Tate Valentine [D9] ~FIN~

{I'm falling, falling, falling, falling
Might as well fall in}

Call for me one more time, give me a reason to jump.

I beg of you.

Terminal velocity - the dead's lessons taught me that I won't reach it. I'll still be gone when it's all said and done.

I recognise this place, the factory rooftop. Where we spend all our time making soap all day for meagre wage. Because of that, everyone says I smell like soap, or solvent, or anything in between. Animus always hated that, me coming home reeking of soap; funny cos you would expect someone to like that. Being around it all the time makes it lose its taste, like cheap liquor, too much and it don't taste all that great any more. Parents didn't mind it all that much, said it showed I was getting into my work; keep in mind I used to actually like this factory.

Grey clouds decorate the sky, it looks ready to weep for me. Shower me with disgust, when I fall they'll say I slipped cos it was too wet. That's that, another paper to add to the pile of death certificates. Slit my throat and watch me bleed, I'm begging for it. Slow, painful but I'll get there all the same. At this point it doesn't matter how you go, just that you go.

Bearing in mind, my parents would probably fucking drown in grief. Last son they have and I'll fall, let my brain smash from my thick skull and litter the road with my non-existent memories and knowledge. Just like that I'll pain the roads red.

It won't be pretty either. Thick brown hair usually decorates my head. Whipped to the left usually so it doesn't get in the way, it's bordering the long. My brother scolded me, his poor attempts at banter scalded my skin and burned my brain. Just because his hair was lighter and shorter, more neat I suppose. Neither of us cared much about our appearance, I guess he just worried more about looking more like a scientist, or a mathematician or whatever the fuck he was. I suppose once I hit the ground my hair will look messier than it is now. Thrown across the ground in strands, mixed with my brains and iron I feel sorry for the poor guy that has to clean that up.

I was always the better looking one out of the two of us (although, I suppose I won't be good looking at all after this) and puberty clearly favoured me out of us. Who had facial hair decorating their jaw? Me (although I shave it, don't like it getting in the way), who smelled better? Me. Who was taller? Okay he wins that, he was a like an awkward praying mantis. Standing at 6'4 while I stand at a 6'2 when they measured us for our quarterly physicals last week. I guess with my head smashed in that'll be an extra inch or two knocked off.

Girls always thought I was the better looking one as well. Not once had Animus ever brought a girl home to meet Mom and Dad. When it was the two of us I always established the 'put a hat on the door' rule for when I was getting down to business. Not once did Animus' room have a hat on his door. Hats on the door, everything's a blurred memory because it's been so long since I ever needed a hat on the door. I suppose it'll remain a memory smeared on the window, smeared on the ground when gravity's done with me.

Sky blue eyes rest in my eye sockets. His were always brown. I was the lucky one apparently, he worked it out on a genetic cross diagram. 25% chance of us getting blue eyes, it just so happened to be me that was the lucky one. You were always the unlucky one Animus, always. I have a strong jawline and a short stubble against it. Unlike Animus, I don't need glasses because I've never been much of a reader, always a doer. A pretty face, gravity will make sure it's not so pretty any more.

Apparently, I look sickly now. Pale as a ghost, I look like I always need sleep. 'Oh Tate, when was the last time you slept?' Mother's worried voice call out to me on her weekly visits to my apartment. A dry laugh to answer the question, I never could answer her questions directly any more. I suppose bags hanging under my eyes is a dead give away. I honestly don't know the last time I slept, maybe that's why I look like I'm ill. I walk like I have a ball and chain clamped around my ankle. When I move I hear the rattles. I suppose being dead is like sleeping, eternal rest; no more rattles.

Ever since Animus died I gained weight. We were both skinny, he was more like a twig while I was more like a tree branch. Once he died that was one less mouth to feed, parents always put my needs before theirs and there I am, bang more food on my plate. Guilt pushed to the bottom of my stomach, I buried it in food. Twenty one years old and I got enough money to move out, get some back end alley apartment and suddenly I had to share food with no one. On the quarterly physical last week I weight in at 183 pounds. Sure, that's not great but it's certainly better than my teen years.

