oh, take me back to the start [Kaplan]

oh, take me back to the start [Kaplan] Jan 14, 2019 3:07:01 GMT -5

Post by Lyn𝛿is on Jan 14, 2019 3:07:01 GMT -5

Caitlin Samuels

🐦
running in circles
chasing our tails
coming back as we are
🐦

I'm... safe now.

It still doesn't seem quite real, somehow, that I'm nineteen and my name's never going to be in those little bowls again. That I'm nineteen and have a entire life ahead of me to figure out, without the worry of two different futures in front of me split down the middle by a slip of paper.

If only you'd been born a few days earlier, you'd be out of danger already, Mother had fretted on Reaping Day, pressing into my hands her old dress that she'd worn to her last reaping. For good luck, she'd said, but the dress hadn't quite fit; it pinched at the waist and wrinkled in all the wrong places, and I'd spent most of the mayor's speech trying to figure out a way to get the straps to stay on my shoulders.

I turn back to the pile of paperwork - about thirty of so pages left to check over today, and one more box of loose sheets to be inventoried and sorted into the proper drawers of the filing cabinets. I've settled into a rhythm here, I suppose, of dark blue pen scratching across carbon-copy pages, and today hadn't been so much out of the ordinary except for the handful of 'happy birthday' greetings as I'd walked in this morning.

Now, the sun is setting, and I have to switch on a second light in the filing room. There's a west-facing window here, a pretty big one set in between the two tallest bookshelves. The afternoon light always warms up the room, but all I can see outside the window is a wall of concrete from the old welding plant. It's taller than the office but empty; after it closed down in the late 60s, all that's left is an empty building shell with big "FOR SALE" signs peeling off the front of it.

The papers needing correction go on the second shelf as I close the last cabinet and pack my things, throwing on my jacket and scarf. My coworkers are beginning to make plans with each other and chattering about the quell - exclaiming over how shocked they were when the District Four "male" put a spear through Parson's neck, or speculating on whether the shopping cart girls will have killed Quest by the time we all got home. They glance at me when I reach the door, without stopping their conversation, and I shoot the four of them a nod of goodbye before stepping outside, careful not to slip on the ice puddle at the bottom of the steps.

Two volunteers. That's most of what I end up thinking about, when it comes to these Games. Like when I was sixteen and, with posters about heroes flooding the school hallways and those two different unknowns hanging over our heads, could almost understand what made a kid like Vesper step up next to the menacing male tribute and choose an unknown of death instead of the unknowns of life -

Bryan would be home by now, and Mother would be in the living room, folding the laundry and ironing Father's shirts. I stick my key into the doorknob, of a house too big for the four of us, a house that I'm saving up money to soon leave, a house with a single bedroom still unoccupied for six years -

- almost.

lyrics - the scientist, coldplay
kap

oh, take me back to the start [Kaplan] Jan 14, 2019 12:58:44 GMT -5

Post by kap on Jan 14, 2019 12:58:44 GMT -5

Bryan Samuels

♢
i lose it everyday
inside of my head
i don't know if i'll be alright
♢

Bryan had been drowning, recently, some may say.

He had been drowning in emotions, but that'd been going on for the last six years, ever since Jackson died. He'd also been 'drowning' or 'absorbing' himself in books, recently, and spending a lot of time outside. He'd go for a walk, bringing along one of his favorite novels, in which case the book was likely well-loved and falling apart at the spine, a few loose pages threatening to make their escape. That's how most of his books were at this point in his life, having read the same ones over and over again, never being able to spend his money on new ones, as he needed his cash for other things in life that his family told him were more important than reading.

To Bryan, however, reading was one of the absolute most important things in existence. It was an escape for him, ever since he was little. Once he learned how to read, he did so every night before bed, getting better and better at understanding the words upon the pages. Before he could read, his mother would read his bedtime stories to him out of books. Stories were the only thing that calmed him down at night, so he needed his mother to read to him when he was little so that he would actually be capable of drifting off to sleep.

Eventually, when he could read things himself, it became his job to do that. He would read a book until he fell asleep, sometimes not even remembering to put the book down and put in a bookmark before he ended up in dreamland. His book would fall to the floor, closing upon itself, and when Bryan awoke, he'd still remember where he'd left off, his memory rarely ever failing him when it came to this. He'd put his bookmark at the point in the book where he remembered he had fallen asleep at, and place it neatly on his bedside table.

