[CG] laughing gas :: players

[gamemaker kelsier]

I lie here quiet for a long time, hands folded on my chest like I'm finally at peace or something. There are other people in the room and from what I can tell with my eyes still shut, it's a large space. Voices echo of the ceiling and bounce back, just adding to all the noise. Ire's voice is missing, I guess she isn't here.

A shiver runs through me and I bite the inside of my lip to keep myself from making a face. I've never gone anywhere without Ire. They even let us stay together when we were on the train to Nine after we got caught trying to steal that hovercraft. Though there wasn't much choice, the shackles around our ankles kept us pretty much in place.

I sort of remember walking around Nine after the train. They took the shackles off, replaced it with these little glowing anklets that were gonna keep track of us until they decided what to do with us. Ire went off to find Nine's blackmarket to break it off and I... I think I met someone.

There's an uncomfortable feeling around my right wrist. I don't open my eyes to check, I'm still accessing, but I think it's a bracelet. That guy I met, who wants me to get on some boat and sail off to someplace new. Africa or something. Ire's always talking about how District Thirteen is still out there and this guy, name started with a K... Kemali or something, was saying Africa was where we have to go.

Except I don't know anymore, I don't know if there is a place for us anywhere.

A voice comes over the loud speaker, "10 minute warning!" it says.

I open my eyes slowly and a ceiling, comes into view. Out of the corner of my vision, I see movement. I think it's the people I heard talking. My movement is slow in an effort not to draw any attention to myself, but I sit up slowly, fingers curling into the mattress beneath me.

Everyone's in a black tracksuit with a big number on it. When I look down, I'm wearing a number too. 011. I guess that's me now. There's more people here than I thought but even though I look really carefully, I still don't see Ire anywhere. So if this is my punishment, then what's hers?

People are milling around talking to each other but I don't know what to do with that, I've never been good at the outgoing stuff, I'm just the hands, the toolkit. Ire's the charmer, not me.

I don't know how to do this without her.

[ghosty]

He woke up, in a start. Not unusual, not with the cold creeping in. But the echoing voices in the room around was not what normally greeted Lyle, his brain pumping with head-splitting pain. Only once before he felt this pain. Windows closed, coal spluttering alone in the fireplace. Trying to keep the warmth in before it rushed away all too soon. He, and the rest of them all in this room, had been gassed.

Everyone else was already up, but Lyle's limbs were heavy. Eyes darted from person to person, eying them up. Almost all of them were older, or taller, or better fed. Most were all three, all were desperate. He remembered the rumors back home, wrote his little letter to Ma for her to see before he got home. Left her with the remnants of the coins in his pocket and a half sandwich he couldn't bear to eat. Lyle heard of the man offering riches in the Capitol, in exchange for playing childhood games he'd never had to chance to play. 

What child games required getting knocked out for?

It took a while for his senses to come back to earth, to hear all the voices fill the room, everyone waiting for something to happen. But Lyle, he was never one to share himself to others, even in somewhere new. He and Ma watched for each other; no one else cared for them, or looked out to help. Hell, the neighbour's would probably throw them on their dining table if they could. 

The money, it sounded too good to throw away. He remember hearing the number the salesperson said, and his hand was already writing his name with shaking letters scrawling over the page.  

Sitting on his bunk, it just feels like a dream. His head clearing, home feeling so far away. Besides, it's only childhood games, the crowd of people feel to aggressive to play games. One towering above the rest of them, looking old. All Lyle can do now is wait for the game to start. 

He hoped Ma could understand. All he wants is the childhood he was promised in these games. All Lyle needed was the money. 

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

A sharp inhale and my eyes blink open.

The bright overhead lights fill in the foreign room around me. Music plays over the intercom, but I can't put my finger on what it is. I haven't heard music in a long time, not since Mom died at least. She paid a woman to play...what was it? A cello, I think, during Dad's wake. There wasn't exactly an orchestra at the orphanage. I'm sure if they did, all they would play is some melancholic shit to make us even more depressed about our already miserable lives.

I guess that all lead me here to basically The Hunger Games Lite, except for the fact we don't have to brutally murder each other. At least, I hope not. I'm not exactly prepared for that.

A voice abruptly rings over the speaker, "10-minute warning."

The announcement makes my heart start to drum against my chest, the noise ringing in my ears until it's all I can hear. Holy shit. I know I signed up for this, but now the realization is setting in. Maybe this wasn't my best idea.

No.

I can't start having second thoughts right before the first game. Besides, starving to death sounds a lot worse than getting blown apart by a laser or whatever weird shit they've come up with. This is the only way everything can change.

There's no backing out now.

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

It takes a few hard shoves from the guard to finally wake her up. For someone who had been knocked out only hours ago, her dreams come as easily as any other night of sleep. It's the evening of prom, and she's smuggled in a bucket of slop from the dumpster behind Old Joe's Burger Shack. Lydia Carlton is a shoo-in for queen, and she's got way more in store for her than a tiara. It's wonderful.

So wonderful, in fact, that the only appropriate response to being woken up from her devious fantasy is to punch the culprit right in the center of their throat. A low voice gasps out in pain and shock, a gloved hand grasping at the dark jumpsuit. "Back the fuck off," she snaps loudly, standing up and shoulder checking the idiot for good measure. "I signed up for a competition, not some Detention Center experience. What's all this shit about?"

She sneers at the 005 stitched to the front of her jacket, then glances up at the strangers already trickling out of the weird gymnasium she's been transported to. Clearly she's late to the show. Whatever. At the very least, maybe this means that she'll get to cut around the bullshit introduction speech and jump straight into the real action. That's all that really matters, after all — and honestly, it's not like she would have listened either way. She abides by her own rules.

"It's that way to the trophy, right?" She smirks over her shoulder as she walks to the exit, locking eyes with the guard she already feels an attachment for. They're awfully fun to push around. "Don't wish me luck. I'd be too powerful."

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Kai had woken up in stranger places.

Wandering outside the districts for half his life had a way of doing that. Whether the mutated wildlife or the rusted out ruins of civilization, he'd been in the shit longer than most. It would've been a beauty of a life had he not gotten caught all those years ago and re-educated to normal society. At least, the attempt was made. Sandra had taken him in, claiming to be his aunt. Which he'd come to understand was partially true. They weren't exactly related by blood but a line on a family tree. Outsiders, as it was.

But he couldn't adjust to the chafe of life in district six. Menial jobs didn't suit him and he had too much fun living in excess. Not that he ever had any real money. But whenever his dirt stained hands had a few coins to spend, or to gamble, he'd gone ahead and done it. He felt the same sort of rush as living outside the walls, if only briefly, to have wagered what could've been his last meal away. And as someone who didn't bed down with anyone, didn't want a life of raising children into a society that sacrificed its children well, he lived as he did for as long as he could.

He'd stopped speaking with Sandra a few years ago, since the last time she'd offered him any money. There'd been such disappointment in her eyes he couldn't bear the way his stomach felt as she'd stared at him. He was a disappointment, a failure at rehabilitation. They were incompatible and no matter how hard she'd tried he'd been less and less of the man she thought he could be. And her faith had never wavered, despite what she'd seen him do.

The ten minute warning comes and he knows that they'll be shuffled off to somewhere. High stakes, knowing the capitol. And the type of listless folks milling about meant they all had stories. Reasons for taking part in whatever sort of game his was. He rubbed his forehead and brushed back his hair. It'd be better not to say a thing, at least, not until he had a sense of who everyone else was that he'd have to stack up against.

Easier when he had to push them out of the way, too.