Merry Ratmas Rook!

W.D.

It’s dark.

It’s always dark. You can’t see the chains suspended from the ceiling, or the door that unleashes a gust of warm ashen air each time it opens. If your wrists weren’t bound, you wouldn’t be able to see your own hand in front of your face. You rely on your ears instead, but all you can hear are chains rattling and voices echoing; sometimes whispers, sometimes screams. Sometimes you wonder who and why. Most of you doesn’t care.

You’re empty.

You can’t remember what vitality feels like. The heart in your chest is still and rotting. It’s neither cold nor warm – it’s only a mass, and you can feel it, just like you feel the aches in your wrists from shackles chafing against flesh. You aren’t even sure if your body is an actual body, or a symbol of what you were when you were alive.

The door opens, and you can smell ashes again. Somebody is always burning. Your body tenses up in response because you know the inevitable. You’re serving a year for every person you’ve murdered in cold blood, which happens to be all of them. It’s unfair to you, but there is nobody to listen when you plead that it was solely for survival.

Your visitor lights the torches suspended on the walls. It looks like a cavern in here, shadows dancing everywhere you look. You can see hairs clumped together in front of your forehead, caked with blood. It never grows. Nothing does. You don’t eat, you don’t piss or shit, you don’t grow or age, and you sure as hell don’t sleep. You simply exist. It’s endless. Time doesn’t pass the way it did when you were alive. One year feels like five years. Your sentence will drive you madder than you ever were.

Your visitor approaches you and reveals herself as a woman with golden curls, but that isn’t the first thing you notice. There is a gaping hole in her chest, red and lined with dangling arteries as if someone had literally carved out her heart.

”Long time no see,” she purrs.

You don’t trust bullshit. Of all people, why would she be here? Why would she be allowed to visit you? What sort of fresh hell is this?

Oh, right.

She tilts her head and frowns at you, and you realize it’s because you haven’t said anything. ”What, you don’t remember me?” she says. If they’re trying to fuck with you, you don’t want to give them the satisfaction. You give her – or it – the silent treatment.

”Maybe this will jog your memory.”

She lifts her foot and bashes it into your nose. Your face explodes with pain and you groan. It’s weak. You’re used to pain and blood, so as it dribbles from your nostrils you simply hang there and let it fall into your mouth. Metal is the only element you’re allowed to taste. You’re thankful it’s not fire instead.

You don’t say anything because of course you fucking remember. You remember every twist of your blade into her flesh, and you remember the pain she caused you in return. Especially when she stamped her foot into your nose. It was all part of the fight.

”Ah, I’m so glad you remember!” she feigns joy, ”I know I look different, but I figured you’d remember all of us.”

Part of you is entertained by what she says. ’I know I look different.’ All of the wounds that decorated her corpse have vanished. She is wearing a modest dress of all things – in Hell, a place where you’ve never been granted a single garment. It’s black like her soul, but all of your focus is on the gaping hole in her chest. It sort of distracts from the sexy look she might’ve been aiming for. Then again, this is Hell. Everything is gore and horror.

You faintly wonder if this is a nightmare, then remember that sleep doesn’t exist.

”You must be wondering what happened here.” She gestures to the heartless cavern, and you notice the whites of bone lining the edges like teeth. The ribs had been torn out. ”I cut it out. Wasn’t my idea.”

Creative. It has probably been incinerated by now. Or eaten. Something along those lines.

”I didn’t need it anyway,” she adds. You’re pretty sure she’s right.

You don’t know why she’s here. She’s the first familiar face you’ve seen since you opened your eyes in this cell, and you don’t know if it means anything. You think you see a mischievous glimmer in her eyes, but it could be your imagination. Most things are hollow down here, including yourself. You barely have the energy to speak to her. You’re tired but you can’t sleep. You’re in pain but you won’t heal, not until time permits. You never control what happens to your own body. The same is true for her; they must’ve forced her to tear her own heart out as punishment for whatever she’s done. Probably in the most painful manner possible. With a dull knife, maybe.

You’ve seen worse.

