the {sun} is a star - [alone]

[florentine, d4b ❁]

KLAUS GORAVICH

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♕ DISTRICT THREE ♕

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For somebody so bright, you're awfully stupid.

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"...AM I IN TOO DEEP, HAVE I LOST MY MIND?"

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"'I DON'T CARE, YOU'RE HERE TONIGHT."

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Klaus blinks, and you can see the horror in his eyes. This was the first hit that was not a mistake; the first time he brought his rapier down upon another with the intent to kill. Well, perhaps not kill. You can see in his eyes that he never meant that - never meant for the girl's blood to be seeping into the sand before she could even react to the attack. You fight back the tears that you feel bubbling behind your eyes at the very thought of the boy being driven to the point of murder. After all, he hunted her down. The boy who you believed was the most pure and innocent and true in the world had been dragged into the games just like the rest. No longer the picture of perfect. Suddenly different on the television screen before you, yet the same in your mind. Unmarred. Because the look in his eyes is not murder, nor is it pain. It is a look of truth. A piercing glare in his eyes that searches for the camera, hidden so well he will never find it. But he knows it is there and it is clear that he intends to show everyone. Something. Perhaps he wishes to apologise of the ones that have died so he can still stand without wounds. Maybe he has gone insane just like you swore he would not. This was the boy you thought was better than the Games, good enough not to let them win over him. And it breaks your heart that the pressure is too great for the easily swain Klaus. You ask yourself: is he still the boy he was who smiled when it hurt and cared more for everything else than himself and wanted to know everything if only to help the world with that knowledge. Is the boy before you on the screen still the shy boy with the camera, the child from District Three?

. . . .

I wander away from the people on the beach, wondering if they are my friends. We have killed together, and must continue to do so if I ever wish to return home again. To my camera, the one I know is watching me right now through the television screen as I let my toes sink into the sand. It is recording my life the way I always hoped it would; however it does not portray me as the person I always wanted to be. I went through my whole life thinking I was better than everyone else just because I valued different things. I thought it was better to be Klaus than to be harsh-tongued or snarky or violet, thought it was better to be me than any of the others. How wrong I was, so naive. Wrapped up in my own world of facts and figures and science and history. And my stories, the ones I read when I wanted to escape from myself where the hero was always just and right and fair. And I modelled myself on those fictional ideas of perfection thinking, in my innocence, that I could achieve what they had. But I was foolish and I was wrong. I am no better than anyone else, because in the same situation nobody is better than anybody else - we are all just fighting blindly for our lives without morals and without religion. Every single one of the people in this arena were selfish enough to fight; or at least try to live. Even though every second of their life was another second another could not return home. It's twisted, it's wrong. But give anyone a sword and tell them that to see their beloved brothers and sisters again they must kill, they will swing it. Here, insanity is a given, and purity is impossible. I am not a good person; however I am not a bad person either. I am simply human.

. . . .

You find your eyes tracing the footsteps Klaus leaves in the sand. It is pale, almost as white as the snow you remember from the video you watched of Klaus' twelfth Christmas. The sea ripples slowly not far from his bare feet; his shoes hand limply in his hand. It is clear by the way he walks slightly away from his friends that he wants to be alone - they give him this. Concentration burns in your eyes as you try to read the boy for clues. What is he doing? You wonder this as you watch, however your eyes do not slide from the shaking screen. A finger slips over the lens for a moment, and there are sounds in the background, murmurs of confusion and attention. The eyes of the people in the room are glued to Klaus just as yours are; however they are the people he has lived with forever and you are not. They know him through his laughter and his tears and his embrace and you know him through the videos he made and somehow still makes through the camera he left with his brother. Hopper Goravich whispers something in his deep, broken voice, and is met with a harsh response from Jamarion. You do not want them to fall silent, yet they do. So you are left with no choice but to watch Klaus make his silent journey across the beach. He does not seem to be looking around anymore - he is so engrossed in his own world you hold your breath as if afraid of shaking him from his dreams. But of course he cannot hear you anyway.

. . . .

It's going to be okay. I don't think I've ever thought these words before. I've never needed to, because it was always okay. Everything was always simple and without doubt and easily distinguished from every other thought marring what was once the simple luxury of my mind. Before, there was right and wrong and good and evil and tears and laughter. Emotions separated and clean-cut and labelled like ingredients of a cake. But now they have been blended and mixed and thrown this way and that until I have to work to know exactly what I feel, exactly what I think. But something better has come from the confusion of my mind - the realisation that everything doesn't have to be sorted and labelled and clear. They can just be, and I can just feel, and it's okay. Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to die here, in this arena, but I want to die knowing that I am Klaus. Knowing that everyone else knows exactly who Klaus is. And as my first blow landed upon Abri's slim body, I knew what I had to do. You have to stop lying to yourself, Klaus. You have to stop lying to the world. And I'm right because I always am, apart from when I am wrong.

