three beers just to make eye contact. // quinn, 95.

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

When Emerson Emberstatt dies, Quinn is drunk.

She'd started drinking hours before. At first it was a gentle caress across her frontal lobe, a sigh of relief and a breath of fresh air. She'd climbed onto the roof in broad daylight, no parents at home to watch her and too old for a babysitter: how did that old ballad go? Young & sweet, only seventeen. She was anything but.

How quickly that bottle drained, its insides betraying her. Quinn didn't even like the taste of red wine, too whole and bitter on her tongue like a word in another language that she can't quite pronounce. Pure stubbornness on her part, wincing. The sun soaks her up until her head is a drum beat. A firework display. An atomic bomb.

An axe, slamming into the back of her head. A sword, slamming into the back of Emerson.

She swigs the bottle up and laughs, spitting up purple liquid. Droplets trickle down her chin, grin spread wide and teeth stained red, tears streaming down her face. 

part 1. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

Someone lights the bonfire. She can see it in the distance. An old Ten tradition, more like superstition, dating all the way back to the beginning of this hell world when someone burned Terra Montague's house to the ground the day she won the Fifth.

The Victor's Village is eerily silent. Terra Montague is dead and so is Emerson Emberstatt. The sun has set, taking all that is good with it, she is left with a sour taste in her mouth and a tipping world - is she going with it? With Emerson? Can she go with him? Follow him to a world that doesn't hate her, doesn't punish girls like her and instead saves boys like her sweet, innocent cousin?

The bonfire catches and a fire alights in Quinn, the heat of what it means to carry this incindeary bloodstream she once thought made them all invincible.

"Tell them I loved them," he says, "Tell them I tried, I tried I tried." (He's in my head now, they're all in my head. They tried, they tried, they tried.) I'd taste those words upon my lips if all of their names weren't already there.

"I never stopped trying" (neither did I) and he closes his eyes and it's all too much, he's gone, his forever is over and mine begins with the blast of a cannon. (23 souls scatter across my fingertips and etch themselves into my skin, my skeleton, my soul, my everything and anything. I feel all their pain at once, it spills from my eyes and cracks in sobs and it's all too much, too much.)

So I scream.

The pain takes over; and Quinn screams and screams and screams.

part 2. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

Quinn thinks about finding Luke but now ain't the time, not in this state. Distraction; but her throat is hoarse from sobbing and her bottle of wine is empty and she's fumbling, fumbling, drunk. She'll stain his lips later wrath in her fists curled around the neckline of his shirt door of his red car pressed up against her spine distraction in the back of his red car.

Red car, red lips, red hair, red wine. Red car she sees red she sees blood she sees hair she no longer sees the sun, it has disappeared and so has everyone else. Mom Dad Kiara Lorenzo Coralee Mason Alex Sammy Emerson Clementa Emberly Myara PawPaw Uncle Gideon Ma Emberstatt everyone is gone everyone leaves Quinn is alone red car red car red wine red blood red car red car red car red car he leaves his keys in the glovebox red car...

Luke leaves his keys in the glovebox.

part 3. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

Do you remember the ghosts, my little firestarter? They haven't visited you in a long time. I used to visit you too. And your Mom. Emerson's Mom, too. You couldn't see me. I was too far gone in your mother's memory, just a sunset haze of what a father was. Half made up in her head. But you saw them, those children from your mother's living nightmare. She started to forget their names and then you came along.

Did you know she was scared? Did you know she was so frightened when the very concept of you came to be? They tore her family from her once, just for knowing them. Like how they tore me from her just for sharing my brother's face. They took them away just for reaching out to touch their faces. Just for loving them, for tracing her roots back to those beautiful girls. And one by one this terrible world took them from her and you came along and their ghosts talked to you, caressed your cheek, watched you sleep, played with you in the shadows, whispered you sweet nothings.

Most children have imaginary friends. Your mother did, finding kinship in being alone. It's why she struggles, or at least partly so. But yours were different. Yours had names she could no longer speak. Please don't blame her for keeping you at a distance, my little firestarter. All she knows is this pain you now feel - and it started with me. It is my fault. It is my fault. I did this. I did this. I did this to all of you. I put this bloodcurse on you. 

You're looking at that red car in that boy's driveway and I know what you want to do. To leave before they can leave you. You want to join them. Don't, little firestarter. Don't do it. Please.

Don't.

Don't.

"Don't."

Quinn turns around at the sound of a voice and finds the driveway empty, shivering.

part 4. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

Audio recording left on EMBERSTATT, LORENZO. LINE1 // 11.13PM 95th Games Day 7


Origin: DISTRICT TEN< VICTORS VILLAGE< HOUSE2
Length: 4MINUTES 26SECONDS

Transcript: >> ...... *muffled noise*

>> HELLOOOOO! it's me if you even remember...

>> *audible burping*
.......

>> ENZO! me! your SISTER! your favourite...
>> hahahaha you favourite shibling you frrrrrrr

*inaudible*

>> it's quinn you motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrr hahahahahahaha.

