a stone . manu

[mat]

m a n u

we know how this ends
a boy who promises
that tomorrow will not be the same
nothing. ever. changes.

Manu makes his way back to the holding cell with two Peace Keepers as his guides. He wants to say that they are gentle like he was told they would be back home, but dutiful mindlessness leaks through with force against his wrists and on his shoulders. He had never interacted with them in Two until they collected him at the Reaping. Not even a foot into the cell, they collapse the door behind him. Manu turns and grabs at the bars, sliding a bit tiredly. "Thanks."

No response.

Justifying their actions is a lost cause, but Manu tries anyways. Perhaps he should learn to be more like Maya, the girl he met from Three, whose attitude consists of much-fewer fucks given. Nice boys do not get the answers they seek. An unfortunate yet clear path to what he wants is just up ahead: tomorrow in the arena when he can kill for it.

Footsteps fade and he turns back to his bed. It looks to be nothing more than a futon mattress held up by some cheaply put-together metal frame. The sheets atop the bed aren't very comfortable either. Not in this cool ambiance, anyway, where something is always one million step from comfort. Manu pulls the sheet over him and curls in.

Thumbs on his knees, he can't keep his eyes shut for long. There's something about losing sight in this cell that scares him. No faith, he thinks, in the idea that something very bad might happen in an attempt to make tomorrow even more dramatic. The Capitol wouldn't do that, right? Breach their promise on what the Games would entail? As he opens his eyes, the lights outside of his cell flicker from darkness to light. No faith. Thinking such things feels so wrong. Even when every bone in his body is telling him that he's right, Manu is reminded of guilt. (They have lied to you, Manuel. Disguising themselves as the heroes, they have pointed blame in our direction. It's not your fault that you believed them. They're malicious beings, seeking to corrupt you.)

Guilt keeps Manu up for minutes and then hours. He's just as much a part of the problem as the Peacekeepers or Dr. Lapointe or the rest of the Capitol. Frustrated by restlessness, he throws the bedsheet in the air and stands. He is guilty. Guilty of allowing everyone around him to think for him. Guilty of being so helpless that he can't save himself from decades of manipulation. Guilty of trying to defend these Hunger Games instead of consoling those who will be killed in them and instead of consoling himself.

Guilty of failing to save next year's batch of kids from the same fate as the last. The Capitol taught him to stand up against remnant rebel chapters in Two, even if he was one against a thousand. Why can't that be true in a setting so physically extraordinary yet emotionally reminiscent? Next year's kids will die, and the next and the next until something is done to show the Capitol the error in their ways. It does not need to be an egregious condemnation or a strong one by any means. Just enough to make this end. Seven years is beyond enough.

Manu picks at one of the loose nails in the bed frame. His nails chip and bend with every attempt to dislodge them. But eventually, the nail loosens and breaks free. He pulls at the piece of metal, twisting it until it comes out fully. The sharp edge is just what he wants.

Underneath the bench of the cell in which he once revealed all his secrets to Dr. Lapointe, he leaves a new one for whoever might come here next. He claws the nail into the wall over and over again to leave an indentation, marked with a few dollops and scratches of blood from his labor, of what he wants to say.

It reads:

THEY HAVE CONTROLLED MY LIFE.
DON'T LET THEM CONTROL US ALL.
BEAT THEM. I AM SORRY.
FORGIVE ME. I'M GUILTY.
-MANU .

He makes the first impression for an A, as in Albañil, but he knows it's not the real and honest version of himself. Manu leans up against the wall, tapping the nail and digging through his brain, trying to remember a decade-dead identity.

(Your name is Manuel Albañil. Albañil. That is the only truth.)

It doesn't come, and he drifts away to sleep instead.

elegant