bren sinclair | nine | fin | Hunger Games: The RPG

bren sinclair | nine | fin Dec 13, 2023 22:39:25 GMT -5

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Post by gamemaker 💀 hades lochlan on Dec 13, 2023 22:39:25 GMT -5

I'm too young to remember things the way they used to be before. I mean, I remember things: cracked pavement and smoke in my eyes, bars on the windows. I wasn't allowed outdoors by myself and I wasn't allowed to answer the door unless I recognized the person knocking. I don't remember when the industry change was announced, but I do remember the day the peacekeepers came. At the time, I was just happy that I got the first week of the adjustment period off from school.

But I didn't really grasp the why of any of it. Things were like that because I was eight and that's how things are when you're eight, you know? The word rebel was only ever used in the games of make believe we'd play at recess in school, where half of us were criminals and the others law enforcers trying to chase them down and bring them to justice, right there between the monkey bars and the sandbox.

And then one day, the block I had to walk around instead of through every day was deemed safe enough to cross by my Mom. Another day, the old brick building that'd been caught on fire when I was six was being repurposed for a peacekeeper academy. By the time I was thirteen I was walking to my friends' houses all by myself, and by the time I was fifteen, my Mom stopped worrying I'd die each and every time I left the house. It was easy to dismiss her concern for the world when she'd always done such a good job of protecting me from it.

And, I guess if we're being honest, I can be kind of a shit sometimes. In the doesn't find it easy to relate to others way and in the maybe Mom's worry for me is a bit more warranted than I'd want her to know. Not that things were ever, like, crazy. I wasn't getting held at knife point or anything like that. But at some of the places I ended up hanging out... it wouldn't have exactly surprised me.

Honestly, it was just a matter of realizing what people wanted from me. I guess, what I wanted from them too. Puberty hit me like a sack of bricks. When a party with friends caused one of those weird, lingering stares, it was always me who ended up with the taste of someone else's lips on my own. Random classmates, people I'd wanted for a while, people I couldn't even stand to be around sober. I think it's the feeling of being wanted, maybe... Desired in some way I was able to understand and fulfill right then and there. But one too many fights in school from kissing people who were spoken for and now here I am, a warning of my former self. A fucking cautionary tale. Sent to the damn peacekeeper academy to straighten my act up. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of people like me there, who'd rather be anywhere else, and I know at the very least that ending up here is better than the detention center in a cell or tied to a post in the square with lashes down my back.

Maybe after graduation I'll be older and Mom will see that making me become a freaking whitecoat is a bit drastic. My neighbor Ronnie got arrested for dealing drugs in the tenth grade and his parents just gave him a curfew. I get one busted lip and my Mom sends me away to become a cop against my will. "You should be honored," she had the audacity to say, "Lots of people aren't smart enough to pass the entrance exam. Let's just be glad you haven't completely fried your brain yet."

I guess worse comes to worst, I walk away above the law at least until they realize I'm never gonna be the guy to enforce it. It's just not me, you know? Like, yes, I would save a child from a burning building if I could, and yes I prefer things in Nine the way they are now compared to how they used to be. But the first time they line me up on a firing squad and expect me to beat down innocents like they used to when the riots were getting out of control, they're gonna see which side of history I'm interested in standing on.