with each other at this point, either until we're caught or killed or we decide to part ways; though let's hope for the latter. And even though you're a little arrogant sometimes and you kind of let everything fly over your head and you always tell me to keep up when I'm walking too slow even though my shoes are giving me WAY too many blisters...” What a great job you're doing at being nice, I mutter in my head. I take a breath. “...I like all that stuff.”

“Don't you get it? You're my brother now.” I smile quickly and then look down. I can’t believe I know so little about the single person who has been traveling with me for weeks; but I want to.[/i] Rum Tum is the only person I know that can just let go, let go and sit back and live another day. Then there’s me, still the same rash and judgmental person I was weeks ago. Maybe he’s hesitant to tell me about his past because he’s shared more than enough with me already; and what have I done to pay him back?[/i]

“And sorry if you don't like it because yeah, I'm a pain in the ass most of the time, my mouth moves faster than my head, and I don't like to hide how I feel about things,” (and yet I still manage to hide a couple of emotions down my right sleeve), “but I don't want to be strangers any longer.” I drop my words into the silence, my cheeks going red. My mother always told me I need to speak less. She said it was impolite to give such a dragging speech every time I opened my mouth. People don't like that many words, [/i]she said. It bores them and they stop listening. Does Rum Tum listen? I can only wonder if he too wishes I would just shut up. Kormiko always liked my way with words, but I guess that doesn't account for much anymore.[/i]

We were supposed to stick together. I think about Rum Tum's words a little bit more. Although my mother's told me I have an insensitivity issue, when I really think about something, really really think about how a person is feeling, the empathy is there. I move a little closer to Rum Tum and lean my head on his shoulder, hugging his arm. He smells like trees again, just like that first day. It seems as though everyone has their own unique scent; Kormiko did, my mother does, and Rum Tum too. However, I was never able to discern anything foreign in my mother’s scent and after the first few weeks of being with him, I stopped noticing the way Kormiko smelled like Capitol fragrance. After a while you stop noticing, once you’ve gotten so used to it.[/i]

But Rum Tum still smells like trees, and I haven’t quite gotten used to that.

Because we’re still strangers.

And I don’t want us to be.[/i]

As I try to get back on my last train of thought, a slight feeling of sadness pierces my insides because the thought of losing someone is the worst, and Rum Tum – well, Rum Tum's lost everybody.[/i] I try my best not to think of Kormiko so instead, I open my mouth to speak, but it takes a few seconds for the words to come out. “...She died, didn't she? ...What happened?” I take my head off of Rum Tum’s shoulder and release my arms, looking up at him seriously. “I want to know.”

ooc: gahhh sorry, I feel like my writing is just getting worse and worse. But your post was so good <333[/blockquote][/color][/size][/justify]

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

Death in the Capitol is a rare occurrence; to pass away before you reach eighty is tragic. With good attention to health, I've seen people reach their nineties, even hundreds. In school they told us about the statistics in the districts. The barbaric and irrational activity that takes place in certain districts leads to poverty and famine that kills many a year. Once, I actually believed my teachers. I actually believed that the people in the districts were monsters with human faces, until I found the basement beneath my father's work building full of hidden truths. It was then that I realized the Capitol was to blame.

Originally, I was expecting Rum Tum's mother's death to be another “oh, my mother starved to death when I was little” story or something, like the ones they told us in school, where a flower's death was plenty times more tragic than the death of a lowly district citizen. The only person I'd ever known personally that had died was my great-grandma Bethany, but I'd barely shared more than a couple of conversations with her. The idea of actual people like Rum Tum's mother dying was such a surreal thought. Things like that only happened on television. However, the words that come from Rum Tum's mouth are not that of which I expected. “They bashed her skull in because she’d stolen something, and tried to run away.”

“For stealing?” I whisper, crossing my arms in effort to keep out the horrific thoughts that follow. How is it that the peacekeepers killed Rum Tum's mother for theft and yet let Kormiko and I off without a scratch, even after we destroyed valuable Capitol property? Although I'm glad they spared our lives, it just doesn't seem right. And now they probably have Kormiko back, but not me because I'm supposedly just that lucky.

Who knew good luck could be so painful?

“They hadn’t meant to, I don’t think.”

