little wolf {rook}

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cass
Retired Staff

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little wolf {rook} Mar 4, 2015 23:28:50 GMT -5

Quote

Post by cass on Mar 4, 2015 23:28:50 GMT -5

o p a l.

Morning comes and goes. And each morning as the light filters through the curtains in her room she stirs. More often then not she awakes before the sun has yet to rise, when the darkness still swallows this world whole. It is at those times of the day when she slips a loose shirt on, straps on her fake leg, then a pair of pants. She’ll quickly walk over to the cot that sits in the far corner, a hand gently caressing the side of the child’s face before moving to the door to put on a pair of worn out shoes. The grey of the early morning has started to set into the day, and it this time of the year her breath catches in her throat for a moment before being released past dry lips in one white burst. The heat rises, billowing behind her as she walks through the Capitol’s training center and down towards the ground floor where she will find freedom.

Her daily ritual of heading down to the training centre to spend a few hours hitting bags, running, leaping and swinging a weapon the only reason she would leave his side. The elevator slid open with a light ding, the sound echoing in the emptiness of the early morning darkness. She slipped into the hall that led to the training centre. She could remember every moment of her time her before the games with perfect clarity. She could remember running out of the room gasping for air the first time she was supposed to come down here. She can remember seeing twenty-three other children roaming around, the sounds of grunts and cries and laughter as they trained.

When she enters the room she can picture herself and Locust and Drace and Cleo gathered to one side their bitter snarky comments ringing in the air. She can remember watching Locust, and having the girl by her side the entire time they awaited the day they’d rise into the arena. She can remember Sierra; she can remember teaching Erik how to hold a knife properly. Sometimes she wonders if they see it as well, if they see those that could have been standing where they once were, or if, like most of her heart they just don’t care. In those moments of remembering she quickly banishes such thoughts. She’d lost the energy to care anymore, just as she’d lost all energy to care about future tributes and what happened to them. It was cruel of her, but she had no heart or emotions to waste on them, not anymore.

It was generally deserted at this time of the day, with the lack of tributes to occupy it she had the freedom to do as she pleased. There was no one there to disturb her as she trained and there was rarely anyone else in the room when she used it. Stretching her arms above her head she let out a pleased groan, the chill of the morning bit into her exposed skin, but she shook it off quickly, making her way to a mat to quickly stretch her tired limbs.

After a few minutes of stretching and waking herself up she springs up, feet itching to go for a run. Jogging lightly back down the hall and towards the entrance to the entire building she slowed she got closer, spotting a dark figure by the door. Narrowing her eyes she squinted at them, uncertain as to who it was and not entirely pleased that the peace of her morning was being disturbed. A fiery curtain of hair fell around the young girls face, Opal was hardly aware of little more then the girls recent victory. It was, after all, after her entire emotional breakdown and Ky’s birth and part of her recent neglect of the games and tributes.

Oh well.

She bit her lip, giving the girl a once over. What was her name? Valfierno? Her first name escaped Opal and she blinked, scavenging through her mind trying to find it. It was hardly her fault, she’d in a pretty shit situation when this girl had taken her crown. She knew that the last name wasn’t terribly common, it wasn’t like Ross or Myler. Regardless of what Opal thought of her name, though, there was something about the girl that begged to be asked. She reminded Opal of everything she’d lost, and that part of her that she’d given to Potato begged her to say something. Sighing heavily she tilted her head before asking, ”wanna jog with me, Valfi-Valfei” she covered her mouth with a hand, hiding her embarrassment before finally saying, ”Val?”

Yeah that’d do.

rook
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who needs another thing to be sad about?

little wolf {rook} Mar 12, 2015 12:59:03 GMT -5

Quote

Post by rook on Mar 12, 2015 12:59:03 GMT -5

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
i wanna be your ford cortina
i won't ever rust

"Your friends are dead. All of them. I f-fucking watched them bleed out and die. Saw the fucking l-light leave their eyes."

When I was younger, and I mean a lot younger - Rose and I were still living with Mom and Dad. We used to watch movies. Capitol Propaganda, of course, but they were still entertaining. They'd make up these working class heroes and have them overcome the adversities of laziness, often depicted as some sluggish creature. We were only kids, we drank it up without questioning it. Our parents didn't care much for us, that's why they forced us out at fifteen and thirteen. They would let us stay up as late as we wanted, or go out whenever we wanted to. We had no strings, no leash for them to pull on. Maybe that's why I'm such a free spirit.

