nothing above us below us are only corpses {linus/izzy}
Aug 19, 2020 17:16:18 GMT -5
Post by rook on Aug 19, 2020 17:16:18 GMT -5
linus strauss
You know when sometimes you picture the way things are going to pan out, and you're just so sure of it that you don't even question yourself? It becomes some kind of concrete faux-reality that you lean into for comfort or reassurance or whatever. This whole project that Victor started in the Strauss name years ago, I guess I always saw it as doomed to fail, y'know? From the moment steel met flesh and blood soaked over hand-me-down clothes this house has been tainted - doomed. A dead project full of soon-to-be-dead kids. Yeah.
The possibility of someone volunteering slipped my damn mind. I didn't figure that anyone would actually want to become part of this madness. Maybe Meredith saw it as her only way out. I never understood what went on inside that girl's thick skull, and now I never will, will I? Her charred remains will be brought home in a neat little bow-tied box and there will be a public celebration of her life. In other Districts, they'll be fuckin' celebrating her death like the second coming. And, I expect, in this house also.
Silence at dinner and eye contact avoided in the halls. Your form's not quite right, Linus and Do you have something to say, boy? Well, in fact, I have a great deal to say. I just don't think it's worth exerting the energy to say it. The harsh truths hemmoraging behind my bitten tongue are things they're already living with. They know what they did. The mistake wasn't letting her get to the stage where she felt volunteering was her best option, it was bringing her into this house in the first place. That was the fuckin' mistake.
She burned, and now all of this has to burn too.
Moonlight pours through the windows and drowns the over-varnished oak floorboards in pale slanted rectangles that are slashed in half by the dancing branches of skeletal across the courtyard. I used to be scared of the dark when I was little, but after growing up in it you sort of wear the shadows like a cloak so that nothing can hurt you. Still, when I catch my pale reflection in the large glass panes my heart sometimes leaps, thinking someone is on the other side, standing out half-naked, basking in the lunar with a knife in their palm and madness in their eyes.
But it's just me, and I grip my knife a little bit tighter.
When I can't sleep I like to come down and train my aim a little better. Projectiles ain't never been my strongest point, but day by day I'm improving. I only trust myself against the cork wall, but soon I'll be able to progress onto the training dummies. My pretend brothers and sisters like to imagine the mannequins are Victor, or Finn, or whoever they hate most that day. I don't particularly like the idea of killing another person, so I try to dehumanise them however I can. Pretend they're robots, whatever. That's how I'd cope if I ever had to go into the Games - pretend it ain't real.
I flick the switches and all to harshly the room fills with a white light that makes my bruised eyes squint as they slowly adjust. I move to the cork wall, where three paper targets are stapled neatly in a row, and three lanes are marked out on the floor in white masking tape. I stand in the middle lane and spread my legs shoulder width apart, holding my knife loosely between my fingers, just like I been taught to.
Breathe. Just breathe.
In, two three four, hold. I tilt backwards, my left foot raising off the floor to counter-balance myself, before I then throw my arm across my body and kick my leg backwards, launching the knife just wide of the target.
I can hear Killian's sarcastic tone chirping Not quite on-target, Linus.
Well, fuck you Killian, and fuck your weird fuckin' throwing technique.
I walk up to the cork board and yank my knife out.
Again, Linus.
lyrics - north of no south by biffy clyro