“Of course they'd meant to,” I mutter. “Why do you even try to defend them? Those monsters don't deserve it.” Whether they meant to go that far or not, they had meant to cause pain, and that's the only intent that matters. They hadn't meant to let us loose, which is why Kormiko is gone again. I bet they like it. I bet they love their jobs.

As Rum Tum keeps going, I do my best to sympathize. No one but Kormiko has ever confessed anything this personal to me before. Most of the listening that I've done for the past sixteen years, or lack thereof, has been over fashion or entertainment or something ridiculous like that. In these few seconds, the world is suddenly one hundred times larger. “He said I was his son.” I nearly jump from my seat on the platform. I resist the urge to speak and continue listening until Rum Tum says, “He had three boys already, there wasn’t room for me.”

This time, I can't stop myself. “Three sons? And a wife, I'm guessing? And your mother went back to see him? Oh man, that's messed up.” I think through it in my head. “This would make a killer movie,” I say, and then I realize how terrible of a job I'm doing at sympathizing. I try to put myself into Rum Tum's shoes, but it's hard enough to imagine loving my parents. But when I think back to what Rum Tum said about how ”there wasn't room for me,”[/color] I can feel the loneliness in those simple words.

“I'm sorry,” I say, clasping my hands together, not too sure what you're supposed to say after something like that. “About your mother, about the fact that your father couldn't take you in.” I pause, following Rum Tum's gaze up towards the stars. “I must look like a brat. I've never had to worry about my parents dying or abandoning me. More like me abandoning them.” I think of what my drunk mother might be doing right now, stumbling around the house trying to find me, calling everyone in the neighborhood asking if they've seen Frida around anywhere. My less senseless, but still unreasonable father enters the image. “Freya,” I can hear him correcting my mother, taking her hand from the phone just before she calls up the peacekeepers, because he will have foreseen the effects of that. Or maybe he won't stop her; maybe he'll be a loyal little minion to the Capitol and let the peacekeepers have at it. Wouldn't it be easier that way? I'd have no reason to feel any guilt about leaving.

But I know he loves me more than I love him.

And suddenly, I feel a little homesick.

My father is brutally imaginative; there's no other way to describe him. He gave me his headstrong attitude and there's no doubt about it. He used to come home from work with sketches for new muttations. “What do you think?” He'd ask me as he explained the creature, but I always liked to make them up on my own and give him colorful drawings to bring to work. “Looks like we've got someone to fill your job when you retire!” His coworkers teased every time he brought me along to his office. And I would smile; I was proud to be the daughter of the man who created monsters. Not anymore.

“I can't even imagine,” I say. I really can't. I keep replaying the image of Rum Tum's father telling him he doesn't have enough room to take his own son in, forcing him to go fend for himself, grow up, and play the adult at what – thirteen years old? I wish I had more to say, but for once I feel like words can't do everything I want them to, so I let silence do the job. I'm about to do the only rational thing I can think of and hug him, just like that first day, but before I do, a thought crosses my mind and I can't help but blurt it out.

“So this is why you want to go to District Eleven?” I think about it for a second and then leap directly to my feet so that I'm standing on the platform. “No no no, Rum Tum, you can't go back there! If you see him, you're just going to come out feeling more empty and confused and I don't know what expect to get from this, but...you can't! I won't let you! The past doesn't give second chances!" Maybe I don't want him to go back because I'm afraid, afraid that his father will change his mind, that somehow they'll take him in, somehow somehow somehow. And somehow, I'll learn what loneliness really feels like. I cross my arms and cool down for a second, my voice lowering to a whisper. "Why relive it if you don't have to?"

ooc: wrote this in the car woooo (;[/blockquote][/color][/size][/justify]

Freya Hanig

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]
“I don't want to relive it...I just want...”

Spit it out.

“It's that it's...there's something there, Freya. My whole family is there.”

I listen closely to what he says as he continues, impressed by his honesty. ”It's supposed to be a part of me—it's...”

And my mind takes me...
Home.
Home.
Home.
It hurts.



When I was seven, my parents took me to the zoo. It was one of the few family outings I can remember, seeing as my father spent most of his time either at work making snow angels in his deep pile of money or at work shaking hands, smiling at people, and drawing pictures in his little notebook of monsters, but oh no, never did he ever go to work to actually work. What a preposterous idea! My mother, on the other hand – well there's no telling what she did all day, but she'd usually come home asking, “How does it look?” as she pointed to her hair or her tattoo or her surgically changed face.