I have vivid memories of staying up late, watching said movies with Rose, drifting to sleep as my eyes strained and grew tired of the vibrant colors. Rose would fall asleep in my lap, and then slowly but surely I'd slip into the same sleep. I would always wake up a half hour or so later, to find the movie almost at the end. Well, it's the same now. I was watching back my Games, I was watching back not for the horror but because it had all become too much watching Zeki get cut down, and all the shit Pixie has been going through. I needed to hear Pearl's voice. Of course there are plenty of tapes of the Games on demand in the Capitol, and so it was easy enough to get a copy to watch in the privacy of my temporary bedroom.

"When you were being trained, back home - Did they ever tell you how to get over it? The killing, I mean?" I sound so young, even if it was just a year ago. Pearl said that killing wasn't a big deal in One, she told me that it was like swatting a fly. She said that some people even like the idea of it. I never liked it, and neither did Pearl. We were both decent human beings, we just did things that we had to do, not out of choice but out of necessity. People will argue that there's always a choice, even in that environment, but until you've actually gone into the Arena and stared death in the face, you can't commend. There's no fucking choice. Kill or be killed. I've never felt bad for doing the things I did, because I'm selfish, but that's why I'm alive.

I tried to hang onto that conversation, tried to imagine Pearl beside me, comforting me to sleep like she did that night, telling me that I'm a good person underneath it all, and that the Games do not define me. Oh, but they do. It slipped from my grasp, like watching those movies smudge out into dreams. And like I'm ten years old all over again, I wake up near the end of the movie, Crusader's dominating voice making my jump from light sleep. So I missed seeing myself throw that crude petroleum bomb into the mass of bodies in the Feast, and watching Cha fall into that abyss, and seeing my best friend get cut down. But when I tell Crusader that I watched his friends die, and I see the rage in his face, I sit up and lean forwards, because I see a twisted side of me that I forgot existed.

I lied to him, to make him angry, so he would slip up. I cut him deep, let him drop to his knees, and I can almost feel myself kick him off that ledge and into the mercury pool. I start shaking as I watch myself walk away from it like it was nothing. In that moment, I felt so alive. Watching the silver coat his body, and fill his lungs. Hearing his metal screams. It was retribution. He got what he deserved for taking my best friend away. Call it immature, I don't care. Pearl was all I had, and he was just a number. There's no comparison.

I crawl off of the bed and turn off the monitor, not having the stomach to watch Galaxy cut Finn down. The war is won, so why do I keep looking back? Am I scared that I have changed? That I am getting weak? I can't allow myself to get weak, even now, because although I won the Games, I have new enemies and challenges. I have to keep surviving in this new environment.

"No one can survive by themselves. I know that much. What point is there in surviving if there's no one to survive for?"

I haven't changed. People don't change. They may act differently, or treat people differently, but the things they've done and the things they've said, they're a part of who they are. It's like, if a person was a book, and you wrote down everything they did in their lives, you might turn onto a new page, but it's still the same book, and the stuff that's written is still written. I know that's a pretty shit way to put it, but that's how I feel. I feel like circumstances have changed, and my life is completely different, but I still killed Galaxy, and Crusader, and Cha, and countless others. I'm still snappy, and short with people, and selfish. It's just my life is so different now, and I've found it hard to adapt.

"I'm glad I've got you."

One thing that has changed is my body. I'm heavier than I was, and I'm pretty sure my fitness isn't what it was when I darted around the corners of that jet black labyrinth. I haven't touched a weapon since my Victory Tour, when they made me do a demonstration in District Two - That punk ass Career girl kicked my ass and humiliated me to the point of me walking out. I think I could do it now. I think I've mentally recovered from the Games, more or less. I've had a whole year to dwell on it, and I had to get into a good place to give Pixie and Zeki the best chance possible.

I make a 4am decision to go and exercise.

I pull on some lycra shorts and lace up a pair of white sneakers. There seems to be plenty of exercise and fitness gear in my Capitol wardrobe, like they want me to be training for something, or expected me to have the urge. Maybe it's normal. Yeah, normal. I pull over one of my black tees over my head and walk out into the open plan of our floor. Avoxes stand as silent sentinels. I smile at them as I walk past Lethe's room, listening out for the light breaths of baby Phelix. I brought him into this world. I have killed, but I have also helped bring life back. That's something pretty incredible, right?

