5 star but I'm rating it 4 cause I don't give 5's /roommates

[gamemaker kelsier]

The mirror is supposed to reflect the truth, right?

I stand there, dead mutts at my feet seeping dark purple blood onto the stone floor and stare at myself, or I should say where I should be in the small room's mirror. There's Six standing there a few feet back, my shield still on her arm but where I should be, there's fuck all.

And that's funny, though I guess the proper term is ironic because what's this truth then?

I've always been invisible?

"So then... the mirrors here are racist?" I hazard as I turn my arm over to investigate the gash the cats just gave me. It's already stopped bleeding, blood nearly dry before it even leaves me. The skin around the gash is rippled, as if it's more a tear through rubber than it is a cut through skin. My colour is off too, deathly pale instead of the warm undertones I'm used to seeing.

The truth is, I'm sort of scared but I can't admit that, I won't. Especially not to a stranger, it's much easier to hide behind humour than it is to be honest. "Guess that doesn't make sense if you've got a reflection though," I nod at the girl's image in the mirror.

I turn away and stoop to collect my things off of the end of the bed. I pause as I pass by her and she raises the shield the littlest bit. I choose to ignore that. It's just that the smell wafting off of her is intoxicating, indescribable as a scent.

My stomach flips?

No.

Aches. I haven't eaten since yesterday morning, I'm hungry, that's all.

My hand runs over the neck of the bottle of wine I found in my wanderings last night but even though my mouth feels like it's full of cotton, I have no desire to drink it.

I run my tongue over my teeth again.

"What if... what if I am dead?" I whisper, not quite looking at her.

My thoughts go back to the moment before the bloodbath, though most things about yesterday are kind of hazy now. It feels like it's been a very long time since then. I remember the needle being jabbed into my skin, I remember the promise it wouldn't hurt.

Then I remember the way it burned, how it kept getting worse, like the way I'm thirsty now, like how my throat feels so dry that I want to throw up.

In the end, it was unimaginably painful, so much so that I can't recall just how badly it hurt, the memory is just gone, a hole in my head.

I turn back to look at her.

"You got ghost stories in Six?" I ask.

[rook]

izzy rodríguez

If the mirrors were racist why would they discriminate just him? That's some selective racism going on.

I tend to my wounds. None are particularly deep or serious, but my forearm is cut to shit, and my neck stings from one nasty claw strike that caught me off-guard. Dabbing under my chin with a loose bandage, I watch as purple blood pools on the stone floor around the boy.

"What if... what if I am dead?" He begins, an existential crisis unfolding.

I sigh, my shoulders dropping. I bite at my lower lip, thinking of the four cannons that fired. This isn't a quarter quell. There's no twist at play here. Dead is dead. He's not a mutt. He doesn't seem in a bad way mentally or seemingly physically. So, that just means he's changed or survived something?

My gut tells me this is some Gamemaker ploy, to keep things interesting they've altered him, into some unnatural undead thing. What does that mean in terms of the Games? Fuck knows man, but he doesn't seem like he wants to hurt me, so for now he's worth keeping on side.

"If you're already dead then I have no cause to kill you."

It's playful, but laced with undertone.

"You got ghost stories in Six?" He asks, changing the subject quickly.

I don't believe in all of that supernatural bullshit, most ghost stories are just unlikely coincidences that people can't explain, so their dumb brains paint a picture to justify it.

The Capitol has always used science and technology to recreate beings of folklore. Dragons, krakens, ghosts, demons, even clones of people before now. Them doing some bullshit to make undead or enhanced tributes isn't supernatural, it's just the latest in their long line of gimmicks.

There's one every year.

"People disappear, and folk will tell stories to explain it, but..." I stop dabbing at my neck, "Usually they're just at the bottom of the river or stuffed in someone's attic."

The truth of it all is far more unsettling than any ghost story.