more than meets the 👁️ // jack&cedric

[Python]

In order to be self-conscious, one had to possess a conscience. Cedric's was questionable at best, so he didn't care if the other tributes noticed his staring. Call it "research." One could only see so much with the naked eye, but Cedric didn't have the time nor the patience to go mess with every single tribute. He planned to hone in on a few of them instead, pestering the jumpy ones and flattering the strong ones.

What surprised him were the indifferent ones. The middle men who didn't appear scared nor particularly strong. They weren't average by any means either. Cedric almost felt akin with them: are we all numb to this bullshit?

Cedric wracked his brain for a name. Jake Spring? Jack Black? He didn't have time to watch and memorize every Reaping, only the dramatic ones. Jack didn't seem nervous like the others. Cedric had been watching him for awhile, leaning on a shelf full of weapons, arms crossed over his chest. If Jack had noticed his sweeping eyes, Cedric didn't mind. It was a conversation starter.

Or, he could simply close the distance and start something on his own.

"You don't seem worried at all. Confident you'll win?"

There was a relaxed swagger in his walk, as if he had all of the time in the world. As if death wasn't waiting around the corner.

[rook]

that's disco, baby!

"You don't seem worried at all. Confident you'll win?"

The boy is brash, with the devil in his eye and a shark-toothed grin. He is taller than you, maybe a year older - you're not certain. You recognise him as the male from Twelve who volunteered. It struck you as odd at the time, you don't usually get volunteers in places like Twelve. Now that you see the boy and his brazen confidence that he wears proudly, you see why. He wants to taste blood.

(Perception): Across the hall the sounds of wood-on-wood, teenagers sparring with staves that will in days to come be replaced by sharp steel and iron. Who they train with today they will kill tomorrow.

In these moments he is assessing you, like the alpha-male in a pack of wolves circling an outsider. He is deciding whether you are a threat, or a meal.

(Authority): Stand taller boy, you are stronger than you look. Don't slouch, or he'll see you as weak and beneath him.

You ponder his question for a brief moment. Just because you aren't worried, does not mean that you are confident - it simply means that the situation doesn't worry you. The truth is that the situation you find yourself in is no better or worse than the situation you were in before they read out your name. You were always a bad day away from an early grave anyway.

"Fighting for my life is nothing new." You say simply.

(Half Light): Killing is nothing new either, is it? You just don't like to tell people that. They look at you differently after they know. I say tell him, it'll drain what little blood remains in his pale complexion.

(Logic): If I might interject, showing your hand is not a wise move. If you tell everyone, then you'll have no advantage to play.

(Inland Empire): A bleeding red man starfished in the mud, his eyes looking but not seeing. Stab wounds polka-dot his chest in bursts of crimson. His fingers are limp, palms open, reaching to the sky, trying to grasp what's beyond. Maybe he has found it.

You decide not to mention it. It's better you have this one in your back pocket for later should you need it. You like it when people underestimate you anyway, because there's nothing better than seeing the shock on people's faces - this time even more so when your knife is tickling the inside of their appendix.

"Why'd you volunteer? Life in Twelve not killing you fast enough?"

[Python]

Curious.

Cedric wondered briefly if there was blood on his hands. Surely there were others in this building who had killed before. Ironically enough, Cedric had never dirtied his soul in that way until he was sent to the Detention Center. Almost as if prison had woken a new beast inside of him. He justified it to this way; the other prisoner deserved it, and nobody missed him. Was it truly a crime if the other person was evil?

He chuckled at Jack's reply. There was truth in his words; Twelve was eating him alive slowly. He couldn't stand its barren lands and complicit people. Fighting for one's own life was nothing new in Twelve, and it was boring. Life was not worth living if all he could do was fight for scraps, eat those scraps, and rinse/repeat until he died in a coal mine wishing for coins in his pocket.

"Something like that," he said, shrugging, "Twelve is shit. Anything else is a paradise."

[rook]

that's disco, baby!

"Something like that," The boy shrugs, leaving the rest for you to figure out.

(Shivers): Mountains upon mountains with veins of coal running deep into the earth. In the dark they chip away at the stone roots of giants, not knowing if it is day or night. Always digging, always deeper.

And above ground?

(Shivers): Not much better, I'm afraid. The winters are hard. The elderly are dying younger, whilst children fight stray dogs for scraps in the streets. Few know the comfort of a full belly and a warm bed.

You look at this boy with his dark eyes and cold features and you know that he has been through a lot. You will likely never know the details, but you know it has shaped him. He is rough around the edges as a result, but you wager that Cedric is all the stronger for it.

"Twelve is shit. Anything else is a paradise." He says, the equation black and white in his mind.

You were not blessed with a brain. Whilst others around you excelled in science and medicine, your lack of academic fortitude turned you to a life of drugs and crime. You've seen Six at it's worst, and you've seen little of it's good side. You suppose you are similar to Cedric in that way, in that you've been moulded by what you've had to go through to survive.

(Logic): It is why you are unphased by this. Although you did not volunteer, you've not felt the same fear or surprise that your fellow Tributes have.

"And what have you made of this paradise so far?"