I press the round disk on the wall and wait for the elevator to reach our floor, pushing up onto my toes and warming up my tendons. The doors slide open with a ping, and I step inside, selecting ground floor. As I shoot downwards towards solid ground, I tie my hair up in a ponytail, something I almost never do, but one thing I found out about running is that your hair gets in the way a lot. Of course, it's hardly an issue when you can't see anyway, but I'm not in a cave any more.

The training center is cold and lifeless. I always remember it being metallic and hostile, but when it's empty like this, it seems a calm place, almost welcoming, as horrible as that sounds. I have to remind myself that this is where people train to become killers, and where killers train to become legends. Yeah, so much for that, Kendrick, Valerie, Asa, Zelphyr, Jay. No one remembers their names. Pearl too. I swallow hard and move forwards, only now appreciating the advanced equipment in here.

"Wanna jog with me, Val?" Comes a voice, and I spin around on my heel, instinctively moving my arms up. When I see that it's Opal Earnest, I drop them, and relax a little, but not too much. Val? I've been called a lot of things: Trix, Trish, Trisha, Pat, Bitch. Never Val. I suppose it's a new one. Opal Shore married a Tribute named Potato Earnest on the year of the 67th, and somehow got pregnant with his child during the week he was in the Capitol. At the time, I thought it was irresponsible. Maybe it was, but I admire Opal for raising that child on her own. It might not be so bad, raising a child in luxury, but doing it alone takes something special.

"Sure." I say, my shoulders dropping, the tension going. I'm still jumpy, even now. I guess that's normal too. I walk closer to Opal, her features picked up by the four-in-the-morning light. Guess she's having trouble sleeping too. This is the first time I've seen her in person. She is a lot more mature now than when she won the 64th Games. Ripred, was that really five years ago?
"Where are we going?"

let me be your 'leccy meter and i'll never run out
and let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without
i wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
at least as deep as the pacific ocean

word count: 1556, graphics: rook
theme: i wanna be yours by the arctic monkeys

Last Edit: Mar 12, 2015 12:59:44 GMT -5 by rook

an hourglass is just a glass with sand inside

cass
Retired Staff

4,822 POSTS

last seen Oct 24, 2021 18:11:43 GMT -5

little wolf {rook} Mar 18, 2015 22:37:08 GMT -5

Quote

Post by cass on Mar 18, 2015 22:37:08 GMT -5

o p a l.

Oddly enough she didn't feel bad, or guilty, or well, anything for not knowing much about this girl. In hindsight perhaps that was a good thing, it meant that Opal was one of the few people in the entirety of Panem that didn't know how many people she had killed, didn't know the awful things she had done and had to experience. Opal didn't know anything about the troubles she had faced in those games, it was a curious position she was in, similar in some ways to the one Potato had been in when he had met her. He hadn't had a clue about the games, he'd never watched one in his life and been though Opal knew that she had killed someone to stand here she didn't know anything else. This girl could be anyone she wanted in front of Opal and Opal wouldn't know the difference.

That was one of the luxuries she had had with Potato, she hadn't had to pretend she was some killer, some fighter, she could be that simple-minded girl that was absorbed by everything to do with plants. She didn't have to put on a fake smile and pretend that everything was alright, because with him it was, there was no pretending, there was no making it look like you weren't going to break every second of every day. He fixed all of that. She hardly believed that anyone knew that they had known each other for three years, that when the drought had happened she had ran straight to his side, that she had been the one to tell him that she had killed so many people and that children were forced to do it every year.

Even then he hadn't faltered for a heart beat. He'd taken her for everything he had seen before that and that was who she had been in his eyes. Maybe she could give Val some form of that small comfort, some small form of knowing that Opal hadn't seen anything, didn't know anything, and had no ability to judge her. Because as much as all the other victors liked to believe you couldn't never not judge someone. They'd formed an opinion of her and even though their's could shift and change the fundamentals of what they thought would remain the same.

Opal couldn't scrape together some pathetic excuse and tell Val that she understood, that she knew what she was going through. No one understood, no one knew what Opal's experience had felt like, or the ways it had changed her, yes all the victors had gone through the arena and come out, but all of them had suffered differently and done things different and had different pressure and pain put upon them. Not Mace or Val or Topaz would ever be able to understand what she had gone through, not even Potato could have. It was why they all stood so alone.

