better than revenge // shrimpeh (:

[EVELANCHE WUHH?]

better than revenge

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to matt, there was nothing more ugly than district seven. nothing but gray walls stretching up and up and up. sure, the district majorly involved in construction built pretty things, but there were in few and dappled only sparsely around the inner portions, where she lived. she liked to walk to the edges, where lesser known craftsmen might work handily and make more beautiful things, usually out of wood. sometimes they were colorful, sometimes they were just simple and nice to look at. matt strolled around in circles around here, often peering in windows. she rarely felt guilt for it. her parents were well off enough that she wasn't usually called out on for such things. sometimes she even got a wave from someone's workbench within their homes. matt was also plenty aware that most of the city liked to do other things, but matt was curious enough to know who was into the district's main hobby, for lack of a better word in her mind.

matt, on this particular day, was strolling through the edges of the district, nearer to the seam. her face was stained with dirt. earlier in the morning, she had got in a sort of a mud fight with her siblings, filled with plenty of laughing. but then the hunger games had tuned to her tv, and matt looked away from them. today was the day, she reminded herself. or moreover, today is the day. the unspeakable day, perhaps ten or eleven years before, that her brother's life had been taken. the day she sat alone in front of her tv, watching him torn to shreds, screaming at the blood but not quite understanding that her brother had really left. now she knew. she couldn't live without her brother, but she knew her family couldn't live without her. every year they were up for the hunger games, almost all of her siblings, and it killed her. sometimes she wish she could simply be chosen, just to die for her brother and her family and that she could die with honor.

so as the colors danced on her color tv, she saw red. she assumed blood, so turned away to see nothing more. matt disliked blood. it wasn't moreover the thought of it that made her uncomfortable. she could deal with the satiny liquid peeling from her papercuts and accidentally hitting herself with one of the tools. that was just her foolish carelessness, and there would be nothing behind it. but the blood she saw on the tv, or the blood she heard about on the street, of someone being fatally wounded, she couldn't stand. because this sort of blood always translated back into a painful death. she feared dying. or at least that's what she thought. to be more honest, matt feared dying without honor, for commiting a crime, or in a shameful, cowardly way. what would anyone think of her if the way she died, her last standing moments, were guilt-ridden of things she could have done to make her life better? to help her family? to have pride in herself, and for others to have pride in her too? the thought was unbearable

at one point, matt nearly tripped over a low fence in her carelessness, still refelcting over what had gone on in the short day, and what it might be like to die. but what dominated her mind was her brother, chance's, death. her parents were silly to name him something like chance. her had always had a chance to live, a chance to fight, a chance to run away, a chance to try harder. a chance to do anything. but then again, maybe she didn't remember correctly. maybe her older brother, who would now be twenty years of age, didn't have the chance. maybe there was no sign, no warnings. just the sudden onslaught of terror and then the world seeping away from your eyes. matt tried to look away from the pictures in her mind by suddenly opening her eyes, but what she found before her was far more unsettling.

she had wandered through the outskirts, down to the very last ramshackled little cabin, until she was standing in front of a barbed wire fence. she knew taking one step further, even letting the tips of her toes touch the fence in a clumsy fashion, could mean certain death, or losing her entire foot. she gasped. for what lay below the fatal item, was a small, child-fitting hole. before she knew what she was doing, matt was clawing at the earth, shedding chunks of soil beside her and creating a new, sturdy tunnel system fr her to work with. after a slight struggle, she was free. she was outside the system, breaking a law, feeling free. she had never felt this reckless before, even going out after curfew.

walking, still. matt didn't know why she didn't hunch over, didn't try to be secretive. maybe she simply had forgotten to care. closed eyes. why? why was she being so ignorant? this was beautiful and -

matt fell on her back, tripping over a rock. no way did she want to get up.

