loud screams in a silent hallway [shelby/mylee]

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pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]
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over the moon, where all the wild things are

loud screams in a silent hallway [shelby/mylee] Jun 12, 2019 13:58:17 GMT -5

Post by pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] on Jun 12, 2019 13:58:17 GMT -5

Starlight.

It was nothing that Annie was used too at this point. Each time she looked up towards the sky though, it was progress. You see, she was never good at holding her head up since she had come back from her games. Even though two years have passed, and a new victor had been crowned, Anatalia Morrisen still felt like she did not deserve happiness.

It was a crazy thought, because at the end of the day, she won. She did kill to get here, and the sad part about it was, none of her victims truly died.

She knew that sounded awful to say. It was in fact.

As happy as she was that they all got a chance to live, she was also torn through because of that same ideal.

Everyone looked at her differently, because she was just not the girl who lived, but she was the girl who lived as well as every else did from her games.

Victors treated her like she was the curse from the past that haunted them dearly.

People in the districts treated her like she was a magical being that gave everyone a piece of their heart back.

And the other tributes from her games treated her like she was the devil incarnate, some knowing who Annie was in the games, and others not.

Annie wasn’t sure which one she would have been if she had not been herself, and maybe that was a good thing. Annie was told countless times to never take anything to heart, that at the end of the day she did what she needed to do in order to survive, but the thing was, when other people told her this, they did not have 23 reminders of what she did living around Panem as totems of pain and deliverance.

That is what caused her to drink so much.

It was weird, walking onto the roof of one of the other apartment complexes.

These ones were the ones that the victors were given when they one, a permanent residence to celebrate their achievements of making it out of the games.

Annie hated it, but she didn’t have a choice when the games were going on. She had to be in the capitol for a couple weeks out of the year, which used to be the time for her to get shitfaced drunk and cry in front of the TV as she rooted for her tributes to come home.

However something was different this year for her.

She had been trying to cut back on the drinking, her liver probably sighing with relief as that statement crossed her countenance. However, something about the night air spoke to her, and she felt like this was the right place to be.

Annie looked towards the bar, making her way towards it and taking a seat next to a woman that seemed to be entranced by the mug in her hand. She look familiar, but she was more interested in the one glass of alcohol that she was going to allow for herself today.

”A glass of champagne please.” she spoke as she waited patiently, her eyes floating around the scenery. At the end of the day, Annie was still a career, which meant that she still took in her whole environment wherever she went.

That’s when she finally pieced together who was sitting right next to her.

”Shelby Levaine?” Annie said as she turned her body to face the missing victor from the 75th. ”I was wondering…” Annie stopped herself, knowing well that she might have not wanted to speak about where she had been. After all, Victors had their reasoning for going into obscurity. Annie wished she could have done so herself, but that wasn’t going to be the case.

With the games she won, she would always be a hot topic in the capitol.

Regretfully so.

heather - d2 [mylee]
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loud screams in a silent hallway [shelby/mylee] Sept 23, 2019 0:19:14 GMT -5

Post by heather - d2 [mylee] on Sept 23, 2019 0:19:14 GMT -5

A spectre.

To float in and out of place without one’s body is to turn toe to heel on the edge of a skyscraper. I like to think that I move gracefully, sure of my footing and unseen. This Viennese waltz on concrete an encore repeated until the audience dwindles soul by soul. I like to think Cha would have danced like this, if she had lived. In the days before her death the way she moved was robotic, but still undercut by a music I could not hear.

I take solace in the fact that she seemed to listen to the way the earth wails at each departure. If she listened carefully, she could have likely heard the ground practicing her eulogy. I find it amusing that the earth can turn psalms off the fingertips for everyone, even those I will never meet. Then again, the earth is privy to an intimacy I suppose I do not truly want.

I have not been able to bring myself close to another without ultimately engaging in practices of evasion. My mother says I’m not trying hard enough, but she doesn’t know that I’ve spent countless evenings fucking men and women and myself until I’m short of breath and wheezing, hoping that something crawls out of the spaces between bodies and fixes this.

She reels through the normal speech: go outside, drink more water, try running.

I nod along but don’t counter her argument, though I could. I could tell her I woke up in a pool of my own vomit on my balcony this morning, body in a dry sweat and heartbeat frantic, pounding, screaming that the sky is about to open, open, open, how it did that final day, when a world without color was just as mortifying as the three dead bodies that lay scattered about me.