Looking back over at Val she nodded, pleased with the response. She was glad that the younger victor had accepted her invitation, she wasn't someone who offered much anymore. In fact, she'd have been a little disheartened if the girl had of refused. In fact this limb she had extended was perhaps the most she had done to help anyone, aside from Mace, these past few months. It wouldn't have done well for her healing process to be rejected by trying to offer some sort of assistance to another. Ky and Nightshade were the two things that took up all her emotions and time and she didn't spare a second of care for anyone else. She'd given up, a long time ago, her facade of smiles and pleasantness.

She smiled for no one aside from Ky and Nightshade now. A long time ago she smiled so often her cheeks would ache, now it was as though the lines by the corners of her mouths were as much as a memory as anything else.

"There is a park, in the centre of the Capitol. It's a remarkable place." She'd long since fought past those bitter words. The entire Capitol was beautiful, in a sense, and compared to the districts she had visited it was hard to say that it was remarkable. It felt wrong on her tongue, as though she had no right to say it. It was as though by stating that the centre of this foul world was something to be desired she was betraying the districts in some sense. But after everything she had suffered she'd lost a lot of her fire and problems like that left little more then an itch in the back of her mind. Long since had the time passed that she'd decided to ignore the pretty things in her life. Especially when it came to her old hobby.

"The trees there are fascinating," she tilts her head back, an image popping into her mind of the first time seeing that park. It had been a sunset the games that Argonite had died in. He had just been killed and the air within the training centre had been suffocating so she'd ran and ran and ran through the streets not looking where she was going, just trying to get away from that prison. The same place where twenty-three children she had known had died, and then twenty-three children that Argo had know, the last place she had seen him before he'd disappeared forever. It was when the sun had begun to set that she'd found that park, a small slice of beauty in this broken world. Now she would get the chance to see it as the sun rose.

Shaking her head she pushed aside those memories, stretching her arms over her head she sprang forwards, her fake leg taking the first step as she pushed through the door, moving at a steady jog. "Come on, Val. It's a sight you won't forget." She had seen many of things, the horrors cling like heat on a humid day, and the bright, happy ones were like a slight breeze, there were few that you could chase and hold onto.

This was one of hers.

rook
Veteran Member

2,361 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Sept 26, 2023 15:42:53 GMT -5

who needs another thing to be sad about?

little wolf {rook} Apr 7, 2015 16:37:31 GMT -5

Quote

Post by rook on Apr 7, 2015 16:37:31 GMT -5

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
i wanna be your ford cortina
i won't ever rust

"Do you know where they are? Where Finn and Stella are?"

I deserve it all. The nightmares, the anxiety, the crushing desire to be anything but what I am. The fucked up moral compass and skewered social skills. I deserve it. Wandering, an eternal indifference, feeling these occasional tingles of emotions I felt before. That's my punishment, my burden. The survivors survive, but at a cost, of course. There was always going to be a cost. And now, as I swim through the four-in-the-morning silence, I turn to Opal Earnest, a girl I do not know. A girl I placed such harsh judgement on before my story even began. Oh, how different things are now. If only she knew the things I had said about her under my breath, in between sipping from a bottle and smoking a joint, trying to numb myself from the world just enough to get through another shitty night on the streets of Five - Would she still want to run with me if she knew, or would she forgive my judgements? It's okay, you're a Victor now, we won't judge. Give me a fucking break. Mace Emberstatt and Saffron Lowe and their fucking happy group mentalities. Of course people judge me now, it's only now I'm famous that they've started. No amount of we're all in this together now is going to patch over the gaping holes in our souls, because we're murderers, every one of us.

You don't get over that killing. I asked Pearl how, but there was no answer. How would she know? She was a trained Career, yes, but that didn't make her a killer. She trained for years, her mom was a Victor for fuck's sake. She had the best damn training in Panem, but she wasn't a killer. I hadn't had any training, and that's the twisted thing about it all. I had no training, but I was. I was a killer. I still am a killer. That's part of me now. It doesn't stop just because the Games are over, you keep on surviving, because the real Game is out here, right here, right now. Every second you're fighting to stay alive. Every move on the chessboard. Every fucking step you take.

And maybe my warped perception of things is what's alienating me from the other Victors. Maybe I'm the one that just doesn't fucking get it. I never wanted to be part of some sort of twisted family of killers, who band together because they've got no one else. That's why I snubbed Mace, and Saffron, and Julian. Heck, besides being scared by her fucking knife tricks, maybe that's why I've been avoiding Cricket all year, the one person who reached out to me on that Victory Tour. Fuck. I don't want to be comforted, least of all by them, because I don't want to be them.

