r o b i n [ D6 . FIN]

Archetype, boundless.

Warrior.

Morning light of a 10am sun bites at a ten year old's skin, pale and cold, he's nothing more than a faint yelling of "Charlie! Charle-" and an empty crib of a life. It places him down in the world, a bruise taunting his cheek as he burrows in the closet. A mother's beckoning deafening, echoing with a train's whistle blowing through the crack of the door. Alone, blood draining from already pale skin and dark eyes pressed into his chest. 

Systematic rebirth, in that moment with wide eyes he felt no less dead than he had eight years later but extrospective. Nothing more than a pair of wide eyes, crossed pallid arms and a gaping mouth. A singular crack exposing secrets of a world left untapped - soft words of a ghost lingering in the back of his mind dying ("do not move.")

The man's voice was deep. 

---

From the front of the train, a woman yells the time until they reach destination, district six. Robin's head banged against the window pane as exhaustion's fog plagued his mind, squinting with the sun teasing his pupils. Alone with his thoughts - it's hypnotic. Dazed recollections teasing his mind with the taste of chocolate dying on his tongue, he sat stoic. Dazed and stoic. 

District six, it rang in his tiny ears, it rang in the mimicked beating of his heart. Robin should be happy, shouldn't he? Eighteen years of Capitol, of vials and chips and weapons and steel and now it's here. The goal. ("Do not move.") That is all it was at least. For now, it was the end at hand - it was the scrapped life he had ahead of him. It was Robin, it was the reason he made it this far. 

It was his lifeline.

Motionless, smooth.

Silk.

Robin was not happy, but dazed - he was calm, and gliding, and bishop. That's all it was reduced to. He was trained for this, packed in a compartment with four other boys from his station. For eighteen years he has known that district six was the destination, and then there would be more after. It's only the goal for now, and the silence eating away at his consciousness in a compartment of five boys bit and scrapped at his eyelids. The taste of chocolate on his tongue dying to nothing more than dark sugar.

Being awake was pointless for the time being.

---

There's a reverberate compass, beating, beating, sweat and blood adorning hallways and hearts thumping through cages and flesh - it's who they are. A collection of pistons and pulleys, cherries in steel walls and floors and one window, a whole in the middle of limbo. A door, the door, hourglass gravity with its ebb and flow between what a group believed to be the selection between life and death.

It was the only escape for a twelve year old boy. 

Mass of only prominent ribs and sickly skin, sweat licking skin like grease and he's a beacon of their destruction. Panting panting, panting, he's a picture, frame perfect in the heart beat in his throat - he can only be titled as dead. In a world of necromancy, he's a prince. 

Prince, royalty.

Monitory.

He was the effect of hysteria, a broken boy broken and broken again, cracked fingers and noses and soft features turned callous, for once a boy with wings and a horn. Tiny, caved features, small ears and sharp teeth, yellow teeth - stained, is what he called himself. 

"Do not move," is what they told him, as he heaved and breathed and panted and quivered. ("Do not move.) A bloodshot, veins twisting like rope, breathing heavy and steel rooms in every corner of his eye - stained, he called himself. 

Robin, is what they called him. 

---

One woke up screaming, Roy, bloodshot eyes and pale skin and red hair, and with lips parted Robin woke up as well. It was a cycle in their compartment, their destination was too far to stay awake forever - Roy screamed the most. Robin screamed the least, sighing and soft sniffles at worst. No words were broken between them, quaint midnight kissing the window holding it from Robin - ten years without sunlight. 

Losing himself in the thought was easy, holding himself back was not. 

Roy woke up screaming "bang" every time, before stuffing a thumb in his mouth and turning his eyes into his shoulder. It became less phasing. The boy beside him began downing pills he bought from the lady Robin received chocolate from. Parallel, a boy with blue eyes and curls in his hair constantly whispered a woman's name. 

Robin himself was never aware of the words he said, if any were parted. Only once in the days they drove he remembered piercing air, a gunshot and a blood spatter and brown eyes they were so wide, he clenched one hand on his mouth and one of his neck. 

("Do not move.")

He didn't like sleeping in front of others. 

---

It's sixteen, and buying chocolate squares with nickle tokens and stamping them to his tongue like feathers, melting. A dream, almost, lucid. Lucid. It's punk and wasting, corners of streets and under bridges and chewing on nails and rust, drinking liquor and grabbing brown paper bags. Graffiti signed like memorials, a graveyard of dreams. 

Drinks tasted weird, smoke was artificial, graffiti a tombstone and corners were steel. 

Waking up screaming was the truth - banging heads against steel and dreaming of rain, swimming, drowning water. Fresh water. Sixteen and steel walls and pills, blue red green yellow purple pink grey black white.

Blinding, suffocating. 

White.

Lanky stature and burnt like black hair, clean face and sweaty nights and clawing eyes into ankles ("Do not move") - they were so wide. A mirror was a safe place, a gym was the worst. Tests and experiments and rats, it's who they were. Sickly, pale, dying, self starvation - bombers. Capitolites, orphans. It was breaking, it was lives and competition. A hierarchy for top 5. 

It was Robin, Roy, Roan, Robert, Rocket. 

It was eighteen.

---

It was five a.m., peach breaking skylines and faint diamonds like a mother's jewels, it was five boys and a real sun. A cage opened for a goal - that's all it was. It was not freedom. 

Release, sovereignty.

Robin.

It was a mission, that's all; a goal, a destination. District six, cartels.

That's all. 

"Do not move."

table inspired by rook