I wonder if I'll weigh more or less when I'm dead.

Everything's a manifestation of grey, nothing has colour here any more. Perhaps it never did but a happy family gave me the illusions of colours. 'You reek of soap, fucking hell, Tate!' Animus' glasses floating before me in the darkness, his jokes were brushed aside by me before. 'Just means I'm working hard to keep your ungrateful self fed.' I'd tell him, sighing but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other with that boy. I suppose when I hit the ground I'll reek of blood and iron, not soap.

All my body hair? Caked in blood. Hair on my arms, legs and chest. I haven't trimmed them in months but I don't suppose it matters now. Animus told me that hair stops growing once you're dead. I suppose my hair will be damp with blood, stick to my skin and scatter the ground where so many people have done what I want to do. This factory's kind of notorious for that but I don't blame them. Working conditions here are crap and the boss doesn't exactly treat us like humans.

I won't reach terminal velocity but I still won't look like a human when I've jumped and hit the ground.

I suppose a few of my teeth will get knocked out. Not a big loss, they're mostly crooked anyway. We never could afford those fancy capitol instruments to keep them straight. I mean, they're not as bad as most of the other people. Lucky once again. Some people have the teeth of a donkey, mine just look out of place. When I brush my tongue on the back of them I can feel were they're slowly eroding. Too much alcohol.

Too much force, they'll be scattered along the ground to much with red.

My nose is long and pointed. Animus tried to take the piss even though his name was barely different from mine, just a bit shorter is all. I think he was secretly jealous, always trying to pick me up on something I did wrong despite all the things wrong with him (for one, he's dead) but I always took the challenge. He was a reader, not a fighter.

At least he can say he died with the better looking nose, concrete to head impact tends to do that, even without terminal velocity.

Crack! Split my skull, smash my teeth in, make an exit wound in my neck. it doesn't matter to me because the end result will be the same. Take me out kicking and screaming while covered in blood, take me in my sleep, take me with a bullet, take me with the knife, take me tumbling through the air. It matters not to me. 'Tate, when was the last time you slept?' I'll sleep soon, mother.

It was never always like this, I used to be so arrogant, so cocksure of myself and I looked down on everything with a sarcastic grin. Even Animus to an extent, I never saw him as better than me. Sure he was book smart, sure he knew the equation for momentum off by heart (mass x velocity) or that two lines that were perpendicular bisectors were always negative reciprocal gradients but none of that helped him. He never got girls, he never had many friends.

He could give me X, he could give me Y but he could never give me his life. So he died in that cave, bleeding and alone.

I watched him get taken the piss out of every day, I saw him get venom injected into his veins by jealous words. A wall of stone and ice surrounded his heart and he just took it all, never retaliated. It was never my business, I always just let it happen and I told myself that it was simply because he was fine. Fucking liar. I just wanted to stay cool, stay popular and keep all my friends. Even though he was my younger brother, I couldn't be seen standing up for the nerd.

Perhaps I need to jump and be done with it quickly.

I think I always had it easier than him in all honesty. Growing up I was the good looking one, the one who was more physical, the one who could talk his way into and out of everything. He was a numbers person, I used my words. I could sweet talk my way into and out of every question, tongue for a sword, a smile for a shield I was always smooth. He was awkward when it came to anything physical, that meant he wasn't popular, especially considering he tried to be a huge know it all with his personal library. he always liked the finer books and numbers and I would just shake my head at him, even as teenagers.

I won't reach terminal velocity, but words won't save me when I hit the floor at X multiplied by Y velocity.