"There is a park, in the centre of the Capitol. It's a remarkable place." Opal muses, and I have to pull myself together and nod, like I'm interested, but I'm not. Exercise isn't about there where, or the when, it's about doing it. When I exercise, I feel alive. I'm not numb when my lungs are working and my heart is pumping at double speed. I have a temporary purpose. I'm building myself towards something - To what? I can't say. Does there have to be a goal? Can't I just improve myself physically, and try and get back to the shape I was in a year ago?

"The trees there are fascinating," Opal continues, and I nod falsely, feigning interest. I couldn't care less about where we're going. Her company is the only thing that half draws my attention. I don't know, it's not like I want to get to know her, because I'd rather keep myself to myself, and leave her be, but she was kind to me. She offered to work out with me, when she could easily have watched me leave, on my own. The least I can do is... Humour her? No, I can be nice back. I think.

"Come on, Val. It's a sight you won't forget." She chirps, and I sigh. Right, 'cause I've seen plenty of sights I won't forget, and none good. Capitol trees aren't going to pull my mind away from Crusader's twisted, metallic form, or Galaxy's drained face, or Cha's red stare. Oh and the sights she has seen too, I bet. Yaa Valarro, Mikhail Ivashkov, Locust Lovelace, Drace Vandel. Why do I remember their names too? Why do I know everyone else's pain, as well as mine? No. I just know the names. I don't have a clue how each Victor is effected. Opal might have pushed it all behind her, like me. She might still be haunted by it. She might ignore it.

"Just go away. I don't know who your friends are."

Cha haunts me. Probably more than any of the others. Maybe it's because she never fought me. She had a chance, once, when I fled the genocide of the feast. Bodies were dropping at my feet, and I had to run. She ran into me then, and could have killed me, but instead she did the most human thing, she asked where her friends were. She asked me for help. I could have attacked her, but she trusted me. She was alone, and afraid, and she asked me for help. I didn't help her, and so she wandered off, alone, only for me to find her again a few hours later.

And that time, I killed her. I drove my sword through her eye. Defenceless, innocent Cha. I had paused, and thought about what I was about to do. I weighed it up, and I chose to kill her on the spot, without her even knowing I was there. I thought maybe it was kinder, but it wasn't. I'm a murderer. Her blood is on my hands. All of it. She had every much a chance of living as me, and I stole it from her.

"Are you a murderer?"

Absolutely.

And so we step out into the pre-dawn haze, the air just that little bit nippier than I'd like. I kick my legs behind me, stretching on the spot. It's important to stretch, important to warm up. Of course, when Tributes can jump you at any time, you don't really have a chance to warm up before you start running, or fighting. Flashes of that darkness make me blink, staring at the floor beneath me. The weight of that Arena was... It was...

I start running, leaving Opal behind me. Leaving that thought behind me. Leaving Cha behind me.

let me be your 'leccy meter and i'll never run out
and let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without
i wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
at least as deep as the pacific ocean

word count: 1112, graphics: rook
theme: i wanna be yours by the arctic monkeys

an hourglass is just a glass with sand inside

cass
Retired Staff

4,822 POSTS

last seen Oct 24, 2021 18:11:43 GMT -5

little wolf {rook} Apr 7, 2015 19:43:41 GMT -5

Quote

Post by cass on Apr 7, 2015 19:43:41 GMT -5

o p a l.

They were all murderers. At first Opal had tried to find some sort of comfort in the fact that the rest of the victors were murderers, that in some way they were the same as her. But after weeks she soon realized that they weren’t all that sincere, they didn’t have that illusion of control and strength. They were all broken, beaten and just trying to survive. She was plagued by pain, suffering and nightmares. There was terror everywhere, and fear always; always ready to rear it’s head at the first sign of danger. Some of them had learnt better then others, Topaz and Lethe seemed to have almost entirely forgotten the terror they had faced. Cricket didn’t much seem to care, Mace cried. Julian scowled and tried to fight everything. They weren’t as impressive as she had thought they were.

