Pts made public
Oct 23, 2013 11:06:32 GMT -5
Post by Onyx on Oct 23, 2013 11:06:32 GMT -5
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“Haven Ryecroft!” The scrawny girl, her back straight and fists held loosely in front of her hips, emerges from the mass of children like the moon from behind a cloud. No one looks away, they just follow her greedily with their eyes, silently thanking her for saving their skins for another year. Whispers shoot through the crowd, swelling in different places in totally unconnected conversations, but all with the same subject. Will Haven Ryecroft’s fate be changed? Will someone else stand up to save her, in return?
“I volunteer!”
[/i][/size][/font][/center][/color]When my name rings out over the waiting room intercom, and I know it’s my turn to go through the hydraulic sliding doors and make my impression on the critical gargoyles watching from above, I can’t help but think of the moment when I made the decision to change fate. I imagine that the tinny syllables come not from the speaker in the corner, but straight from the escort’s mouth, instead. It could so easily have been me that was chosen, and not her, and so being here in the Capitol seems almost satisfying – like this was the place I was bound to end up. Would anyone have volunteered to save me, if the name that summons me now was uttered in place of Haven’s? Only Harmon, and I’d never allow that. Haven was recognised, acknowledged already, and perhaps if I hadn’t spoken up then one of her orphan friends would have. I’m just the ratcatcher’s daughter. I might as well be invisible.
That’s the reason that I’m determined not to be afraid of what’s through these now open doors. I’ve got to go in there and make an impression; get talked about. True, the point of this session is to attract sponsors, but it’s more than that. My score will be announced back home, and if I hit high then the District will know that Carlos Angelis’ little girl could only have learnt from the best. I’m doing this for him.
The Training Centre is set up as it was when we were first brought here, immaculate and cutely ordered, with no hint that anyone had been in here before me, let alone what they had done to make their mark. I stand in the doorway, and look up to where the hawk-eyed Gamemakers gaze dictatorially. Some are looking fidgety, as if they couldn’t bear to watch another child flailing around and showing off some half-practiced skill. But what I have to offer isn’t some slapdash combination of sloppy sword-handling and off-centre target technique. I’m going to show them what I’m best at, so they can see just how deep my knowledge goes.
When my escort, a grown up called Tanisha with an annoying whiney voice and big, watery eyes, first mentioned the importance of making an impact in the Private Training Session, I thought of little else for days. What could I do that would be entirely unique, unlike anything else that the Gamemakers could witness? It had to be something intelligent, unpredictable and slightly threatening, to show that I wasn’t just talented, but that I could be dangerous, too. I thought I was stumped. With no prior Training, like it’s rumoured the high District kids have had all their lives, and no particular interests, what could I possibly show to these notoriously hard-to-surprise judges?
The obvious answer is, of course, to simply show them the skill I’m best at. On entering the Training Centre, I make a beeline for the Trapping station. There, I pick a small rat-sized dummy and several pieces of strong string and branches. Back in the middle of the room, I quickly assemble a rather crude version of one of the standard rodent traps that father and I use at home. Two rectangles made of the springy sticks, held in place with the strings, large enough for the Gamemakers to see clearly but small enough that its fine workings are still a trade secret. With deft, practiced movements I knot the wire at intervals and wrap it around the framework of the trap as a sort of barbed finish and then, taking a step back, I kick the dummy into it with my foot.
Instantly, the trigger is pushed and the two sides of the trap snap downwards, the barbs digging deep into the leather skin of the model. In my head, I hear the choked squeak that would indicate a successful kill at home, but all I can here is a few exasperated sighs from the mezzanine above. Several members of the audience above look startled, but most still look bored or unsurprised. After all, this is a killing contest – right? I’ve proved I can stay fed for a couple of days in the arena -- but I’m nowhere near done, yet.
Now I’m certain that a grip-trap is easy to make out of the supplies I have, I step into a far corner of the centre and get a grasp for my environment. On one wall, rigging climbs like creepers, reaching all the way to the metal girders above. Opposite it is a fixed rack of weights, stacked six feet up with different sized globes of dense steel. An almost infinite supply of rope is available at the firemaking station, I notice, and branches similar to those in my prototype. However, I’m worried that if I head over there first I’ll have secured my score and sealed the letter – just another weedy lower District kid with nothing to save them but some basic knowledge of fires and plants. Instead, my eyes kept down out of respect (and a naïve urge to be mysterious), I stroll over to the weapons.
