stretched around the forefinger [vasco/alfonso blitz]

You were a gentle boy who prayed to never see carnage.

And while people brought it upon you every year, you were thankful that you were spared from the games for another year.

That was something you were not ready for, and seeing as so many Izar's had gone in before you, you waited for the reaping to scream a name that you didnt want to hear.

That name would roll off the escorts tongue. Alfonso it would roll and stretch like bubble gum around the forefinger*, and then expand and burst when they announced at the top of their lungs that you, Alfonso Izar, was the next one to die.

---

But you snapped out of it the moment you had berries in your hand. You squeezed them, each one popping in a harmonious succession, almost like they knew that was what they were meant to do.

You took a pestle that you swiped from your mothers kitchen and began to grind the berries into a loose liquid, and once the consistency was to your liking you dipped your fingers into what you called paint and pressed it to the wood of the house that you lived in.

It seemed like everyone had forgotten about the Izar's that had fallen before the 80th, especailly because a Stirling and a Rhodes had returned home instead of one of them, and that news saddened you. Broke your heart even.

So you took it upon yourself to make sure that they were never forgotten, and you drew their faces on the wood before you. Gabriel, Salome, Raquel, and all the others that had fallen. That is when you realized that your family had suffered so much, and they were going to continue to suffer for as long as the games went on.

You could feel a shadow behind you, but you did not break your concentration as you thought about Gabriel. The Gabriel that you knew. "What do I owe the pleasure?" You say as your fingers grace wood like it is the canvas you dreamed about.

Praying that you would never be taken away from it.