However, that one day in the middle of June when I was seven years old was to be shared by the three of us. My father led me through the entrance on his shoulders, only for the first few minutes of course, since I was quite a few pounds too heavy (and my mother continuously scolded me about it). “Giraffes!” I exclaimed as my eyes landed on my favorite animal, it's neck stretched towards the sky.

“What if it had spikes on its tongue?” My father asked.

“No no no,” I said, scrunching up my nose. “What about spikes...on his neck! And then he can whirl his neck around and around and around.” It was a dark game my father had taught me, birthing vicious muttations from the simplest of things. While other children hid beneath their covers in fear of the creatures lurking beneath their bed, I slept soundly knowing no monster could ever hurt me – not while my father was alive.

Once we had made our way through the zoo, my mother bought me a triple-scoop ice cream cone. The three of us sat on a bench as I devoured my ice cream and for a little while, we knew nothing but silence. It was the good kind of silence, the rare kind, knowing how busy my father was and how chatty my mother was, even though she often condemned my own loud habits. Nevertheless, my mother had a soft voice. Her words were like little clouds drifting from her lips, so easy to just stick your hand through...But I like to think of my words as bricks, bricks that when stacked one upon another, can create beautiful, extravagant structures and when thrown at an offender, can hurt pretty bad. But unfortunately the Capitol has long replaced bricks with steel, just as they've replaced true words with pure nonsense.

Once I was finished with my ice cream, I excused myself to the bathroom, locked myself into a stall, swept my wavy hair behind my ears, and pushed two fingers down my throat just as my mother had taught me since the day I was potty trained. Skinny girls are pretty girls, two fingers a day keeps the fat kids away: the sayings were numerous. When I came out of the bathroom, my mother smiled, and my father smiled because my mother smiled, and I smiled because I didn't know any better. And it was a good day.



I look down at my two fingers and grin, proud of the many years it's been since I shoved them down my throat, even through the many years of my mother's nagging concern. “Freya honey, have you seen how skinny Angela Tarquin is? What a fine young lady.” After reading countless records in the basement on district starvation, I tried not to let her words get to me. I knew better. I look down at my stomach and wonder what she'd say to me now. A little more muscular, a little more stable, but still nothing like those tiny little Capitol women. Fatfatfatfatfat, she'd say. And I wonder if I am fat, I wonder if Rum Tum thinks I'm fat, I wonder if the whole world thinks I'm fat and clueless and stupid and for a second I wonder if my mother was party sane.

As Rum Tum talks about this beautiful life in District Eleven that he wants to know more about – a past he can't possibly put aside and forget – I think of the beauty in ignorance. For a few seconds, I miss being surrounded by happy people with happy, boring lives and clueless minds; but this happiness is better, the full kind of happiness that can only exist alongside sorrow. Still, I wouldn't have ever had to learn that sorrow if I had just restrained my curiosity...



“Go get yourself something to eat, Freya,” my father said, handing me his work identification card as I put down my Nancy New book. “Don't lose it,” he eyed me seriously before turning back to his desk. My mother was out, so my father had thought it would be a good day to let me come see what he did at work. I slipped into the empty elevator and descended swiftly to the first floor, but my eyes fell upon the “B” button. I'd never seen the basement, so I pressed the button, but it didn't light up, nor did it bring me any further down than the first floor. Hallways stretched this way and that, and at each new entrance I had to swipe my father's card across the scanner. Having already explored every other inch of this building, I was set on finding something new so it was no surprise when my feet finally stopped at a scratched door near the back of the building. No scanner. Curious, I tried the handle but it didn't budge. I stared down at the hole next to the handle and then at the little metal thing that was connected to my father's card. Maybe if I put the metal thing into the hole and then turned the handle...