But she does not know this, and ultimately, she does not need to. She’s a distant fragment of imagination back in District Eight, tending to a house much too large for the two of us. I’ve considered trying to find a partner just to have a reason to ask her to leave, but there is seemingly nothing left for the ghost that inhabits this body. Instead, I simply stay here as long as I can, in the opulence of the Capitol that pleases me only slightly more. It’s a balancing act, to inhabit any place.

If there is anything that I can truly appreciate about here, it’s the small stretches of time in which I can go unnoticed, forgotten, drifting in and out of socialites with far more notches of relevance chinked into their belts. It’s also more convenient to procure extensive amounts of alcohol here, and no one questions the way I stagger back to my apartment two hours after last call. The neighbors have stopped poking their heads out the door when I fumble with the keys, yell fuck a little too loudly when they fall and clatter against the metal doorframe. It’s a type of pity, I think, to play voyeur to this.

Tonight, I am not attempting to steer myself away from this course of direction. I do not lie to myself about my habits, about this destructive lifestyle of dancing at the edge of harm and then balking when the invitation is accepted. Tonight, I am drinking double wells and hoping that someone will take up a conversation, but only when I am past the point of remembering it in the morning.

I’m focused on this when the sound of my name in another’s mouth catches my ear. The voice is tentative, as though there’s anything strange about asking where I’ve been fucking about in the six years since I killed six others. Around, I say, as though that in any way answers the question or opens up the conversation. I watch the cracks in the bar through the bottom of my glass and look up to meet her eyes—she carries her shoulders the way I do.

I turn my attention back to the glass, but smirk and say, But, if you buy me another drink I’ll give you the pleasure of hearing more and playing therapist for the night. It's good gossip, if nothing else.

[ table: rave ]

pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]
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over the moon, where all the wild things are

loud screams in a silent hallway [shelby/mylee] Sept 24, 2019 1:43:15 GMT -5

Post by pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] on Sept 24, 2019 1:43:15 GMT -5

She knew that she wasn’t comfortable, but how could she be?

There was an air around the bar that she had been sitting in, a gorgeous view in front of her, but a fog that she could only see. It permeated her peripheral and she realized quickly just how uncomfortable she was. She could barely breath.

But she wasn’t going to let that stop her. After all, she was here to not make an ass out of herself. At least, that is what she told herself. Katelyn had told her multiple times that she needed to be more social, and Saffron always made sure that if she was in the capitol, to come see her. It made things easier for Annie when it came to interacting with people, because she didn’t feel so alone.

Annie knew that she wouldn’t truly ever be alone, because 23 other souls were connected with her at all times. She might have only met a handful of the tributes in her games, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t think about all of them constantly. She hoped that one day she would be able to corral them all together, just so they could exist as they were meant to be, but so much time had already passed. It had been months since she had heard from Angel, or Parson, or Hellion, or anyone else for that matter.

She had to respect that they could have been busy, that they just didn’t have time for her, after all, she did kill Angel at the end of the story. The thought of her knife lodged into his cranium was enough for her to almost down the whole glass of champagne, something she would have regretted quickly, because that was not something to shotgun. She placed the glass down slowly before losing her train of thought.

She had a lot on her mind.

It did not help that Shelby Levaine was sitting right next to her. Annie didn’t want to admit it, but she did pay attention to each games before her. She could remember Shelby’s well because of the arena. Cricket had done an impressive job with the layout, Annie could at least admit that, even if she was a garbage person otherwise.

The girl sitting next to her though, probably had a different opinion of the whole thing. Annie couldn’t blame her, after all, killing six people just to get out alive was nothing to bat an eyelash at. Shelby was as dangerous as she was beautiful, but she could tell that she was not here to fight. Annie though wasn’t good at reading people otherwise. For all she knew, this was just a coincidence that she had met another victor that she hadn’t met before. This also could have been a sign that was much deeper than that, but she didn’t want to read into it. Hell, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to fall down some rabbit hole that would have sent her into a worse spiral that she had already been in.

She knew how hard it was the climb out of already.

”Around”

Annie swallowed her breath.

”But, if you buy me another drink I’ll give you the pleasure of hearing more and playing therapist for the night. It's good gossip, if nothing else.”

Annie then realized that maybe they were similar people in that sense. They wanted to share their stories with each other in order to find some sort of semblance. Something that could blend them together. However, Annie knew that probably wasn’t going to happen. The difference between their quells were like night and day. Annie had killed three people only to have them come back to life in front of her eyes, and Shelby had killed six people to survive.