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[shrimp]

THINKING/LIVING - 5A5768
SPEAKING - 474D63
FLASHBACK - 7B6A84

---

If there's one thing that I absolutely hate about being in the Uprising... Well, there isn't just one thing. There are multiple reasons as to why the Uprising members can get on my nerves. I mean, I'm the shucking Vice President, I would think that I would be able to get a bunch of rowdy kids, most of whom are a few years younger than me, to shut the hell up. But no, clearly I'm incompetent in the field of telling somebody to "shut the shucking hell up". Perhaps I curse too much - that might be it. Don't people with influence... Not curse or something?

Meh. Whatever.

But that isn't the only thing that bothers me. Do you know how crowded it can get in a tent? I mean, I lived in District 10. We practically slept on top of each other for Pete's sake. But I feel like there's even less room to be alone in the ruins of 13. At least I could have alone time in 10, but here I'm asked questions constantly, and I never have any time to myself. Sure, most of the kids are nice and all, but a girl needs her space. Just a few days ago, I was bombarded with a half-an-hour long "question session", most of which involved answering the same exact questions over and over again.

"Yes, we want to rebel against the Capitol."
"Yes, we're going to do something soon."
"No, you're not allowed to knife a fellow rebel, don't you know that you dolt?"
"We don't have much food - we can't really give you seconds. Sorry."

As you can see, we're a mangy bunch of idiots. Not only are we rowdy, unprepared and very angsty, but we simply cannot work together as a team. If somebody's going to go and flip out a switchblade at every opportunity that they get, how are they going to be able to control their emotions? Fear will shake many of them to their core, making it almost impossible for them to rebel against Peacekeepers, Gamemakers, even the Capitolites, whose blubber could be used to power candles for years on end. Yep, they wouldn't even be able to murder a Capitolite; they're all too hasty. Sure, they may kill one or two. But then their guilt will catch up with them.

They're only kids. They don't have enough trauma to truly handle the consequences of ending someone's life. Of course, I probably don't either, but I'm the Vice President. I'm supposed to act brave, act tough. I'm supposed to be one of those mindless killers. After all, it's all for the cause. Like some old dude once said "The end satisfies the means", or something along those lines. I think I read that in a textbook... Hmph. It may have been "justified", I'm not sure.

But anyways, back to the story. You see, all of those rebels just kept pestering me for so long, that I had to have some time to myself. So I told Griffin that I was taking a short trip. I wasn't going to be gone long - just for the rest of the day. I promised him that I would return in three days, give or take a couple of days. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what I was going do do. So naturally, it would be obvious to many that I was gong to have to be allowed to "wander" for a little longer than he wished. Well, he probably wished that I wouldn't leave (after all, who else is going to get them in line? He could barely keep order at all during the first meeting) Regardless, I packed up some food, grabbed my switchblade, and I was off.

I walked around aimlessly for a while, just looking around, watching the clouds float by, shivering because I didn't bring a jacket, normal stuff. At night, I would prop myself up against a tree, and pray that I wasn't eaten by a bear in the middle of the night.

Yes, I brought a map. No, I didn't get lost. Well, I'm not lost, that's the correct wording. No sirree, my sense of direction is perfect. How else would I wind up outside of District 7? Wait, District 7? How the hell did I get here? I think that subconsciously, I had been desiring to go back to 10 for a bit, see Nadia's grave, say hi to Mindy for a bit. You know, visit. That wouldn't really be a good idea though - it's pretty obvious that I'd be captured and sent to the Capitol to become an avox, if not killed on the spot as soon as Peacekeepers saw me.

Anyways, I'm here now - on the outskirts of District 7. The carpentry district. Perhaps I'll find some new rebel or something of the sort. Who knows? I think Pravine was from 7... Hmm. Just then, I see something move out of the corner of my eye. A small gasp escapes from my throat, and I crouch into a defensive position, my switchblade concealed behind my back.

Oh. It's a girl? Curiosity getting the better of be, I silently walk towards the person until I'm a good six or seven feet away. After examining if she has a weapon or not, I decide to just say "hi" or something. Perhaps I should ask if she's hurt or something...

