Blame The {Night} On :Me: [kara!]

[sadniss everdeen]

Jessalyn Colbier

♫ Girl what you drinking? Gonna let it sink in ♫

~:~ 914493 ~:~ Can't you just watch me? It's so much easier to understand.
~:~ 469344 ~:~ I have a mind, I swear. It's all hidden away up here.
~:~ 936944 ~:~ It's okay if it doesn't look like I understand, because I do.
~:~ 446D93 ~:~ Without music I can't breathe, but it's so hard to make my own.

blame it on the goose, got you feeling loose
blame it on the 'tron, got you in the zone
blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol [/size][/font]

It is midnight by the time your feet have managed to touch the old, worn concrete leading down into the blank abyss. Today has been teetering on the brink of meltdown and people can see the beginnings of distant pain in your eyes, so they leave you alone and really that's for the best - but you just feel so lonely. Dance was closed today and it only heightened your sense of panic, gnawing apart your insides and licking bright flames up your brain. You feel yourself separating, world disappearing under your feet and sound melting into nothing but a constant drone. A tongue darts out and licks dry lips, body vibrating when the pulse from deep within the underground reaches your chest. It opens your eyes, pulls you back from whatever hole you've attempted to crawl into and allows you to do more than just go through the motions of existing to the point where you can live.

And really, isn't that what we all want in the end? A smile spreads your lips apart for no specific reason, body moving of its own accord into the gloom. You crave the numbing embrace of throbbing strobe lights and howling bass, pumping another kind of poison into your veins as you dancedancedance and remember how to breathe.

(somedays i don't want to move, but others i just can't stop. the energy will make me explode.)

Everything around you is changing when you steadfastly wish it to stay the same - you dislike the way gravity is swept out from under your feet and you're left stranded in a mind that doesn't wish to be yours. Even people who think you're dumb (and you are. but it's okay, dancer, because they are not worth your radiance) have noticed that you talk less and less and try to rationale it to simple things like hormones and change and stress when really you aren't even sure yourself. You miss Your Lady with your whole heart and wish to mail it to her so she can keep it safe, but this Girl With Beautiful Eyes makes your chest do this funny clench that she never did. It's intriguing and you honestly wish to figure it out, and the only way you know how is to shut down and think.

it's okay jessa, really. you can talk when you're ready but really what they ache to say is darling, you have to speak your mind. you have to come out from wherever you hide yourself all the time. and you understand, honestly, you do. But you can't bring yourself to face the voices and people and feelings that burn much too bright into the night.

This dark is a different kind of the one that lurks in your room, waiting to sear pictures on your eyes that makes you plug your ears and mutter a chain of protests to awaiting minds; it is soft and comforting and you can see the glow from the lights as you descend deeper into the tunnel. Ground shakes underfoot and you feel so alivealivealive as you bring stale air into your lungs and revel in the scent of human sweat and sanity.

(Through all of these hardships people find it in themselves to just let go and you find yourself understanding that, because your whole life you've never really had anything to let go of. It's just been a rapid succession of floating farther away.)

It doesn't take long and you are swept into the crushing mass of bodies, admiring the way you don't feel lonely anymore and the ache is gone and you finally learn how to smile for a little while. A nameless face offers you a drink and you smile sweetly at him, gulping it down quickly and feeling your eyes take on that often glassy, gone look that never ceases to scare people away. There is something so tragically beautiful about you that it either draws them in until they are tired of you, or scared away before you have change to show them that really, i'm not stupid on the inside. i promise. won't you come and play?

It takes two more drinks and some whispered words before you're out on the floor, tendrils twining around bewitched passerby and arms up high over your head; your face is painted in a neon glow that makes you seem somewhat surreal, all glossy and lost and unable to be caught.

(others always want to put me into their collection, but the glass tries to crush me.)

[/i]

Pink painted nails scratch a rhythm in time to the stuttered rise and fall of your chest - you love these nights because whatever something you see in the gaze of others is always erased when they watch you move. You are an enigma wrapped up in toned legs and a lengthy mane. Every part of you loves strangers because they don't get this heartbreakingly sad expression whenever you close in on yourself and in return they love you when they take you home and splay you on their bedsheets - really, you don't mind. You love sex because it's just another type of dance.

After a while you catch a flash of blonde curls that contrast brightly against the dimly lit space, stuck by the wall with this intriuging lost expression that you vaguely recognize whenever you take a look in the mirror. You tilt your head and shimmy away from whoever you were dancing with, feeling so very cold by the lack of his presence but warmed by the concept of making a new acquaintance. You have to work so very hard to even talk to people that having a conversation feels like flying.