I was the artistic and creative one, he was the methodological and stick-to-the-rules kind of person. I diverged from the flow while he followed steps to solve equations like a common cattle following the herd. I became kind of known for my whittling, always like to craft things. I liked getting my hands on a blade and whittling anything, a piece of wood, a bar of soap, I would just mould. Dad always said I should sell my creations, bring in a bit of extra flux to the house but I didn't want to, they were mine. Even now, I have a collection sitting on my shelf back at home. I've started to lose my drive for it, to be honest, I've started to lose my drive for most things. Just seems too pointless, too grey like the sky.

I won't reach terminal velocity. But when I hit the ground, I best try and picture them one more time.

Snatched away from me, thrown into that cave to die. That sums up Animus Valentine. Reaped he was so sure he would win, something about equations, as if numbers would save him from bone swords and the darkness. If it was useful why do I see Patricia Valfierno's name instead of his? I told myself that I should have volunteered, should have gone in instead of him because I was the older one. That I should have protected him like I'd been failing to do for seventeen years.

I never was good and protecting him.

Just like that he was gone, the swing of a blade and the boom of a canon. I felt so numb, stuck to working in the factory, whittling at the soap to make the fancy shapes and figures that the Capitol seem to like. Went about my daily business as if nothing was happening. Friends faded, melting away into the shadows like they never existed. The once in a lifetime call of 'are you okay, Tate?' No answer, Tate's too numb to feel your feigned sympathy.

Animus went out with a bang, I'll go out with a blood curdling crack. I don't need terminal velocity for that.

Nineteen years was when colour truly left the world. Got a new boss at the factory and he treated us all like fucking shit; he still does. He cut our wages in the first month, no one liked it. He doesn't care much for safety, three accidents in a month when working with machinery. When the Peacekeepers come to investigate (they honesty don't care all that much when they come) he makes it out to be the injured person's fault instead of his negligence. Suppose I'm lucky I haven't lost a finger or two, always the lucky one.

Make soap, carve shapes, I'm not a person but a machine for profit. Twist me, wind me up and I'll shoot pretty bars of soap from my hands. Carving seems like less of a talent and more of a burden, I don't do it for fun any more. Just a shit job.

Without terminal velocity I can still find a way out.

Twenty years old and I finally got enough money to move out from my parents. Got a back alley apartment, just one room and some four whitewashed walls. Whitewashed cuboid is my new home now. I thought the change of scenery would be good but being isolated just made the world lose more of it's colour. Nothing but a grey smear now, a grey smear diluted with cheap liquor. Mom comes to visit me every week to check on me, I always make sure we have a meal together and just talk, that's nice. There's a bit of colour in the world when she's around. When she leaves it trickles away in the rain.

Stop.

I step towards the edge of the ledge, ready to step. Peering down the ground looks a long way. Animus told me I'd die if I fell off the edge. One of his many lessons on terminal velocity also confirm that (I let him teach it to me, helped him revise) and I'm recalling everything now. Friction, air resistance, drag. I won't reach terminal velocity, it's not high enough but I'll certainly die. I'll hit the ground accelerating. Terminal velocity, a euphoria dancing in my mind and seemingly unreachable. Let me join the symphony of the dead.

Good-

I step off the edge and hope for that impossible terminal velocity.

Rewind - I'm back on the roof, not quite on the ledge yet, rain slowly pattering against my head. I sigh, not quite a reality yet. Terminal velocity is still unreachable.

Three steps and I'm on the ledge but when I peer down I recoil.

Suicide nets.

Surrounding the perimeter of the building like a protective blanket in mockery, ready to catch the next person that tries it. Suppose the boss finally caught on, about time since a countless amount of people's brains have ended up scattered across the grey road. Every time someone jumps he loses a source of cheap labour.

"I'm not ready." I mutter to myself and I slowly back away from the ledge.

Terminal velocity - a lesson replayed in my mind by the dead but I'm not quite ready to hit the ground for them yet. I will be though, falling for four years, I'm beyond saving.