Annie still wasn’t sure which one was worse.

Annie downed her glass and place it on the front of the bar. ”You say that like I pay for drinks anyway?” Annie smirked, as she looked at the bartender and made a gesture to have both of their drinks refilled. ”But ill indulge anyway.” Annie spoke with a bit of sincerity. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, there were some perks to being the victor of one of the most prolific games in the last 82 years.

Everyone knew who she was.

”Go on, make a therapist out of me if that is what you wish.” Annie spoke as she grabbed the fresh glass of champagne that had been placed in front of her. She took a sip before articulating again, ”I got all night.” she placed the glass down as she waited to hear stories about whose scars are deeper. At the end of the day, she was sure that Shelby probably didn’t know who Annie was, and maybe that was exactly the kind of thing that Annie needed.

Someone who wasn’t going to feel sorry for her from the get go.

heather - d2 [mylee]
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loud screams in a silent hallway [shelby/mylee] Oct 4, 2019 19:55:18 GMT -5

Post by heather - d2 [mylee] on Oct 4, 2019 19:55:18 GMT -5

There are nights like this I don’t realize the bottom of my glass becomes visible. The palm of my hand blends into the bar and I forget that there is supposed to be a boundary between this body and the earth on which it stands. I’m not drunk enough to lose this knowledge, though I am working on it, tonight with company that I hope steps above the low bar of the night before.

Last night, in a bar dimly lit and closed off I let a man much my senior tell me about his golden days, before the wife and the children and the corporate job he has no passion for. I let him tell me about his art and his music and the man he could have become and I think to ask why he failed but I don’t because I want him to take me home and make me feel important and I know that unless I overstep the role he wants me to play this is exactly what he will do.

And he does.

In the morning, I slip from thin hotel sheets and call Adessia from the bathroom, ask her to bring me a clean change of clothes and a ride. As I gather my things from the floor the man wakes up, asks me if I will stay for breakfast. I tell him, no, I really must be going, though I have nowhere important to be. He doesn’t challenge this but instead rolls over and goes back to sleep. He is softly snoring when I slip out of the room and into the hall.

Adessia doesn’t question me on these silent rides, and I appreciate her for it, like I do everything else. She hasn’t criticized me openly, but I know she doesn’t approve, and there is something motherly in the way she stares at me in the backseat, almost childlike.

This is the only part of her I cannot stand.

*

Now, I am staring at the bottom of my glass and wishing the skin of my palm would bleed into the oak of the bar. The girl beside me begins to speak, and for a moment I forgot that I have challenged her, no, given her the offer to stay for a while. She is smirking and saying something about paying but I do not know what she has said, so I only smirk in return. The bartender passes us two more glasses but does not ask about a tab, so I know she must be someone important—someone’s daughter, a politician, a victor? There are so many names I am supposed to know.

The pause must be long enough, so she continues, Go on, make a therapist out of me if that is what you wish. She’s prosaic, a type of poetic I think I lean against as personality too much. She reassures me, says, I got all night. I smile down at the full glass and admire the way my knuckles turn white when I grip it. I take a deep breath, exhalation, and think of where I would start if I wasn’t still being cautious, if we weren’t still in a public place with people who might be smart enough to know our names.

Is it unseemly to tell a stranger you can’t stop thinking about the boy you fucked twice and stabbed through the neck, all within the span of a week? I would start there, if I held no hesitation. I would tell her about Lucas O’Hara, about the way we rolled over each other in the training center and how I wanted to think I was in love but knew I wasn’t. I would tell her that I looked forward to seeing him again, and that the morning of the feast I knew we would find ourselves compromised in the same way, how I thought maybe it could be love then but it could also be delusion—everything is delusion when you’ve thought about it for six days. I would tell her how I felt wrong to tell him that I killed Wylla, that I shouldn’t have killed Wylla, that maybe I shouldn’t have killed any of them. I was trying to find Cha, and she’s still gone, still beyond my reach and is farther away now than she ever was before that goddamned arena.

It’s not poetic, what I want to say, so I do not say it. Instead, I take a sip from the new glass and keep my gaze turned down, say I never meant to stab him through the neck—Lucas, I mean. I didn’t love him, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want so many things yet here I am, a selfish, inglorious bastard with a full plate and an empty fucking head. What meaning can one make out of that?

I don’t realize that I’m crying until warm, salty tears are trailing down to my chin and meeting before dribbling off onto the oak. Everyone hates a nihilist, but goddamn, how do we not become them?

[ table: rave ]