The longest swords I can find come up to my shoulder so I know they’ve been sized down for the smallest children. In the videos that constantly play in the waiting room for the Training Sessions, even the most hulking tributes are sometimes diminished by a monstrous greatsword, and all of us who watched knew that it was the weight of the blade that killed their enemies, and not their own strength. However, a smaller replica suits its function perfectly. I pick it up in two hands and rest it gently on my shoulder, caressing the handle confidently as I march into the centre of the room. Calculating briskly, I eye my sprung trap, trying to recall the steps to making it perfectly. Anchors first, so it doesn’t close on your hand while you’re setting it. With a nod of affirmation to myself, I plunge the sword into the join between two sections of the padded floor.
Compared to some of the stories that Games survivors have recalled in ’Victor’s View’, a vacant, simple magazine which our stylists insist we read so we can make “adequate” dinner conversation about things other than our own historical misfortunes, this act of small destruction is nothing, but I can see a few faces above me glowering disapprovingly. I have to act quickly, or risk losing their attention altogether. The rope is weighty in my hands as I tie it into a bowline knot (the same way I used to do Harmon’s shoelaces so she could never untie them) and throw the loop around the sword. Now comes the challenge.
Climbing the rigging was easy in public Training, but doing it now with ten bows and twice as many glaring eyes weighing me down is so much harder. Once I’m sitting on the platform halfway up, I flex the bows and twist them together – narrow end over wide, narrow end over wide. It’s not a very secure chain, but it’s enough to act for my intents and purposes. In the opposite corner of the room, I loop another length of rope around several branches of an artificial tree and tug it taut, struggling to pull it with me as I cross the back of the room to another station. In the past, I’ve been so thankful for my thin frame and consequentially light step and agility, but now I wish I was at least a little stockier. TV shows are all about the aesthetics, anyway, and no one wants to watch a weakling struggling to carry a bag full of supplies when two bull-like boneheads are battling elsewhere. The small amongst us as expendable, in the Gamemakers’ eyes; that’s a sure fact.
Finally, after some trouble that I tried to pass off as a casual pause to check everything was still in place, I’ve tugged the straining rope across the room to rest at the Trapping station, where I started. A large vertical branch, meant to be used for upright traps, is grippy enough for me to tie the other end of the cord around and flexible enough to keep it from going slack.I couldn’t ask for a more perfect set up.
I repeat the process of darting from corner to corner, tying length after length of rope and ‘rope-like’ weaponry in parallel criss-crosses around two feet above my head. From down here, there’s some element of chaos to it, but I know (I hope) that from above, on the balcony, it’s clear that what I’ve done is magnify the little rat trap that sits pleasantly by the standing sword, until it’s large enough for another type of prey altogether. The final touch is almost decoration, because I’m sure that breaking even one of these ropes right now and sending the whole lot snapping inwards would break half the bones in my body. My hand-barbed wire adorns the structure like a crown of thorns, both magnificent and punishing at the same time. And now, the pièce de résistance; my bloodthirsty audience will get the show they deserve.
This whole week, what I’ve noticed most is that, although we treat each other amiably enough, or as amiably as you can when you’re always wondering which of the rest will deliver the fatal blow to your neck or your gut or your heart, the residents and instructor look down on us as something dirty and insignificant. We left the Districts revered as future heroes and present saviours, but here we’re already history, tragedies just waiting to happen that aren’t worth remembering. It reminds me so horrifically of the way my father and I strung up rodents after a particularly successful day, an obligation but one we hated doing – cleaning and primping the little bodies to be presentable. Yes, exactly the same, except they treat us like corpses so prematurely. I saw it in the way the buzzards regarded me when I came into this room, just fresh meat wasting their time and resources. It was then that I knew – if they wanted to regard me as vermin, then vermin’s exactly what I’d be.
As I turn to face my giant trap from the side of the Centre closest to the viewing box, spiny barbs and cords quivering with potential to harm, I make my whole being change. My shoulders hunch, my stomach curls in and my head drops lower. I become a desperate tribute, ready to claim another life that will preserve their own a little longer, the epitome of filthy selfishness. I become the rat of my species. With my left foot dragging forwards, followed hurriedly by my right in a sort of limp scamper, I slowly approach the centre of the trap. Above me, the most important part of the whole mechanism – two crossed and straining javelins that act as a trigger to send the whole thing shooting inwards and crushing me – trembles, but I don’t let my limbs to the same. I understand the fine workings of this machine, so there’s no way it could really harm me, right?