It opened! I took a careful glance down the hallway before stepping into the darkness and closing the door behind me. That first step sent me sprawling down a short set of stairs, but I suppressed the urge to cry out as I hit the ground. I stood up and took my phone from my pocket, hoping to dimly illuminate the room, the basement. File cabinet after file cabinet, bookshelf after bookshelf, newspapers stacked in the corner of the room: novels from the prehistoric days, banned books and newspapers on Capitol tyranny, but most of all, files and files: records that documented Detention Center punishments, lists of known and targeted wanderers and their last sighted locations, papers identifying suspected gangs and citizens to watch, even listings of Capitol spies within the districts and their families' exemptions from the reaping. It was an endless paradise of words. I put my hand to that first file cabinet, and my world turned around.



Knowledge is a stressful load to bear. Sometimes I wish I'd never found that basement, never let myself know anything more than simplicity. Here we are, Rum Tum and I, at the edge of the world, but it makes me wonder just how much easier it is for the people who don't have to depend on knowledge to feel some sort of completion. I wonder if Rum Tum was on that never-ending list of targeted wanderers; maybe his mother too. I smile as I recall the blazing fire that consumed that file, and the good feeling that came with it – the feeling that I'd done the world a favor. Of course, that feeling had only lasted until I realized the Capitol very likely had digital copies of each file we'd destroyed. In theory, we'd done nothing. Nothing but get ourselves locked in the Detention Center for months, as I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for Kormiko.

Kormiko – that thought hurts too.

I don't want to think about it anymore, not my parents, not Kormiko, not anything I've ever loved. There is beauty there, but not any kind of beauty I can go back to. Not unless I want to be thrown in the Detention Center again. So I try not to think. I merely listen.

“I can’t just… pretend that that part of me doesn’t exist…”

Sure you can. It just takes practice.

“It deserves to be loved just as much as anything else.”

No, it doesn't, not if it can't love you back. It can't give you anything.

“Because one day it’s going to crumble down and disappear.”

Let's hope it does. It won't hurt no more.

“But at the very least someone’s going to remember it.”

Well I bet they don't remember you.

Suddenly Kormiko invades my mind and

I need to

forget.

“If that makes sense…” he says. He puts his face in his hands and there's a part of me that wants to sit down next to Rum Tum, put my arms around him for real, and tell him that I understand; his past made him, my past made me, and there's something to respect there. Still, there's another part of me that doesn't want him to find his family. It's a selfish thought, but what else is there to think when I'm afraid of losing the only person I have left on this world? Where would I go if he went away? I don't know how to find food, I can barely build a fire, and I don't know what I'd do without someone to catch my words as they fall from my mouth. Maybe he'd rather get away from me anyways. “You're fine, Freya,” he had said earlier, but what is that supposed to mean? I've always been bad at caring for people, but I don't easily forget the few people I have cared for. Which is why I can't get Kormiko out of my head.

“No,” I lie. “No, it doesn't make any sense.” Maybe if I say it aloud, I'll get myself to believe it, but my voice trembles. I refuse to sit back down, my arms folded as I stare in the other direction. I thought I was done waiting for the past, but now Rum Tum's re-exploring his, and it all just hurts to think about.

I take a deep breath, trying to undo the knots in my throat that make it difficult to speak. “And what if the peacekeepers catch you and bash your skull in? Do you think we're just going to walk right into District Eleven? Do you even know how much security they have guarding that place? What if we can't even get through the fence?” Trying to discourage this “District Eleven adventure,” I build a barrier of words around my fragile emotions, but my argument begins to fade, walls tumbling to the floor. I look away from Rum Tum.

“And...and what if your father realizes he made a mistake?” I get choked up, but force myself to continue. So strong but so fragile. “What if he offers to – what if they want you to – what if you love them and you want to be one of them and you can and then...You can't let yourself I don't want you to leave I don't want to lose you too what am I supposed to do if where am I gonna go I can't even remember which way the sun sets is that east or north or – I don't know I don't know!” A couple of ridiculous tears fall down my face as I take a breath and sit down, bringing my knees to my chest until I'm just a little nothing in a big world full of nothings. Shamefully, I look away, wiping my eyes. I breathe a couple of times, letting my mind catch up with my mouth, like a child who still needs her babysitter. Then, I stare down at the ground, so far beneath us before opening my mouth again. “Okay, I'll...I'll go with you, okay!? I want you, I want you to see them but...” I pause, drawing an invisible little star on my leg with my index finger. “Your mother was probably a really great person, but please don't...don't do what she did. Don't try to know too much, love too much.” What a hypocrite I am. My throat can't get rid of the choked feeling that consumes it and my subconscious keeps throwing thoughts into my head like bricks. And for a couple of moments I just wish I could go back and be one of those skinny Capitol girls with nice shoes and nice hair and not a care in the world. “It just hurts more in the end.”
[/blockquote][/justify][/color][/size]

