free fallin' // kenji {open}
Jun 8, 2020 1:49:04 GMT -5
Post by lance on Jun 8, 2020 1:49:04 GMT -5
KENJI
There was one place in the training center that unnerved you almost as much as it intrigued you. Standing tall against the backdrop of the night, thirteen stories and over a hundred feet above ground, the rooftop of the training center gave you the clearest view you had ever seen - and the most tantalizing forbidden fruit you had ever set your eyes upon.
See, you'd heard the stories. Many a tribute had desired to end it all before the Games even had a chance to begin, take their fate into their own hands and fling themselves from the heights to meet a final end on the pavement below. Only the Capitol had had eight and a half decades to foresee such an occurrence before your time and had long since developed a countermeasure to ensure that not one of their precious little tributes could escape the fate that had been granted to them, either with their consent or otherwise.
For others, the force field separating you from the outside world would be a hindrance, an obstacle, a reminder that fate was no longer within their own grasp. For you? It spelled out opportunity.
You'd been skeptical of the tales at first, despite how much they made sense. But first a pebble, then a shoe, and then a chair had been tossed over the edge, all returning to sender in much the same trajectory they had been sent.
Curiosity blossomed. A heart palpitated with the icy cold of fear, both off-putting and tantalizing in the same beat. And as the city lights shone and the sounds of civilization, alive and well despite the hour, echoed around you, you put one foot on the edge, and then the other.
Good balance is a must when you're a hand-to-hand combatant. Lean too far one direction, put one foot in the wrong place, and it is laughably easy for your opponent to exploit your weakness and send you tumbling onto your ass. And for a moment, you make a game of it, teetering on the very brink of sanity and euphoria, testing to see just how far you can go without actually falling off of the edge.
But you did not come here to flirt with the edge of disaster. That was never your way, even before you'd had dreams of fighting in the Hunger Games. You knew nothing of the ways of moderation in anything that life happened to toss your way.
So you commit. And after a heartbeat where the rational part of your brain, long since buried beneath waves of recklessness, fights to gain control, you take one step forward, into open air.
And then you fly. For three glorious seconds, it's only you and open air. A scream of pure adrenaline escapes your lungs as your body goes into overdrive-
-and then it's as if time decided to work in reverse. There's the slightest of impacts - could force fields be elastic? - and then like the inanimate objects you'd sent before you, you're traveling back up, up, up the building, back from whence you came.
Too late do you realize that you'd set up nothing to break your fall. Too late do you try and right yourself so that the landing is a smooth one. And while the success is partial - you do land on your feet and not your face - the momentum sends you crashing to the ground face-first nonetheless.
You don't quite kiss the rough cement of the roof. But the pain in your hands and knees registers a half-second afterwords - and a mixture of dread and dark amusement flood your mind as you wonder what the medics would think to seeing you for the fourth time in as many days.
Only then do you realize that some time between your balancing act and your return to earth had another figure arrived, if the set of shoes connected to ankles was anything to go by.
Far from being embarrassed, you decide snark is the way to go.
"In case you were wonderin'-" you begin, before a jab of pain causes you to wince. Ow. "-the force field preventing us from killing ourselves prematurely still works just as intended."
See, you'd heard the stories. Many a tribute had desired to end it all before the Games even had a chance to begin, take their fate into their own hands and fling themselves from the heights to meet a final end on the pavement below. Only the Capitol had had eight and a half decades to foresee such an occurrence before your time and had long since developed a countermeasure to ensure that not one of their precious little tributes could escape the fate that had been granted to them, either with their consent or otherwise.
For others, the force field separating you from the outside world would be a hindrance, an obstacle, a reminder that fate was no longer within their own grasp. For you? It spelled out opportunity.
You'd been skeptical of the tales at first, despite how much they made sense. But first a pebble, then a shoe, and then a chair had been tossed over the edge, all returning to sender in much the same trajectory they had been sent.
Curiosity blossomed. A heart palpitated with the icy cold of fear, both off-putting and tantalizing in the same beat. And as the city lights shone and the sounds of civilization, alive and well despite the hour, echoed around you, you put one foot on the edge, and then the other.
Good balance is a must when you're a hand-to-hand combatant. Lean too far one direction, put one foot in the wrong place, and it is laughably easy for your opponent to exploit your weakness and send you tumbling onto your ass. And for a moment, you make a game of it, teetering on the very brink of sanity and euphoria, testing to see just how far you can go without actually falling off of the edge.
But you did not come here to flirt with the edge of disaster. That was never your way, even before you'd had dreams of fighting in the Hunger Games. You knew nothing of the ways of moderation in anything that life happened to toss your way.
So you commit. And after a heartbeat where the rational part of your brain, long since buried beneath waves of recklessness, fights to gain control, you take one step forward, into open air.
And then you fly. For three glorious seconds, it's only you and open air. A scream of pure adrenaline escapes your lungs as your body goes into overdrive-
-and then it's as if time decided to work in reverse. There's the slightest of impacts - could force fields be elastic? - and then like the inanimate objects you'd sent before you, you're traveling back up, up, up the building, back from whence you came.
Too late do you realize that you'd set up nothing to break your fall. Too late do you try and right yourself so that the landing is a smooth one. And while the success is partial - you do land on your feet and not your face - the momentum sends you crashing to the ground face-first nonetheless.
You don't quite kiss the rough cement of the roof. But the pain in your hands and knees registers a half-second afterwords - and a mixture of dread and dark amusement flood your mind as you wonder what the medics would think to seeing you for the fourth time in as many days.
Only then do you realize that some time between your balancing act and your return to earth had another figure arrived, if the set of shoes connected to ankles was anything to go by.
Far from being embarrassed, you decide snark is the way to go.
"In case you were wonderin'-" you begin, before a jab of pain causes you to wince. Ow. "-the force field preventing us from killing ourselves prematurely still works just as intended."
NAKAMURA