(And there is something about her that screams i'm broken and i need something to fix me, don't you see? that draws you, because fractured people are always pulled together by gravity.)

"Hi." You grin, teeth flashing in monochrome brilliance and lighting up your ocean blue eyes. "Are you lonely?"

(i find people always tell me what they want clearly when they aren't speaking.)[/i][/blockquote]

blame it on the vodka, blame it on the henny
blame it on the blue top, got you feeling dizzy
blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol [/size][/font]

[OOC: Bah, I think I'm going to apologize for this mess. But I'm not sure.]
[/color][/size]

[ja'mie]

Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?

She was going crazy, she was sure, and the blood didn't help as it oozed over her white knuckles, down her fingers, spilling onto the soft dirt around the bare soles of her feet. Her shoes were sprawled a few feet away, abandoned in the dipping sun, and their worn patent leather glistened under the pinks and blues, the burning oranges of sunset that reminded her of fireplaces in the winter. Willa, herself, was leaning against the south wall of what seemed to be a small farmers-hut, her arched form slowly crumpling down into the merciful hands of the meadow, and she tried to clear her mind, close her eyes. Blades of green grass tickled the tip of her nose as she tried to lay still, to embrace the moist coolness of the earth, and there the sounds of the crickets came to her more clearly. She could hear the anticipation in their voices as they chirped for the crawl of evening and night, when the serenading sessions could finally begin, scheduled nocturnally and guaranteed satisfactory to quiet listeners. “A poor man’s concert”, her father had once called it. “For the avoxes and the outcasts…” They had walked to the border the day he had said that, on a family field trip to both enjoy the sunshine and pass the time. Willa had enjoyed the excursion immensely (while her brothers had seemed more interested in discussing broad hunger games statistics), and she peered through the coiled gates into the land beyond, the churning in her stomach both frightening and exciting at the sight of the foreign trees and grass, wildflowers. Everything so vibrant and full of color and really, really truly alive. But what, as she vaguely recalled now, had attracted her most, was the raw and unevenness of it, unlike the pots of trimmed roses and evergreens scattered throughout the district. This kind of scenery was different… dangerous, and untouched by human hands, and therefore indubitably alien.

It was the unknown, and irresistible that way. Overwhelmingly, beautifully strange to her, and she had to keep her fingers from reaching through the fence as father explained the laws and forbiddances of the outside world. How no one was ever allowed under or over the gate, meant to keep the claws of vicious animals away and civilians safe under capitol supervision. He told of horror stories about large brown bears and rattling snakes, and even delinquent runaways snarling at young children through the barbed wire, and snatching toddlers away from distracted parents if they made the mistake of drawing too close, and they were never to be seen again.
If the stories’ contents didn’t get across to the Jaciak children, it was the fervent, almost desperate tone of their father’s voice, and his sputtering, violent glare that had them on edge for the rest of the day. By time it was dark, they were asking to leave and return home, where it was safe and familiar. Anything to get away from the fence, and the animals and the criminals, and they all headed home jumpy and agitated, even their mother, Lauren, taking short breaths and long strides. Only father seemed to be at ease, with a small smile, and he even let them go to career-training a bit later than usual the next day: all due to his good mood.

After that, Willa decided she would never return to the fence. A long while ago she had learned to not trust herself, or at the very least suppress her initial instincts… always. They had only ever gotten her in trouble or worse, and for once she wanted to do the right thing. So every walk home from school, she would push her legs forward, and march back home, always on the right side of the street, always one foot in front of the other. And she would look straight ahead, and think about training that evening, and not even glance down the small paths that she knew would ultimately lead to the outskirts of District One. And in this way she made her way back home, day after day, until she gradually forgot all about the family trip, and the border, and the lush life behind the fence. One might even call it her… one and only true success in training… perhaps in will power and obedience, or the ability to tell herself “no”. And in the back of her mind, this newfound control quietly pleased her, the fact that she could place limits and follow through.

But that had all been a long time ago, before the nightmares and everything else. A time where she could only remember bits and pieces of things, grasping at them like marbles. It was odd, because the best memories weren’t particularly extravagant (for example… receiving large birthday gifts or having one’s first kiss); they were wonderfully average. Like sitting down to dinner, and practicing archery in the training center with her brothers, all shooting at the same target, together. Going to grade school and talking with kids her age, listening to teachers drone on and on about District Thirteen as she looked out the window, to watch the day’s events unfold outside. Remembering those things made her happy, despite the lack of luster. They gave her that floating feeling…

Finally, about a month ago, she had gone back to the border for the first time in a long time. During noon, when she’d seemed less suspicious in the broad daylight, just a curious teenager, as the peacekeepers ate their lunches and listened to the hum of the electricity running through the fence. It was just like she remembered… the twisting vines, the mossy rocks. The soft patter of squirrels and the faint chirping of mockingjays in the distance. It took her breath away, but soon a peacekeeper was peering over at her around the folds of his uniform, watching her with wary but unwavering green eyes, and she reluctantly pulled herself away and turned back.