”Enough about me. Let’s talk about you.” She smiles and you know nothing good can come of it. If she’s here, it’s not for a friendly visit or a civil chat. She must’ve worked out some kind of deal, or earned privilege for being less of a piece of shit then you are. You know she’s here to hurt you. Words you can take, but pain not so much. It gets harder and harder with every visit, like gears cranking until the rust eased them to a screeching halt. You don’t know what the “halt” is down here. The endgame is somewhere past your sentence, and you don’t know if it’s a sweet release or worse. But something is clearly changing for her, unless she was always a demon mistress.

You doubt it.

Maybe there’s hope for you.

Or maybe she’s here to tell you that there isn’t.

”I heard you’re gonna be in here for a loooong time,” she says, tilting her head with an air of hubris. You can’t promise that you wouldn’t do the same in her position. You are shackled, she is free. She holds the knife. You’re not sure when she pulled that out, but it’s there and you can see torch fire in its silver reflection. You wonder how creative she has become. She’s been down here only a little longer than you have.

”Don’t worry, you won’t be in here forever. We all get the opportunity to…improve.”

You don’t think the cave in her chest is much of an improvement, but her wrists aren’t anchored to a cell. Other than the obvious gore, she looks perfectly healthy. You’d say she was even glowing, like her skin is made of embers. You wonder if you’ll be in her position after your sentence ends. You don’t think it’s possible that circumstances could worsen.

Then again, this places gets a kick out of proving you wrong.

She presses the edge of the blade against your lip. You don’t struggle because it’s futile. You can’t even recoil. ”I came here voluntarily. I thought we could chat and catch up after all these years, but you don’t seem very talkative.”

The blade is between your lips now, sliding into your mouth. Predictable; she’s going to cut your tongue out. You think she’s building anticipation on purpose. It’s been done before; Avoxed again and again like a joke. They’ll always grow you a new one. Did you really have such a big mouth when you were alive?

”Sorry, you’re the only connection I have. The others didn’t make it down here.”

Others?

”Nobody even remembers who Dragan is, but he’s definitely not down here. And Learna? The little redhead I helped you kill?” Her face scrunches into a scowl, ”She’s part of the reason why I’m down here. I guess I was supposed to give a shit about her life.”

That’s the vicious tribute you remember. No mercy, no soul. No wonder she’s down here with you, rotting with no heart or remorse. She has a blade in your mouth because she belongs here.

”Then there’s Naveen and Aria. I heard they’re somewhere bathing in paradise.”

You can’t help but think paradise doesn’t exist. If it does, you lucked out. You’re trapped down here with only one of the tributes you killed.

”We’re not as lucky as they are, even if we think we deserve it,” she adds.

You don’t know what you deserve anymore. They made sure to drill doubt into every crevice of your body. You know what you want, but not what you deserve. Everything is about what you deserve. Since she is shoving a blade into your tongue, summoning salt to the corners of your eyes, you figure you deserve punishment for the sake of her revenge.

But where is your revenge?

”Before you ask, this isn’t personal. This is just the only way I can spend time with you. Romantic, isn’t it?”

Romance tastes like blood.

You could laugh if you were in the mood. Was this her way of sparking a friendship? Is that allowed down here? Even a shred of happiness and hope?

You realize that yes, there is. It’s standing in front of you.

Freedom.

Maybe not from Hell, but from this cell.

”If you cooperate, I’ll tell you how to shorten your sentence.” She smirks.

So you let her drown you in blood.

W.K.

There is a knock at your door. When you peer through the peephole, you only see the top of somebody’s head. You know who it is immediately.

”Let me guess, you’re not ready,” she drawls as soon as you open the door, already bombarding you with bitterness. She’s wearing her favorite polka dot dress – which she has worn a thousand times and more – so obviously something important is going on today. You don’t know what. You know she will scowl at you if you ask.

”Hurry up!”

You change your wardrobe while she lingers on your front porch. Death doesn’t change people as much as you initially thought; she’s still impatient, loud, and unnecessarily vulgar. Upon your return, you notice her hiding something behind her back. She smirks as she holds it out. ”I’m gonna bring this to celebrate.”

