.: dissension [tom + rook] the eyes of argos :.

izzy rodriguez

The first thing I hear is the shrill sound of a child's cry, high above a layer of groaning and muffled voices. Who is that? Why are they being so loud? I try to open my eyes, only to be met by a harsh white light that forces them closed again. The only thing I could make out was some kind of plastic tubing snaking near my arm. I open my eyes again and my heart leaps. Fuck, no, no. A needle is plastered against my wrist, and a clear fluid is continuously injected into my bloodstream. My heart flutters as my now-drugged brain scrambles to try and recall what happened, and where exactly I am.

I try to force my eyes open again and adjust to the brightness of my surroundings, and black shapes begin to blotch like ink on parchment. Get a grip of yourself. Focus I look again at my arm - at the needle piercing my skin and the drip polluting my body with Ripred-knows what. I can't control my breathing as the panic grips my chest and surges me into action. Gotta get out of here, gotta get back to the crew.

I move my free arm across my body to grab the needle, which triggers a searing chain of burning pain across my chest, shoulder, and forearm. Fuck. I can't withold a scream as the agony tears through me like wicked lightning. I feel my body spasm and recoil, a broken marionette dancing in an abandoned theatre. My screams are lost and ignored underneath everyone else’s. I remember why.

There was an explosion. I can remember that much. A noise so loud that I thought my eardrums had burst. I thought I was being shot at. Then came a heat so intense it knocked me off my feet and into the tarmac. People were running, and I was quick to scramble to my feet and turn to the gaping hole in the side of the concrete of the chemical processing plant. Like something you’d see in the Games, or in footage of an old mining disaster in Twelve.

At the time, my first thought was that it was an accident in a volatile working environment - and that I should help, not run. Hard to do that when your face is known to most of the Peacekeepers in the District and you've got three dead men to your name. So, I joined the sheep and fled through a neighbouring building, thinking that’d be a good place to take shelter whilst all the hellfire and debris fell from the sky. The rest is a white-hot blur.

A white cloth dressing sticks to my right shoulder and spreads down my arm. It hurts to move at all, but even if I could I'm not sure I want to peel it away and see the extent of the burns underneath. Looking around, I'm in a makeshift hospital ward of some kind, along with maybe thirty or forty other people. I call out for water every time the lone doctor rushes past, but he has more patients than he has time. So I close my eyes and try to drown out the deafening sounds of children suffering.

our minds are firewood
and now we spark the match
we set ourselves alight