She returned the next week. And the week after that. She had forgotten what really drove her to reunite with the fence and the border, but soon she felt herself addicted to the… the rush of standing so near to the other side, just out of reach. So she came again and again and again, until the idea popped into her mind.

Getting over the fence was harder than she thought it would be, and the metal spikes tore at her skin as she kneed her way through a small gap in a broken section of the structure; she had finally found that critical impairment after scouring and searching for something, anything, that she could use to get to the other side. There it had stood, alone and so obviously broken, that she wondered whether it was just a trap to lure would-be runaways to their imprisonments. But she knew she had to try anyway… and it seemed like the only chance she would get in a long while. So she set to testing the fence for electricity, coming back at obscure hours in the night to unsteadily lower tree branches and rocks into the electric field… but it seemed that that portion of the fence was broken (something that the peacekeepers were obviously aware of, as they continuously linked their shifts back to the literal hole-in-the-wall). Finally, after double checking for any sign that the power had been turned back on somehow, she built up the courage… and holding her breath as the peacekeepers walked by, she pulled herself through to the other side. Before she could think twice about it and turn back.

It was better than any drug, and amount of runner’s high… or anything else she had ever felt in her lifetime. The adrenaline coursed through her body, not unlike the voltages of electricity she was looking to avoid, and it was strange and unfamiliar, but wonderful, like a bath filled with ice. In the dark she could make out only the shapes of the trees, running her hands along the bark as she passed, although the ground under her feet was jet black. But she knew she had to keep running either way… staying near the fence was suicide, she scrambled away from the border into the real nothingness (the nothingness behind the plants and the trees near the fence… the nothingness she had never seen before in her life) away from District One altogether.

Surviving in the wild was also harder than Willa had guessed it would be. She was able to catch the slower animals, but most of them were quick and cleverly-witted, and she had to retrieve her knives and spears sullenly from the ground, where they dug into the earth, the animal already long gone and lost in the foliage and definitely not pierced under the sharp weapons meant to catch them. She once found a tree with a large enough nook to curl up in for the night, but more commonly she would have to climb into its branches and lay down to rest. It rained sometimes too, but the weather was warm enough that she didn’t need a coat to pull over her worn grey t-shirt.

She had walked for what seemed like months, in a large circle, or rather, a half-circle of considerable distance. She knew this when she found the fence again, because it wasn’t that of District One, smooth and well-cut like she remembered, and besides, she hadn’t been walking along the border for fear of unwanted attention. Yet… well, she couldn’t tell exactly which district it was. Overgrown trees and shrubs blocked most of the uneven barrier, although patches of rough barbed wire occasionally popped into sight as her eyes darted along the ridge. She quietly closed in, pressing herself against the trunk of a large oak, as she peered over the coils of metal. Rows upon rows of crops crept up into her vision, and she could make out the dotted outlines of a few small huts and shacks… she paused to put two and two together; this had to be District Eleven, the agricultural district. Images of girls and boys dressed in long robes made of carrots and stalks of celery, tiny pitchforks and bales of hay scattered all over their attire at the Opening Ceremonies… “The District Eleven tributes!” one would announce, and the District Eleven chariot would roll by in a flurry of colored vegetables and earthy tones. Yes, this was definitely that District. And she found herself wanting in, after travelling for so long without the will to keep going. She didn’t know what she had been thinking, all those nights ago when she had first stepped into the wild. She was not cut out to be a runaway. Not yet, anyway. And right now she needed to restock her supplies, and maybe rest a little on solid ground. Then she would leave, she assured herself.

The next week or so was much like those weeks of preparation to escape. She had to search for an opening of some kind, and then make sure the fence wasn’t pumped. The fence seemed to have more gaps that she had suspected, to her pleasant surprise, although most of them were either too small or too electric. Finally, she found a gap big enough to crawl through without the threat of energized currents, although it was a tight squeeze. There were also more peacekeepers standing guard, naturally, and she took note of their cycles until finally she was able to tip-toe through.

[wip]

Way out in the water,
See it swimming.