You still don’t know what you’re celebrating. ”Champagne?” You ask.

”Yes! And don’t try to say I’m too young to drink. I’d be eighteen years old by now!”

And yet she’s a symbol of what she was when she was alive – a fireball of a thirteen-year-old, eyes stark blue like a frozen lake in winter, but not as scowly as she was when she was under the pressure of inevitable death. She may say she’s eighteen, but she’s forever childlike. You suppose it’s not a bad thing. Her mind continues to grow every day, and there are worse alternatives. Happiness is what matters.

That’s what paradise is.

She doesn’t let you hold the champagne bottle, so you walk empty-handed along white sidewalks. Your sky is a mixture of orange and lilac; it stretches on and on like the ocean you saw in Four (because everyone insisted you had to see it at least once). You lose yourself in it. There was never a sight quite like this in District Six. Everything down there seems mediocre in comparison.

She takes you to a grand ballroom-type setting. Familiar faces surround a table with a wedding cake on it – except it’s not decorated like a wedding cake. It’s too vibrant. You suspect she had a hand in it, with all of the color splashes along the edges.

”Happy Death Day!” They holler collectively. You blink.

You had almost forgotten that people celebrate such a grim occurrence.

It’s not so bad now that you’re beyond the questions and the fear, but it still strikes you as odd. “Death Day” reflects the day of your demise. The polar opposite of a birthday, although the parties are similar. You know you’re not the only one who thinks it’s weird or even slightly inappropriate. You can’t argue against it though; people always find ways to celebrate, and that’s not a bad thing. Not here.

You may be celebrating the day you got axe’d in the skull, but at least it’ll be one hell of a party.

”Technically it’s also Francesca’s death day, and probably like a million other people, but this party is for you!”

Really, she shouldn’t have.

You see Pyrian and Gypsy standing in front of the cake, grinning at you. Pyrian is waving with a girl latched onto his arm (you can never remember her name, but he always looks mildly uncomfortable around her) and Gypsy grabs a knife, eager to cut up your cake.

Pyrian manages to escape his captor and slaps you on the shoulder. ”Congratulations again on the badass death,” he remarks. It’s still weird to hear him speak. He never spoke a word of English when he was alive, and now suddenly he has an explosive vocabulary. His potty mouth is as bad as Laila’s. He can also hear, like his disability had been miraculously erased after he died. You’ve never asked how he feels about that, and you probably never will.

When he walks away, you don’t talk to Gypsy because she’s too busy butchering your cake. Pyrian returns to her – always inseparable, even after she stabbed him in the back – and you know he’s about to steal some of the lit candles. Always predictable.

Your eyes scan the room. Laila left you stranded to go talk to Blaire. You don’t know much about him, you only remember the obsession that consumed Laila when he was Reaped in the 68th Games. You don’t watch the Games like some of the others do. There is no entertainment value. Laila did it because of Blaire, and it’s easy to become invested in something new. She likes to “cloud watch,” which is literally watching from above, as cliché as it sounds. You’ve done it before, just not with the Games.

However, in the end Laila wouldn’t let you escape; she sent constant updates your way during that ordeal. Blaire only lasted to day four, she said. In an underground cavern arena with no lighting. It sounded like a nightmare to you. A blonde career named Pearl ended up killing Blaire after he killed one of her allies. Laila begged you and Eye to come meet him once he arrived, so you did. Now she says he spends most of his time eating and taking bubble baths, which is so mundane yet it makes perfect sense. You’re not surprised to see him wander over to the cake.

It’s the simple things that can be the most pleasing.

Laila saunters back to you, shrugging. ”Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Eye isn’t here.”

That’s not surprising. Him and Ewe spend a lot of their time in Four. He likes to invite you to hang out at their boathouse, and you can’t always decline. Four is one of the more scenic districts. Always beautiful, always bustling with activity.

”But Kitty is, if you want to say hi,” she adds.

You really don’t.