My whole body tingles more intensely the closer I get to the trigger. In my head, I run through the actions I need to take, trying to ignore the fact that if I don’t complete them all in a split second my life could end. Or, because they wouldn’t allow that for entertainment’s sake, I’d be sent into the Arena already crippled and broken (like the maimed boy from Seven or the lame kid from Four).
Eight metres away, now seven-point-five, now six-point-five and I’m not limping anymore, I’m running, full pelt with my upper body leaning forwards and my arms brace. Leaping up, I whack the trigger out of place and land heavily on my feet, hips width apart, but they’ve barely touched the ground before I’m springing forwards again. Above and behind me I can hear the snapping sound as ropes whip away from each other and come hurtling down towards me. Whooshing noises fill my ears and I can’t tell if it’s the disturbed air or my own blood. Either way, its parallel in volume and density to the adrenaline that surges round my system, propelling me forwards even harder. The distance between the focal point of the trap and the sword anchor seems to have stretched, because it takes a jump that makes my thigh muscles scream with the strain in order to avoid the spiked rope that is worryingly close behind me. Every part of the trap is swinging along its own plane, almost exactly how I imagined, converging on the epicentre and then tangling, ensuring that if the victim isn’t crushed to death, they could certainly suffocate.
I grab the handle of the longsword in both hands and leapfrog over it, landing on my knees and collapsing into a shock-absorbing tumble. Homie. Black brain-fog frames my vision but doesn’t obstruct the strangely beautiful chaos of my rat-man-child trap, coming to rest as a beehive of flesh-ripping spurs and bone-shattering scaffolding. I stay sitting on the ground long enough to regain my breath, and then stand up shakily and approach the nest of equipment where it hangs from its four taut suspension chords in the corners of the room. Crouching down so as not to touch the spikes, I gingerly retrieve the tiny model of the trap from directly under its giant counterpart. The achievement of being able to mark the exact spot of impact washes over me with relief. Like a trophy, I hold it to my chest, before placing it back at the Trapping station.
I don’t look at the Gamemakers long enough to register their reactions on the way out. I simply nod up to them, regard my triumph one last time, and leave it behind me. You taught me well, daddy, and I hope this is going to make you proud.
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are you ready for another bad poem?
one more off key anthem
let your teeth sink in
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The girl from District Nine was a rat trapper. To Gamemaker Nox, this was absolutely intriguing—were most from the lower districts grew up with occupations that wouldn't help them a bit in the arena, rat trapping was certainly something different that could, assuming Eden Angelis was resourceful enough, translate into a deadly human-trapping skill. She'd seen a couple of traps already—it was a popular session focus for tributes this year, though she was already doubting how many would actually follow through once the Games began—but as a professional trapper, Eden would, hopefully, take the cake.
At first, Invidia was outraged; it seemed that Eden was merely creating one of her usual small rat traps. 'Fantastic," the Gamemaker hissed sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "You can catch your food. Now show me that you can catch something else." she never spoke loud enough for any of the tributes to hear her; these words were not meant to reach their ears. She tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for the tribute in front of her with more potential than most to actually deliver.
Finally it seemed that she would. Eden began to construct a massive, life-size version of the trap she'd just displayed to the Gamemakers, perfectly equipped to catch a human rather than a rodent. Invidia attempted to follow the exact mechanisms—as a gamemaker, she was well-versed in the art of trapping—but even this seemed like a complicated secret method unknown to anyone but Eden. So she merely watched as the scene unfolded before her, envisioning it being set in the arena in a mere handful of days. Once the trap was complete, the head gamemaker expected her to throw a dummy into it, like everyone else had before her; instead, though, she did something completely unprecedented.
She set the trap herself. She ran, dove, sprinted through her life-size trap, and Invidia watched delightedly as she displayed not only her competency in trapping, but her agility and speed as well; both were necessary skills in the Games. There was a moment when the entire gamemaking committee drew a breath, wondering whether or not she'd get caught—but she managed to evade it, make it through without being caught. I hope no other tributes would be able to do the same. But Invidia doubted it; for someone who had no idea of the trap's existence, let alone its mechanics, this would be impossible to outsmart. The 9 was on the paper before Eden even left the gym. "Well, I'm sufficiently impressed," Invida announced when at last she was gone. "Let's just hope she delivers."
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remember me as i was not as i am
and i said i'll check in tomorrow
if i don't wake up dead
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[/color]remember me as i was not as i am
and i said i'll check in tomorrow
if i don't wake up dead
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