❨ sinking atlantis — faline&mickey ❩

you were always faster than me
i'll never catch up with you
oh i can feel them
coming for me

Two days, no food, and his body finally disobeyed him. His head was aching, blunt pain to each temple with every beat of his heart which ricocheted deeply within him. Mackenzie had lived on the bare minimum his entire life, eating what his mother was able to pay for, which was never enough, and then filling the rest up with the things he and his sister had killed. But he had not ever gone without; the Pryce family made sure of it. Even if his dinner was some crackers and a bit of squirrel jerky, he was always able to lay his head down at night without hunger begging him to stay awake with it.

If the times were always desperate, did that make him a desperate person? Or did living through it all make him a survivor?

Jacquelyn woke him up early that day, demanded he and Ike go downstairs and mingle; Jacinta did not protest, so they went. He rode the elevator down to the landing floor with Ike by his side, unfairly blue eyes and capable hands. She was poetic, and strong, and beautiful, and she had a story the Capitol had already heard from someone else's perspective. She was an ideal tribute wrapped in shimmering paper, a bow placed atop a neat package for the Capitol to rip open when they wanted to.

He wondered if she would be able to withstand being torn to shreds for sport.

"I guess I should eat something before I try talking to anyone," Mackenzie said to his district partner. There was a lack of people in this building whom Mackenzie felt he could trust, but Ike was one of them, so he was honest, "I haven't eaten since the reaping."


He made his way to the cafeteria, shame on his features. He had tried, really. He wanted to be strong for them, to laugh in the face of the Capitol because they had not taken everything from him after all. But he couldn't; the hollowness within him no longer accepted whiskey as a filler, and he wanted to at least try to survive.

It was flattering to think that his death might have meant the deaths of his mother and sister in a way, but he knew it was not true. Like him, they were built to withstand, to fight, to survive. His death would be hard on them, sure, but he was no defining feature of their mortality; they would learn to lose him.

He decided that the least he could do was eat the same meal he had eaten that last normal morning, so he found himself standing in front of a large buffet table with an assortment of bread products and pastries. They were all extravagant, baked into shapes and filled with custards and berries, and there was not a single piece of standard District Seven toast. The basket which marked it was empty, pardon a few sesame seeds in the bottom, and he guessed he couldn't blame the others for eating it.

As strange as it sounded, Mackenzie had always thought of District Seven's bread as a sort of undiscovered delicacy.

Fine, he thought, I'll just have a roll. It was close enough, right? But when he looked over to the only basket of rolls, it too was empty. He cursed under his breath, slapping some ridiculously rich-looking donut onto his plate and stalking away from the table.

"Hey! Over here!" a small, mousy voice called. The room was not filled enough for him to assume it was meant for someone else, so he peaked over his shoulder to find the source of the small, mousy voice. What he found was a small, mousy girl to match. The girl from Six still had the features of a child, with large brown eyes, thin lips, and a natural blush upon her pale, markless skin.

She was one of the youngest this year, if he recalled correctly.

Something about her innocence and her shy smile reminded him of home, even though she was not from home. Even though she had never seen his home, and even though he might have been asked to bury something silver into her body in a few days.

No, he thought immediately, I couldn't.

He wouldn't. He already knew, as he took his seat in front of the small, mousy girl, with the small, mousy voice.

She nodded to a roll on her plate, averting her eyes as if he might get angry at her for meeting his gaze. Am I intimidating? He thought.

"Do you want mine? I’m full," she asked. He was not interested in taking food from a little girl who may have desperately needed it, but the otherwise empty plate told him that she was not hungry. He smiled warmly at her.

"Thank you," he said, taking the roll from her. He was careful not to eat too quickly, and took single bites, pacing himself as he eyed the girl.

"Faline. Uh, that’s my name. Should have started with that, huh?" The mousy girl named Faline asked. He smiled again, this time grateful just for her company.

"I'm Mackenzie!" he chimed, more upbeat than he had allowed himself to be since being reaped. She made him feel like his old self again, for whatever reason, and he was grateful for it. He held up what was left of his roll for her to see.

"You'd think they would keep the tables stocked, what with it being the over-indulgent Capitol, and all."

here's the pride before the fall
your eyes, they show it all
i  can  see  it  coming
there's a rise up

song: no one's here to sleep