Aw, shuck it. Whatever happens happens.

"Yo, you alright? It looked like you had a pretty nasty fall."

[vividwriter]

Adelthryd

I'm hiking through the woods, as I usually do at night (because it makes me feel safer) when my ears catch on a small sound. A grunt/squeal? I crouch down and immediatly face the sound. A girl, on her rear, who looks like she just dug from under the fence. I'm just about ready to continue carefully on, when a voice breaks the silence.
"Yo, you all right? looks like you had a pretty nasty fall."

I swing towards the voice. A woman, wait, I recognize her. The leader, no, vice president of the Uprising. Here? This makes no sense. I decide to sit tight and observe the conversation to see how long this 'vice president' will hang out so close to the fence, talking to a stranger. If I were her, I wouldn't be anywhere close to a fence without backup...

The thought causes me to nervously scan my surroundings.

[EVELANCHE WUHH?]

better than revenge

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matt squeezed her eyes shut, on the verge of a calm, peaceful slumber. she hoped she wasn't too close to the fence. then again, she was behind a rock. who was there to see her, even from a distance. she puffed out her cheeks, thoughtfully preparing herself in her drowsy state, to roll onto her side. Ugh, just kidding, she thought frustratedly. She perhaps had a bruise on her back from where she fell, but her rest on solid, crooked soil had not improved things for her rest.

there were a few footsteps before the voice. matt should have expected it, of course. even if she couldn't be seen from within the fence, there were bound to be people who ventured outside the fence, besides her. she simply couldn't be alone in that part. she remembered that there had already been a hole beneath the fence, and it frustrated her that she hadn't assumed that another being, district seven or not, had used it. and disreguarding the hole completely, weren't there bound to be a few runaways about?

"yo, you alright? you look like you had a pretty nasty fall." the spoken word of a person startled matt. she sucked in her cheeks before deciding it wasn't a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. she didn't exactly know what to think of what she had heard. maybe it was just her head spinning, something inside her perhaps. she realized the back of her head was throbbing in an awful, rhythmic tune and she grimmaced, still not willing to open her eyes and accept the awfulness of the situation. she didn't know this person - whether they were a dillusion in her head or not.

matt opened her eyes slowly. the world was blurred. how hard had she actually tripped? she opened her mouth but her tongue and throat were awfully dry, and she shivered at the thought at not being able to speak. but she didn't know what to do anyways. because, yes, there was most definitely someone standing above her. they were only a shadowy figure to her, however, towards the right of her partially screwed up vision, contrasting against the dizzying sun.

she frowned, still thinking. they were probably wondering by now if she was an avox. she assumed they had been standing there for a while, but she wasn't very good at measuring time and this left her confused. should she talk to this person? they were obviously capable of hurting her. she was sure the human had a weapon on him, and they happened to be quite a bit taller than her as well. or was he? she couldn't really tell, her vision still swirling. nevermind that, the most mathilde could do was kick, maybe slap some.

she furrowed her brow until lines creased above her nose. this was altogether too confusing. however, no panic came to her heart or her mind. she was remaining clam. odd, for someone as passionate, and usually as panicing as matt. she bit her lip, and tried to prop herself up on her elbows. pain pounded through her head, and she realized she had probably fallen much harder than she originally thought. she didn't want to look at herself, afraidd of the injuries she might see. they certainly didn't seem fatal of course. but they definitely hurt. matt further arched her back to see what pain at come, and she felt twinges along her spine. she assumed she bruised a bone, perhaps her skin as well. the onlooker above her must have thought her weird, but a low moan escaping matt's lips revealed it all.

mathilde was still choosing her words and waiting for the dryness in her mouth to exit but time was moving faster than her brain. she had very few moments to talk before the human above her might do something further. "i, um.."she croaked "i did fall." matt deemed herself not good with words, but it was true, yet also something the person could probably figure out themselves without the useless comment.

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