Elijah Strauss | District Two | Fin

The world is an empty valley of disappointments, dropping you into the pits of society as if you'll survive the fall.

You were alone and unafraid of the world, despite all the despair of your early years. Starving in an orphanage where kids had no support, but the screen that somehow still ran despite all the years of water damage and smashing toys against it. The other kids with their snotty noses and stupid attitudes would get on your nerves. They always carried themselves around the room with the need to be the center of attention, but you never needed that. You weren't born for the spotlight and you knew that already. You eyes glued to the screen watching the games over and over again, knowing every line, every strike, and every moment by memory. This is the only time you ever really feel safe and find joy in things, some kids call you a murderer, but you weren't afraid of them.

You wanted to just learn more and more about the games on the screen, telling yourself that the people on the screen were your heroes. You watch Avon Lightwood duct tape her weapon to her arm, you watch Cricket Antoinette breath fire into a mass of butterflies, you watch Celia Mortuus rip the bones out of Lemon Cake and Carrita Nessage. You grow fond of them every day you wake up, ignoring the hunger or the thirst, ignoring the way your mother had shouted at you when you were just six, ignoring the pit in your stomach knowing the other kids were avoiding you because you were known to burn like a wildfire.

Get lost, brat! You're not worth the trouble.

Her words come to you in the middle of the night, when the sun dips past the horizon and the moon glistens down darkening the orphanage. You were so young back then with scars no one could heal. No one but the tributes on the screen who laughed and cried and died all the same. Part of you noticed the patterns as you grew older and older, noticing certain district killing each other more often. You watched the victors, always remembering to draw the newest one on the paper you stole from one of the smaller kids. Never as perfect as you saw them, but it was enough to make you feel apart of it all. You started betting rings in you orphanage for the little food everyone had, always knowing which of the tributes was going to outclass the others, the fighting styles remained similar to past ones, so you ate better and better.

You ruled the orphanage when they came.

The Strauss Family was the only way out of this life you were unfortunately given. Victor, Octavia, and Killian were enigmas of the tributes you saw on the screen, knowing they were going to change your life. You spent most of the time alone, staring at the screen when they came, betting on the fight with some smaller kid who was barely just functioning. That bet would save your life from the impoverished people of Two. You didn't know it at the time, but they listened to you mumble on and on about Caine Winchester and how Aeson Kight's alliance would take him out. None of the others believed you, but you knew that's how it would go. After Caine Winchester dies, you're offered a new life with everything you wanted.

The only catch was training, but you wanted to be like the kids on the screen, strong and graceful, but also a creator of a story. You knew all of the ways they moved their weapons and the tricks from lower districts that had surprised you. You spent most of your time studying the films and the books to fill in what you knew already. Training had been tougher on your body than most, but you filled out with better meals. You knew the others were different from you, many of them younger than you, but you rose to the occasion, your knowledge had brought you far enough to be seen as somewhat of a threat, but where your brain got you farther, your personality and moldability had been lacking.

No one likes nerds, especially not ones who don't mind shoving it in others faces.

You always compared the others to past tributes, never quite really giving them the honor of having their own original style because no one was original. You've seen many of them act like they were, but you've seen it all before. Smiled your way through when some would call you nothing but a troublemaker, just like your mother used to say. You thrived in training, knowing you could handle any tribute that would be thrown at you, except things changed eventually.

Sinister changes came with the musings about killing one another. You were afraid. You were more afraid of death than anything else when it first started. You sat through Jason's death with hands over your eyes. Coward. The word would hang heavy against your ear when Victor told you to pay attention. Coward. You would repeat under your breath the next year when Sarah dies. Coward. Your voice would say when Callum and yourself are brought forward. Fear lingers to your skin, but you fight with your knowledge, using the same style that Aurora Lachance had used in that games. Cutting and cutting, until you can hear Callum begging you to stop, but you don't stop. You spit over him and speak only one word.

"Coward."

You survive the Strauss family, watching as the twins die from refusal, seeing more children get adopted, and watching Finn kill Anabelle. You study in your room surrounded by posters of every victor that has won, staring at you as you toss a knife onto the ceiling and catching it when the knife falls. You breath in the training room, all teasing energy and knowledge of the past. You carry a weight in your heart of Callum, but you did what you had to in order to survive. Hell, you've been ready to kill since you were six. A silence fills you as you stare up at the ceiling where a new mark has been cast from the lazy toss you give upwards.

You wonder if you'll do this forever.

Watch more and more kids die.

You already know the answer.

Coward.