>> remember ME? no. i wouldn't either youuuuuu

*inaudible*

>> why'd you leave you motherfucker? i'm all alone in this house! AAAAAAAAAAALL ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE IN THIS HOOOOOO-UUUUUUSE! hahaha! it echoes, enzo. enzo echo enzo! echo enzo echo enzo lo-ren-zo! ren-zo! E-N-Z-O-you leFT ME H-

>> *glass shattering*

>> YOU LEFT ME AGAIN YOU FUCKING BASTARD! YOU! LEFT! ME! HERE! TO! ROOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

>> *muffled screaming*

>> i love you motherfucker. i'ms... you-

>> *hiccup*

>> sorry. *inaudible*

>> ...leave... love you brother. brother. i'm going to- i'm fu- shhhhh don't tell SHHHHH enzo ShhHhhhHh... i'm fuc- luke searley SHHHH! don't tell... hahahahaha don't tell dad he'll kill him hahahahahahahaha

>> *muffled screaming continues*

>> i'm going now. BUH BYE! hahahahaha. sorry. i'm sorry. you won't miss me you fuck. you left. i'm leaving now. i'm leaving. i'm going. don't forget me. oh wait! you did. you all.... left.......

>> *scuffling*

>> *inaudible laughing*
>> *footsteps fading, door opening, creaking on hinges*



>> FUCK YOU!

>> *glass shattering*



*inaudible*

>> *faint sound of engine rumbling*





Transcript ENDS.

part 5. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

She's in the passenger seat she's quiet quick shhh nobody's here she tiptoes she's still crying her head hurts leaving leaving everyone leaves she'll leave she's in the drivers seat, the keys are in her hands in the ignition punch the clutch one two ah fuck stall shhhhhh car red car "shhhhhhhh!" nobody's here nobody cares; her stomach lurches gravel underneath her palms knees scraped tires on gravel scrape try again clinking keys dumble he's in the passenger seat he's not here Luke's not here right now shh he won't mind red drunk lights on no off she's leaving she's moving the car is lurching bonfire raging Emerson dead she's going she shatters the wine bottle throws it against the porch on the roof twists her ankle shatters glass foot on the gas stick-shift fists hair hands dead smile twinkle eyes death shit red games stick shift engine on car moving she's screaming again there's smoke from the bonfire there's smoke there's shattered glass she's stopped she's sick there's vomit where how red metal red car she's fire smoke fire red car bonnet crumples she blacks out.

part 6. [ coding by griffin ]

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

↳ QUINNEMBERSTATT. 

She comes to in the morning, feeling like death but very much alive.

It starts with the ache in her bones, her limbs, her back, her head. Lord, her head. The birds greet her with a gentle call, blades of grass softly pricking freckled skin through her knitted camisole. It's quite lovely, actually. Perhaps she'll stay here a while.

Quinn doesn't want to open her eyes. Knows she has to, eventually. But for a few precious seconds she just lies there and breathes in through her nose, out, in again. Eyes closed, a tilting of gravity behind her nose, in her skull. It smells like home, that summer heat in the air, dewdrops and sweat and humidity.

Someone rocks her to sleep. Strong arms around her, gentle yet firm, she feels safe. It feels like her Pa. She is seventeen, she is seven, Mace carrying her home at dusk from the bed she'd made in sweetgrass fields after riding all the way to Ma Emberstatt's on her pony.

When Quinn finally opens her eyes she blinks, bleary and still drunk, through the morning sun to find her cousin looking down at her. "Emerson?" she croaks, throat dry and hoarse - and it's him, those twinkling eyes when he smiles, she'd know them anywhere. It has to be.

But he's older, somehow. There's crinkles in his eyes and stubble on his chin, freckled skin browned by all those summers in the District Ten sun. It's Emerson. She knows that face. It's-

no?

Emerson, not Emerson, smiles at her with love in his eyes. And when she blinks he's gone, ray of sunlight stealing him away. Quinn sits up too quickly and the world tilts, back down she goes. Her head hits the grass and she groans, auras dancing through the sky, in her irises, all the way into the back of her head. Close, open. Twenty-three eyes stare back at her. Unmoving. Unexpressive.

I know you, she wants to say. But she can't. She's already asleep.

She wakes again when the sun demands it, now high in the sky above. The cicadas screech as Quinn stirs, stretching in her bed - no. It's too warm, too scratchy, she rolls over. Opens her eyes slowly, slowly, slowly...

The day welcomes her with a kick in the abdomen and she doubles over, vomiting in the front yard. When her coughs end up empty save for acidic spit and her diaphragm stops spasming she lays her head back down and cradles it in her hands.

She is nowhere near Luke Searly's red car, headlights shattered against a now crumbling pole by the gates of the Victor's Village. By some miracle she has, Quinn realises, been transported from the front seat to just outside her home. Regret lays another punch to her gut, her head, a bubbling in her stomach that weilds a threat. Last night is a tape sped up, played, sped up again, rewound - she can't place any of it, can't understand what she's seeing in her memory, but it's bad.

Nobody is here. She sits up again and managed to look around once, then twice - no-one. Quinn is just as alone as she was last night. No footprints, but her Pa had carried her. Had he not? A phone call, the car. Quinn burps, groans, lies very still. The smell of smoke, speed up. Rooftop, sun-burned nose and sun-burned scalp. Her mouth is dry, cotton wedged between her teeth. Emerson. The sun smiles, twinkling eyes. Fourty-six of them. Two of them. His eyes. Emerson's eyes.

Except-

("Don't.")

She vomits again.

part 7. [ coding by griffin ]