forget about our mothers and our friends {d8 train blitz}
Oct 4, 2020 11:21:38 GMT -5
Post by rook on Oct 4, 2020 11:21:38 GMT -5
ÆSAHÆTTR
I guess most people resist. Refusing to go unless they're dragged kicking and screaming to be sent to their inevitable deaths. Some, I suppose, would go into a state of shock, staring vacantly at the marble walls of the justice building until they find themselves escorted onto a train to meet the same fate. I find myself oddly accepting of my changing circumstances, they are no better or worse than my previous situation - and so as I sit staring out of the window as the rural outskirts of District Eight pass me by, I can't help but think about how nice the scenery is.
Nothing really matters when you're dying, if it wasn't this it would have been from blood loss in the backalleys, or from a knife in the neck, or from an overdose of morphine. It all ends the same - and just like this train that hurtles through the countryside, delivering me into the open palms of the Capitol, fate arrives just the same. Inevitable, immovable fate.
Will I see my mother when I die?
What a curious thing to think, when I am so close to death. I have tried to dive into the great beyond before, pressed my ear against the fabric of reality, listened to see if I can here what awaits me on the other side of infinity - but there is nothing but silence. Not because there is nothing, but because we are too mortal to comprehend what comes next.
When I danced with other vagabonds in the backalleys, played their game of three knife strikes across the back, I tasted death between my teeth and every time I did not think of my mother, or the others I have lost. No, I was too elevated by my own euphoria, too captivated by the thrill of feeling alive. Now, I think, my fate is certain - it's not chancing my life against others, no. My Godkiller hand is gone, all the fingers severed, and staring down at the bandaged stump that remains I know that I am not Æsahættr anymore. Just a lost, dying boy who awaits oblivion.
The train carriage is lavish, with platters of fresh fruit in gold-leaf painted bowls, and various fruity liquids in crystal clear bottles. The walls are adorned with pictures of the Capitol, a shining city that looks otherworldly - something you would see in the reflection of a reflection. It is real, and I am going there, to a kingdom beyond anything I have ever known.
Across from me sits the girl who volunteered. The moment the name Zoey Fontaine was spoken, her fate became set like the orbit of the plants and the position of the stars, and she was destined to die alongside me. Until.
Until this girl raised her hand and volunteered in her place, and just in that instant, their fates were swapped. Does she realise the power it takes to change destiny like that? I wonder as she sits there, her face a mask of cherry red lipstick and dark mascara, mine covered in dried blood and dirt, if she knows exactly what she has done? She has changed her fate, something I wish I had the power or authority to do. I admire it, and envy it.