false idols - nori + sera

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

Days away from my death, I didn’t think I’d be chilling like this.

My pack full of supplies, my belly full of funnel cake, two hotties on my team, and some violence out of my system: I’m feeling pretty damn good. It doesn’t matter that the sun is beating down on my shoulders, making this leathery outfit stick to every nook and cranny of my body, even the ones I didn’t know I had. Nothing is about to ruin my mood. And I hope nothing does. Because I don’t want to get jinxed right now, on my recon mission.

I have Vera and Lucia to thank for giving me a task to pin down the endless rambling of my mind, which has been screaming orders at me since the gong rang. Now I have something to focus on: split up, lay low and look around, see what’s out there. Maybe find a source of water or food. Then follow my own trail back to the robot concert.

This is the plan I’m repeating to myself as I drag the blade of my long-handled blade thingy through the sand, leaving a line to follow back. Yes, it’s true that someone could follow my trail just as easily as I intend to follow it. But I’m feeling especially lucky, being totally untouched in that fight back there, almost like I have some kind of magic halo that protects my whole body from harm. If luck holds out, they won’t find me. If they find me, I guess I’ll just have to figure out how to use this shiny new toy I’m holding.

I don’t know how long I’ve walked when I reach the neon sign that says, “BLACK ROCK CITY!” The light buzzes and flickers like it’s on old wires, and immediately I feel like rolling my eyes. ”Ohhhh I get it. Budget cuts, right? I bet y’all paid so much for the robot band you had nothing left over." I don’t know if the men upstairs can hear me. I hope so.

I’m so dumbstruck by the size of these weird religious sculptures that I don’t even realize at first that I’m not alone. My breath catches for a moment, but then, I have to keep my cool. She wasn’t following me, she was just here. And she must have heard me talking to the gamemakers, and she didn’t attack me. I’m not in the mood to attack her, either. I feel like a window shopper, walking around with big eyes and sweaty hands, uninterested in real action at this particular moment.

”Those things give me the creeps. Maybe we need to worship them so when they come to life, they don’t try to kill us.”

What the hell, I’ll try to make her laugh. I drop my weapon, fall to my knees, and raise my arms in exaltation towards one of the statues, a seated blue person with fish swimming through them.

”OH PLEASE SPARE US YOUR WRATH, ALL POWERFUL BLUE FISH MAN! WE ARE BUT LOWLY APES AND THOU ART LARGE AND HAVE MANY FISHES!”

Out of breath, I turn to the girl beside me, offering a friendly, ironic smile. ”Yeah, you know what, I feel better actually. This place kinda blows, though.”

[kaitlin]

[Cait]

sera keoch

[tw: suicidal thoughts]


Whether I knew it at the time or not, I made a choice when that countdown began.

Flynn had given me as close to a blessing as I could get to step off the podium early. Reassured me there’d be no pain, no fuss. An easy way out. A chance to be reunited with Izzy, if you believe in that kinda thing. Truthfully, I’m not sure what I believe anymore.

There’s a term for what I am: passively suicidal. You want to die, but you won’t do anything about it. You’ll only let someone else do the evil thing for you. Countless times I should have ended it before now, but I’ve never had enough of my own strength to see me through.

“You won’t feel a thing.”

Maybe I should have done it.

I don’t know. Guess it just seemed like a coward’s way out, given my ironic relationship with mortality. There’s something nauseating about cheating death after spending so long living it, breathing it, knowing it so wholly. But who knows. Maybe I’ll change my mind after spending long enough with Circe. Or maybe she’ll kill me in my sleep and I won’t have to waste any more energy contemplating how I’ll die.

It's a small relief to have the space away from her brooding, bossy ways. “We need to find Portia.” “We need to grab weapons.” “We need to split up.” It’s a little insulting to be bossed around by a midget three years my junior, but I don’t have the energy to care to argue. She went right, I went left. Solitude is nothing new; I’ve been living in it for a whole year already.

The scraping sound of sand being dragged behind a blade is the first indication that I’m not as alone as I’d originally thought. Instinct tells me to run and hide, but impulsivity tells me to sit and wait to see what happens. Maybe it’s Portia. Wasn’t that what I was supposed to be doing, after all? Looking for her, instead of wondering what the best way to die would be?

I fold myself into the sand, leaning against one particularly paint-splattered statue to watch a new girl stroll across the plains like she owns the whole damn Arena. Confidence or stupidity? Don’t know. I respect it though.

And then she opens her mouth to monologue and every shred of growing admiration disappears like a mirage in the desert.

When she’s quite finished, I cough rudely, and she swiftly turns in my direction. I watch the sharp intake of breath as she runs through all the possibilities and outcomes for two enemy tributes coming face to face, one much more heavily advantaged than the other.

It’s wishful thinking to hope she’ll walk on by without acknowledging me. But when she talks to me directly, I find myself wishing she’d have just attacked me instead.

“Maybe we need to worship them so when they come to life, they don’t try to kill us.”

I don’t reply; just raise my eyebrows at her, which is all the invitation she needs to drop to her knees and scream at the top of her lungs in a way that is so unashamed and embarrassing that the immense second-hand cringe causes me to outwardly shudder in my own skin.

Seriously. What the fuck is up with the tributes this year?

But hey. Maybe she’s onto something. Live fast die young you only live once don’t be a buzzkill yada yada. I stand up, brushing tiny grains of sand off of my exposed skin, and decide to play along.

“Nah babe. You’re going about it all wrong. If you want their attention, you gotta play dirty.” I pause, contemplating the cans of paint spread across the sand, before my gaze lands on the stuffed backpack slung across her shoulder. “You got anything useful in there? Crayons? Spray cans? C’mon, share with the class.”