Freya Hanig

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]
“You’re right,” I say, as Rum Tum explains why you can’t just forget, why it’s okay to hurt. Only a few minutes ago, didn’t I say that the stars aren’t beautiful if they have a reason to be? [/i]Well, don’t they? As Rum Tum speaks, I realize just how much I like his words. There aren’t a whole lot of people who can talk and actually make me listen, much less actually convince me of something I didn't first believe. He continues by saying that he won’t leave me for them, that I apparently mean more. I do? [/i]It puts a hesitant smile on my face, and I look down. It’s reassuring knowing that he won’t do what Kormiko did – although I really don’t know what Kormiko did, if he did anything at all; where is he where is he where is he? Someday, I’ll go back there, back to the Capitol, and I’ll find the answers I left behind. Someday, but not now, because I’m not going to let that one event dictate my future happiness.[/i]

Anyways, the important thing is, Rum Tum isn’t going to leave me all alone in the woods without any knowledge of which direction the sun sets in. Okay. Right? “I swear it,” he says. I look into his eyes, and I know he does, but I don’t really know what to say after that. I manage to swallow the lump in my throat after a couple of deep breaths, but the only weak words that escape my mouth are, “Pinky swear?” And with a jovial grin, I hold out my pinky finger, hoping I can erase the last two minutes of tears and distraught words. [/i]

Then I lean back and take a really long look at the stars, mostly because Rum Tum seems to like them. I don’t know – I don’t really find anything special in the stars – I mean, they’re just humungous balls of energy scattered across the sky, and we all just pour our wishes on them when we don’t get something we want. If I were a star, I would get really stressed out if six thousand people were throwing wishes at me at once.[/i] Who can hold that many? I’d just end up dropping them all. Besides, someday the stars are going to lose their light, wishes will be strewn across the sky, and the whole world will be reaching to find what they’ve lost. [/i]

I feel a drop of rain, and then another, and suddenly, it’s drizzling. Now rain – rain is something I can enjoy. “I love the rain,” I tell Rum Tum, breaking the silence. “Mostly because it was always fun to watch the rest of the Capitol stumbling into taxis, crying, ‘My hair! My hair!’” The rain starts falling harder and faster. I hear an instantaneous boom of thunder and stand up. “Let’s get down from here,” I try to speak over the rain. “I’d rather not get struck by lightning today. Now that – that would really mess up my hair.” I flash him another grin as I race down the steps, but now I don’t love the rain anymore because it’s ice cold and I’m shivering.

I look around, but the world is almost pitch-black with the clouds covering the stars. What’s that? [/i]In the distance, I spot a tower that reaches towards the sky. I point at it and start running through the rain without looking back to make sure Rum Tum is following. I slip and fall straight into the sand, but quickly pick myself up, laughing as I brush it off of me. And I feel so happy. [/i]My mother always told me that I was too sensitive, that I let things get to me too easily, but it's moments like these when I don't know how I could ever be such a critical person. “There’s something wrong with her. Have you seen how she acts in public?”[/i] They always use to whisper downstairs. When it became apparent that I didn’t behave like other Capitol children, she tried to get me to see a doctor: Doctor Samuels. Doctor Samuels told me that I have a vivid range of emotions, but that I needed to find a way to control them. Control them?[/i] There were obviously enough people trying to control me, so why should I have tried to control myself? But there’s nothing to control out here. No one to tell me to stop acting like a child already.

We finally reach the tower and I put my hand on the door, which opens, revealing a long line of steps. I enter the building, soaked and shivering, arms folded in attempt to warm myself.[/i] I take my time as I climb the many steps, Rum Tum right behind. When we reach the top, we’re in a circular room with a little door to a balcony that stretches all around the outside of this room. In the middle of the room, there’s this big sort of machinery that’s attached to the floor. “What is this place?” I ask Rum Tum, wondering if he might know.

ooc: lighthouses are not my expertise ok[/color][/justify][/blockquote][/size]