At the beginning of it all she’d been the same, some stupid, foolish girl plastering on a smile behind the darkness. She’d waved at the cameras and pretended there was nothing wrong; she’d smiled, laughed like some child with a crush on the entire world. She’d hoped that time would just make it all go away. Some idiot just trying to fit in, in the hopes that it’d all is better if she had pretended it had never happened. Now she just didn’t care. The world could see her for who she was, this thing that she had become. She didn’t want to become their friends, she didn’t want to talk to them and be nice to them. The only reason she had helped Mace was out of some broken sense of loyalty, he’d aided her at the beginning.

She wanted to punch Leon in his face again and again, she wanted to kick Cricket and tell her to shut up, and hit Peridot, hit him again and again for every time he said that they should be friends. Every time he looked her way as though he had helped her to survive, but neither he nor Topaz had done a thing. No one had, not her family, not all those years in the training centre. It had all been her animalistic want for survival, her fear of death. That had kept her alive, that had allowed her to slaughter others, that had given her the strength to kill Xanthus. Nothing else, no training, no want for glory, just raw and unrelenting fear.

She didn’t have friends, she didn’t want them. They dragged you down, they asked for things and wanted things. She was tired of people smiling to her face, and then putting a blade to her back. She’d spent her entire life without friends, but after the games had finished she’d believed, like some fool in the land of a broken fairy tale, that she’d need them to survive. Opal Earnest would survive by herself. It had always been that way. Right from the beginning when the kids had tormented her, torn her garden apart, held her down and beaten her. When she’d walked into the training centre and picked up a blade they’d hounded her and pushed her away, ad hit her until she’d ran out thinking the walls would choke her.

It’d been her by herself in the orphanage, when she’d been taken in by the Shore’s. When Pyrite had slapped her, pulled her hair and told her to die, that she’d never come home again. Not even her dear Argo had been there.

She arched her back, stretching her arms high above her head. Her breath slipped past her lips, a billowing blanket of white as it mingled with the cold air. It sting her throat, and bit her exposed skin, but she shook it off, stretching out her one good leg before her. Val stretched as well. Opal looked at her, at that shiny red hair, and dark eyes. She didn’t think much of her, but Opal doubted the girl thought much of her. Opal didn’t want to know her problems, or hold her hand and be her friend. She didn’t want to understand what was wrong and tell her it would all be better. That there was some light at the end of this dark tunnel. There wasn’t, though, but she wouldn’t tell Val that either.

It didn’t matter, it never did. She watched as Val moved, running ahead of her, rolling her eyes she finished her last stretch, feeling the ache in her leg where the fake when met the real one, but knowing she could catch up easily. As she set off she stayed behind, feet moving with an uneven kind of beauty, there was no longer any grace or real balance in her movements, it was rather lopsided and patched. But she could still move, and she could still move fast. Oh how she’d ran through that arena, chasing the people she’d thought of as friends, how she’d ran for her life. She’d ran at home too, she’d ran from her family once more, from Argonite as he’d died, through the streets of district eleven. Running was something Opal liked, watching as problems slipped further and further behind you. This time, though, she was running towards the problem, her uneven gait moving closer and closer to Val.

”You’re annoying.” She muttered, sticking her tongue out at the girls back. She could hardly ditch the girl; she had been the one to make the offer. Sighing heavily she pushed forwards, picking up her pace until she was beside the girl, there she matched her pace, step for step, although hers were uneven and rather messy. That couldn’t be helped. ”You're rather good at running.” She drawled, giving Val an unimpressed look.

But then, when you had to run from your nightmares you had to be able to run fast.

rook
Veteran Member

2,361 POSTS

Pronouns: he/him
last seen Sept 26, 2023 15:42:53 GMT -5

who needs another thing to be sad about?

little wolf {rook} Apr 20, 2015 3:46:20 GMT -5

Quote

Post by rook on Apr 20, 2015 3:46:20 GMT -5

♕ { p a t r i c i a v a l f i e r n o} ♕
victor of the 68th annual hunger games

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
i wanna be your ford cortina
i won't ever rust

Running feels so good. My arms and legs piston round, whilst my body bounces up and down at a steady pace. I feel alive. Alive because my heart burns like black liquorice, and the bellows in my chest are pumping life through me. This feeling that starts with a tingling in my fingers soon fills my entirety, and I'm striding ahead with my eyes on the horizon. I try to focus every breath on staying positive, and being alive. I think of Rose, and her growth. As I grow stronger, so does she. We lean on each other, as we always have, because we're a family. She's the only family I have.