Even as the boy got older, becoming a young man, his love for reading never faded. Then, once Jackson was reaped for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games and killed while fighting for survival, Bryan's life truly changed. He was so broken that the only thing he ever wanted was to be by himself. He always had a book with him, even when he went to work, just in case he needed that escape (what if he needed to distract himself on his lunch break? He may as well have something with him). Life was just stress and sadness for him now, as the years went on.

He felt regret and guilt for not taking his brother's place in the Games. Bryan was fourteen years old at the time, so he was perfectly capable of volunteering for his brother, but he didn't do it. He was too much of a wimp, he told himself afterward. He felt that he was absolutely pathetic, and overall, a family disappointment. He'd always said that he'd do anything and everything to keep his family safe, but he'd broken that promise when he didn't protect Jackson.

Now, Bryan was twenty years old, a working man, no longer able to be selected in the reaping. Still, however, when the young man wasn't at work, he'd be doing what he'd done ever since Jackson died. He'd isolate himself in his books or go for a bit of a 'nature walk' in one of the parks in District Six. Nature wasn't exactly the most beautiful thing, here in District Six, as the District consisted of mostly factories, which pollutes a lot of the nature that does remain within the District's boundaries. Bryan didn't really know any different, though, as he'd never left the confines of the section of Panem he'd been forced to stay in.

Bryan was safe from the reaping, and that made him feel immense amounts of relief. The young man, however, he still had fear in his mind. Caitlin, his sister, was still able to be chosen. The Eightieth Annual Hunger Games were the last ones that still had the chance to take Caitlin away. When that reaping passed, however, the District's two tributes (both volunteers that Bryan had now labeled 'a couple of crazies') did not include Caitlin.

They were both free, now. Caitlin's nineteenth birthday was today: the same day that the second of District Six's tributes for the Eightieth Games was killed. Someone from the place they called home had just been killed in the Games on the same day that his sister was granted freedom from the possibility of being killed in the Games. He remembered seeing each District Six tribute fall, year after year, other than Teddy Ursa. Teddy had been strong, and the people of Six did not have to mourn him. Every single tribute from Six, ever since who knows how long (at least the entirety of Bryan's life), other than Teddy, however, has been killed and mourned, including Jackson Samuels.

Bryan Samuels was tired of mourning. He just wanted to let life pass by, all the while burying himself in books and nature.

He was done mourning those he didn't know, and because his sister was no longer at risk of being picked for the Games, he didn't have to worry about the grief he'd go through if she died. The only grief he would allow himself to suffer with for the rest of his life was the loss of his brother, Jackson Samuels.

Bryan had nothing to lose but his family, and he wouldn't let that happen.

His sister was safe, and while most people were mourning on this day, due to the loss of Quest Hertz, the Samuels would be celebrating something entirely different, and not letting the sadness of death interfere with that. No more mourning of strangers, he insisted to himself. He had to be stronger. He was twenty years old. He wasn't a child anymore. He told himself that now, he needed to be strong and stop letting everything that happened in the horrible world he lived in effect him so heavily, emotionally.

Bryan was sitting in the old, ratty chair that they'd kept in their living room for longer than he could remember, waiting for his sister to get home. It was her birthday, and he wanted her to know how loved she was. A somewhat-poorly wrapped gift sat on the young man's lap. It was labeled:

To: Caitlin, my loving sister
From: Bryan, your loving brother

When he heard the doorknob jiggle a bit as Caitlin unlocked it with her key, he looked in that direction. When his sister entered their home, a smile crossed Bryan's face.

"Happy birthday, sis!" He said to her when she'd come into the house.

He cared so much about his sister, and he knew that she deserved to have a good day. Bryan just hoped that he could help make her day even more than good. It needed to be amazing.

She was free, after all.

He knew what a relieving feeling that had been for him, no longer being able to be picked for the Games, and he truly hoped that it was for her, too.

The Samuels were safe, now.

They couldn't be taken again.

Not anymore.
~
1195 words

lyrics - nothing to lose but you, three days grace
table by Lyndis (modified by Kap)
Lyn𝛿is