Not that Kitty is a bad kid, he’s just weird. Weird even by a Keeni’s standards. Reuniting with another family member after so long is awkward. He’s recent, and still adjusting. From what you’ve heard, he was diced by a mutt wielding a scythe. It sounds like an exaggeration, but you haven’t asked. You don’t plan to.

Somebody shouts Laila’s name. You follow the voice and find Argonite thrusting a bottle of champagne into the air. It’s practically a beckoning, and she goes bounding over without another word. You don’t think you’ve ever seen her drunk because she always complains about the taste. Hell, she’s not going to enjoy champagne either, but maybe that fedora-wearing fiend will encourage her enough.

You see somebody next to him, a petite blonde girl shuffling nervously. You think you recognize her, but the name slips through your fingers.

When you join them, Argonite is preparing to unleash the alcohol, and the blonde girl is keeping her distance. ”Oh, hi,” she mumbles as soon as she notices you. Her eyes are grey storm clouds. ”Congratulations? I think?”

There’s a loud “pop” and you know the champagne is ready.

”Sorry, I never know what to say during these parties.”

Yeah, neither do you. She must be one of the ones that finds these events odd, but you’re pretty sure she was a career in her former life. She probably went to parties a lot, even if she was timid.

”Hey, Pearl!” Laila shouts, ”Do you want some or not?”

The blonde girl dismisses herself to join them. You feel slightly awkward that you weren’t able to recognize the girl who killed Blaire, but things like that are trivial here. You shouldn’t feel bad.

You won’t decline a glass of champagne, so you take one from Argonite as more and more people start to crowd around you. Some already have full glasses of wine, and others grab eagerly for the ones Argonite pours. You see him raise his own glass, and everyone follows suit.

”To Willis!” He says.

”To Willis!” Laila repeats.

”To me!” You’re pretty sure that’s Pyrian.

”Oh my god.”

”Shut up!”

You can’t keep track of who is talking over who, but you grin.

”This is for Willis you assholes,” Laila snaps, and someone laughs.

”Barnabas, you’re not supposed to drink yet!”

”What?”

”TO WILLIS!” Argonite announces again, and clinks his glass with somebody else’s. You hear a melody of echoing clinks, and find your own glass ambushed by Laila, Gypsy, Tiger, and Claire. Everyone drinks. Within the crowd you see Eye squeeze himself between two people, and raise his glass in your favor.

You smile, raise yours again, and then drink amongst your friends.

Dear Rook/Max

Hope you enjoyed these gifts!

If not too bad :///

You’ve been like a best friend to me since we allied in the 66th Games, and honestly we were close friends even before that. You are such a talented writer, designer, mentor, ally, and victor. It’s an honor writing with you. Patricia is one of my favorite characters of all time and I can’t wait for our ship to sail. We NEED to ally again as soon as possible, or just have tributes in general so we can write pain together.

In addition, I decided to compile a list of reasons why you’re the best. Some of these come from other members too.

Reasons why Rook is the best:

1. His godly writing
2. Cheeky Banter
3. Sorry for the Banter
4. Dragon Face
5. Lad
6. Humor
7. Jesus
8. He’s a great friend
9. PATRICIA
10. Lol gay
11. British terms
12. Gave birth to Pogue
13. Those tribute videos
14. Really fookin cool edits
15. His victor crown (that thing is poppin)
16. Dank memes
17. He’s honestly just the best
18. Birb
19. I love mex so much
20. Good friend
21. Good brain
22. Good memer
23. VARDY
24. His new profile pic (daddy)
25. Beard
26. Cool accent
27. Tea even tho we dumped it in the harbor sorry
28. Skype profile pic
29. Lyrics used in RP posts
30. Commentary
31. Badass tributes
32. Insanely gorgeous death posts
33. God tbh
34. Amazing personality
35. Always being there when I need to talk about a serious issue
36. Agreeing to plot with my weak ass and it is glorious ( #conrad otp )
37. Beautiful writing and beautiful edits
38. Blessing me by being a hella friend and talking to a wench like i #blessed
39. Everything
40. ily

In general, you’re awesome, and I hope you have a Merry Ratmas. As a bonus, I made you a collage down below.

ENJOY.

-Python/Claudia