The increased blood flow to my brain causes all sorts of images to come back to me, all from our childhood. It seems like centuries ago that we played in the ruins of a derelict home, searching through debris for interesting things to play with. Our Mother never liked it when we stayed out too late. The shadows grew longer, and her expression would become more and more concerned as we returned home later, and later still. Children evolved into rebellious teens. Shark-toothed smiles and snide remarks masked under our breaths sparked arguments, and a cloud hung over me as I sank into the person I am now. Patricia. Blunt, unsociable, snide, and stubborn. I know I'm not a good person. Good people don't kill others to survive. All of the Victors are great people, but none of them are good people. That's a fact.

I told a lie. Why? Because I was selfish, and stubborn, and above all, afraid. I didn't just hate my parents, I was scared of them. Scared that they would send Rose in a downward spiral, when she was worth so much more. They were substance abusers, not hardcore or out of control, but that's what scared me. They did it so casually, like nothing was wrong with it. That's no way to bring up a kid. I didn't want that to be Rose. So I lied. I kidnapped my own sister and told her that they had kicked us out.

Do I regret it? Sometimes. I don't know. Every aching breath I take, and every lactic acid fuelled push of my legs reminds me of the hell I went though in those caves, running in circles until I threw up in the darkness. Blind, scurrying in the dirt like a mole, scratching at the eyes of anyone who came near me. If I hadn't have won, then Rose would have gone back to them. I don't know. I lied to her, and robbed her from her parents. Who was I to say what was best for her? Maybe it was my own grudge against them that made me do it. Maybe.

My chest burns, and sweat starts to drip down my forehead. My ginger hair is turning from burnt, to rust, slowly becoming a wet sienna. I run a hand through it, panting hard. I keep running, feeling no pain now. I reach a point where I am both numb and sensitive, like I feel every aching fibre of my body, but I don't care. I press through it, because I have experienced so much worse. It's been over a year now, but the scars still run deep. I have a white lighting cascading down my sternum from Galaxy's last stand, and a fake hand in place of what Crusader severed. These are a reminder of the most painful moments of my life, and I wear them with pride, because I overcame them, and survived. I am a lone wolf that survived the winter, nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing less.

"You're annoying", Opal catches up to me, and I do my best to let her comment go over my head. I've heard worse. The people in Two shouted Whore and Slut at me in the street, even though I've only had sex once in my life, and never did anything sexual in the Games. Toxic words from sour citizens, poured over me to make me feel bad, but I have weathered so much more. I'd be lying if I said words didn't hurt me, but words without reason aren't words at all. Annoying, annoying, annoying. I haven't made a judgement of Opal Earnest yet. I've thrown my previous thoughts away, because I was stupid and immature to go by what I saw on propagandised television. Annoying. How so? In that I ran off without her? Heh, maybe I'll let her have that one.

"You're rather good at running." She compliments me with a rather heavy tone, keeping up with my daring pace through the twilight morning. What she says is an utterly stupid and moronic comment. Of course I'm good at running, and so is she. We both ran for nearly two weeks, running for hour after hour until we were dry heaving into the dirt. If you're not good at running, you're dead. If Victors have anything in common, it's that none of us are good people, and all of us are good runners. However, I have been trying to work on not snapping at people when they make stupid comments, so I shrug it off and stay silent for now, running straight ahead. Lethe says I need to get on better with other people, but I think she only tells me that because I'm so hard on her. It's not like she doesn't deserve it, she's one of the most selfish people I know, but perhaps given the fact that she just gave birth, I should cut her some slack.

I've been trying for so long to feel normal again, there were times when I thought I never would. After all the trauma and mentally scarring things that happened, I sort of just accepted that things were different now, and that I was different. But now, as I'm running in this darkness, it's all come flooding back to me. The screaming, the killing, the surviving, and the terrible, terrible fact of it all is that I feel alive again. I wonder if it's normal. Normal. I say normal, I mean normal for a Victor. Panting hard, I turn to Opal.

"Do you miss it?" I say the taboo, and I feel like I'm standing on twenty-three graves. Fact is, I kind of do. At least in there I felt something more than this eternal limbo. I don't miss the fear, and the murder, and the blood, but I miss how alive I felt, and I hate the life I'm living now. I suppose, at the very least, it's life all the same.

let me be your 'leccy meter and i'll never run out
and let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without
i wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
at least as deep as the pacific ocean

word count: 1110, graphics: rook
theme: i wanna be yours by the arctic monkeys