S U N { TRAIN RIDE } M O D E L S
May 30, 2015 18:24:25 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 30, 2015 18:24:25 GMT -5
N O A H B O W E R S
It was easier after leaving that stage, clutching the bag of nuts and bolts and the smell of smoke like a tattoo on the cloth and home in his fingertips keeping him calm. The beating in his veins chilled from sitting in that justice building room to the point where he was more terrified of frostbite taking his veins before the games could. Wasting on that stage, stripped of identity was the hard part, nothing but tribute, new meat for the graveyards. District Eight Male, they never live. He knew that much, Owen didn't, Duncan's friend hadn't, and neither had the one between and the sixty-six before hand.
And he would be number seventy.
Bailey stared him in the eyes, anger boiling until it rose to the top of her head; that's when he realized where he was. He was no longer Noah Bowers, factory boy of district eight, he was district eight male of the seventieth. Noah had no name. Fingers wrapped around a burlap sack to the point of nails biting into his skin, he wanted to scream. There was no understanding or misunderstanding, there was just standing, looking Bailey and Cody in the eyes and watching Duncan and Andromeda's dull expressions - they hardly care.
Slowly, he began not to either. His family was comprised of three people, and two weren't able to see him in these last seconds, guarded in a factory while their son was stolen behind them. That factory needed him, like he needed it, it was a mutual appreciation in his head and only in his head; Bailey survived without him. He survived without himself, when it was just the nuts and bolts and textiles and smog - it was so simple. It was just things, and there were no emotions or confusion.
Just smoke.
He had regretted the seconds wasted in the Justice Building, praying they would save him the embarrassment and load him up early. For a moment he breathed alone, nothing but the district polluted air and he felt okay, truly. While he breathed he felt that for twenty minutes it was just him, until Cody broke the peace. Breaking the air and still Noah built himself in, Cody spoke with dull knives for words - they didn't need another dead. Another funeral. What did they need less, Noah or another grave? It bit, right under the sweat line of his neck, he thought to himself the entirety of Cody's speech, which was easiest on his parents? They were just factory lives, a grave in the backyard took less care ultimately. And it scared him, knowing that for the rest of his life as 'District Eight Male' he was nothing more than that.
It meant he was cut free. Stripped of the flesh that made him Noah, he was a factory boy's internal thoughts, but there was no grieving. There was no Bailey bruising knuckles to help him, there was no mother to hold his hands before the reaping because there were no more reapings.
For the rest of the hours ticking down to mirror the beginning of his life, there was no fear. Noah grinned, it was pleasing for something to be that simple. Finally.
After boarding the train with his two cohorts it was nothing but numb. It was knowing that from now on he was nothing but district eight male, nameless. Forgettable. Noah was reborn, and for the first few seconds on the train he was simply amused by this; he was grins and chatter and quiet giggles to himself, he was nothing more than a body. Had to be, it was the simplest idea.
Noah continued chuckling to himself.
Eventually, it grew to a point of twiddling his own thumbs of boredom and watching the trees blur into nothing but greens and browns. There was no mentor to talk to, there never was for bastard tributes like him, there was nothing required of him but to sit through hours more of travel. An embodiment of titter and ambiance noise died to nothing more than a moving body, pressing his forehead to the glass aside him.
Sitting made him grow anxious. It wasn't like the silence that blanketed him before Cody, it wasn't a time of free space; the silence eating at their throats grew acidic on him. Burning his bones, eroding into his veins, his thought grew foggy the more he watched the trees. It made him smile, how easy it was to comprehend everything around him now that he's stripped of flesh - being just male, title-less, new it's all so clean.
With a chuckle and a stretch, Noah drew from his seat next to the window, biting his thumb nail to stop himself from manic laughter and made his way to the vent near the compartment door. Comparing the edges of one bolt of his twelve to the cross of a nail head before placing it back and working his thumb into the digs of the nail to unscrew it. Repeating the thumb process with all four before removing the vent gate, placing the bag of nuts and bolts behind the face and placing it back, screwing all four nails back.