. . . .

Klaus seems to have reached the place he was aiming to, although there is nothing to make it any different from the last few meters of sand he has crossed. You do not question him - you simply accept his choice. You do not think like this boy, your mind does not tick in such a pure and naive way, while at the same time being brilliant. You know so much more, while at the same time knowing so much less. But this is okay - you will let him teach you. You will study and you will understand. You always do. The boy lets his eyes wander across the beach for a moment, before setting his backpack down just out of reach of the salty tendrils. And then he opens his mouth and it is quite clear that he is addressing you. Quite aware and quite comfortable with the cameras that are trained on him and broadcasting his every move to Panem. "My name is Klaus Goravich and I can't lie anymore." He begins the same way he begins every recording, however you can feel the shock rippling through the Goravich household. The questions thick in the air that nobody speaks. "Not to myself, not to my family. If I want to fight and really try, I... um, need to know who I am."[/b] He looks up, and suddenly, just for a moment, meets the gaze of the camera. His eyes linger there for just a fraction of a second and you wonder if he sees it. But then they flicker away and he clears his throat and adresses thin air with his next line. His words do not sound stiff or well rehearsed. They just sound honest and innocent and pure. Everything Klaus was, should be, perhaps still is somewhere beneath the reality of life. "I just can't hurt anyone without a good enough reason - and no reason will ever be good enough. So if I'm forced to do it anyway, I... uh, want everyone to understand who I am and what I want." He takes a deep breath and subconsciously raises his hand to his mouth, chewing on his fingernails. If this nervous boy is not Klaus, then who is?

. . . .

I do not want to say the words that linger on my tongue, trying to burst from their restraints. I have never really been one for feeling. I talk facts and figures not loves and heartbreaks. I can handle numbers, but when it comes to people I am clueless. I guess it doesn't matter. I have said far too much to turn back on my words. I have decided to let myself be me and I will. Because I need everyone to understand who Klaus is before Klaus can become anything more. And more is what I will need to be to stop me from breaking. Someone once told me that boys don't cry, but I always have. But tears wont help me now and I need to be strong just to awaken to see the next morning. I count the deaths so far that I have just watched, and then the ones I have been a part of. Never dealt that final blow, never killed. But helped. It's just as bad to watch and to strike as it is to murder. And it doesn't mean I am cold-hearted, because I am not. I feel the warmth of my own heart beating through my chest and screaming what it wants. It pains me to think that I never realised this, never listened to myself. It's okay - as long as I can die knowing I was me even for a moment, content with myself and who I am, I will be happy. And surely dying happy is the only thing anyone could ever wish for? I just want to be me. Klaus. The boy who laughed and smiled and loved. The boy who cried and cursed and eventually died. What more could I ever be?

. . . .

Klaus is shaking, however his resolve does not falter. "I am fighting for my family - Jamarion, Hopper, Marina, Tacara, Lyana. But I'm fighting for me, too. And although I will not win, I will try." You stare at him and you can see the words that echo behind the ones he speaks. I'm fighting because I could never die knowing I didn't try to see them again, to feel their embrace, to make them proud. He does not say this, but his emotions play across his face as though he is a book wide open. And you ache, too, because he did not mention your name - a name he could never have known but should have known. It is not his fault, but still you hurt. "I you five with all of my heart, but I wasn't always truthful to you. Or to myself." A tear runs down the boys sandy cheek and he smiles into the thin air before him before turning toward the camera one final time. The breeze flutters through his chocolate brown hair, misplacing it, however he does not move his hand to fix it. He is still, his eyes cast downward in a mixture of emotions you do not even try to read - he is afraid, so afraid. But fiercely determined, too. This is clear. You wonder at first if there is an earthquake rocking the arena and interrupting the child's desperate speech, but then you realise that the image is shaking only because the camera is held in Hopper's hands. Hopper Goravich is sobbing. And so are you. Because whatever Klaus have to say means everything to him, encompasses everything he is and to him is the difference between fighting and giving up. Everything has fallen into place all at once and the boy has made his choice. In the end he cannot truly say what he means, but he shows the world in his own words.

"I, well...I...um - homophobia is defined as an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people. But, I... don't want anyone to be afraid of me." With this the boy smiles and sits back in the sand. A tear lands on the sand beside him, but he does not try to conceal it. He is Klaus Goravich and he is not good. But he is good enough.


[Klaus fills both empty water jugs with sea water and does not purify.]


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"'NOW WOULD YOU DIE, FOR THE ONE YOU LOVE?"[/color]

"'HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS TONIGHT."

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