Doom Dada // [Train :: Nocturne + Soap + May]

This whole year has kinda passed by in a blur.

Not even a pleasant blur either, 'cause it's not like I've been smiling and losing myself in happy moments. It's more like I've been trudging along with my head down, just trying to make it, just trying to survive each day so I can go to sleep and stop existing for awhile.

I spend a lot of my time sleeping.

I like to think that I've perfected the art of it, 'cause I don't tend to dream too much - at least, I don't remember my dreams after they happen. Plus, my family doesn't bug me about all the napping; every morning I wake up and roll over and look to see if the sun's up or not, and if the sky's dim and it doesn't look like it's nearing late afternoon, I'll sorta just press my face back into the pillow and try to drift away again.

On the day of the Reaping, I have no such luck.

I'm shaken awake by my mother – not gently, I might add – as her voice breaks through the haze of my dreamless sleep, sharp as the crack of a whip: ”Get up, get moving. Everyone else is almost ready.” Behind the force and the harsh tone of her voice, I can sense the worry brewing there. All things considered, I'm glad she let me sleep in on a day like this, but I'd rather go back in time and sleep another ten hours, just to avoid thinking about today - or worse, having to live through it.

(What if my siblings are reaped? What if I'm about to lose someone I care about? What will I do then?)

Rolling out of bed, I sorta just sit on the floor for a minute, gathering my bearings. It takes me a while to realize that I should probably be getting dressed, so I do, and then I shuffle into the hallway and down the stairs and into the kitchen and out the door, all while staring at my family, knowing that I won't see them for a few weeks.

I try to care, I really do. When the Capitol people sit me up on the stage so everyone can have a look at me, I stare right on back, searching the crowd for my brothers and sisters and wondering who I'll be in charge of mentoring, but I don't care, I don't care, because I'm tired and don't wanna be here and don't wanna be myself.

By the time all the speeches have been made and the Capitol's stupid video clip has been broadcast to the crowd, I'm staring down at my hands, chin down, studying the lines of my palms like I'm intently reading a map to get the hell out of this place.

I flinch when the escort reads out the first name: ”May Rhodes!”

(Thank you, God. Sorry, May Rhodes.)

”Nocturn Vargas!"

I sigh in relief – is that bad? - but it doesn't matter, because the tributes are shuffling up to the stage, and if I'm lucky nobody's paying me any attention.

From then on, I move around as if I'm in a dream, being carted off from one place to the next without even realizing that something has shifted. When I get to the train before the tributes, my stomach does a little rumble, so I make my way to the dining car and throw myself down in a reclining chair to nibble away at a bowl of dried fruit.

I stare at the wall for awhile, and I'm sitting there like a statue until someone plops down in front of me.

"Is it six o'clock yet?"

(I don't have a watch, so I look at my empty wrist like a fool before I realize.)

Right now, I kinda wish I weren't so godawful at remembering names, because I should be the type of mentor who's completely there. How will these tributes feel if their own mentor hasn't yet bothered to learn who they are? I had a front-row seat for the reaping; I should know these things. If nothing else, I get a good look at the guy and try to figure him out, but all I can really gather is that he's gone kinda off the deep end, dressed in a tiara and a fur coat, slurring his words behind the cigarette tucked between his lips.

"My mother always insisted that six o'clock is tea time. I mean it. The whole fam-damnily would have to drop anything they were doing and sip tea for at least half an hour with her before she'd let us go back to whatever it is we were doing. Didn't matter if we were rescuing kittens from trees or taking a piss or praying — by god — six o'clock is tea time."

It doesn't even look like six o'clock outside, but I roll with it. I'm too tired to contradict him.

"But surely you've got a mother, so you know what that's like."

(We could never afford tea until I won, but I figure there's no need to say so.)

"Oh! Look at that! It really is tea time."

All of a sudden he's plucking a tea cup from a cart and pulling a flask out of his pocket, pouring out some sort of alcohol. I can't help it - I wrinkle my nose in disgust and look away before I can stop myself.

(The last time I had alchohol, I was dancing around the tables of the dining hall, right in the heart of the training center with Savannah, smiling and laughing and singing like a goddamn idiot.)

“Cheers!”

...

"What are you on?"

I almost jump out of my seat when I hear someone else talking, because I honestly didn't notice anyone walk in. As it is, I drop the piece of dried fruit I was about to eat. Thankfully, the female tribute is addressing her District partner and not me, so I'm free to sink back into my chair and pretend like I don't exist.

I'm so attentive.

"I mean to say.. are you feeling alright?"

To be fair, I'd probably ask him the same thing. The dude's dressed up like a clown, and he's just been shipped off to die in a tiny sliver of hell.

When she sees him drinking, she asks him what he's doing, and – frankly - I'm kind of wondering the same thing.

Sitting up in my chair, I lean forward and clasp my hands together, resting my elbows on my knees as I lean forward, glaring at the cup in his hand. ”He's being an idiot,” I say, forceful for the first time in .. days, weeks, months? ”Drinking away his last days.”

I pause, and look down into his face. “What do you honestly think you're gonna achieve, acting like you're already dying?”