{ light 'em up } Chime

[cass]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; background-color: 0A0B09; border: 7AADB7 solid 2px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 50px;][atrb=width,300] You think you're ready for it? I wanna know why you got me going So let's go, We'll take it out of here. I think I'm ready to leap. I'm ready to live, School was, as always, a boring affair. I’m still completely unsure of why I sit through it, why do I ever drag my lazy butt out of bed to go? It is rather useless. I could leave, it’s not like mother would, well could, do anything about it. I tug my black leather jacket around me tighter, it was an old tattered thing, ripped in a lot of places, but it did what it was supposed to do and that was enough. The jeans I wore were in just a horrid state, ripped, torn and dirty. I was in the school; classes were on –classes I was of course skipping. And even though mother could not tell me off the teachers and the Peacekeeper’s sure could. And I did not want that happening. I push myself close to the nearest wall, a quick survey of the area with my brown eyes tells me no one is there. Ducking down I jog into the girls toilet. I’d skipped first period. Who wanted to do maths? Not me. I hated it, it wasn’t because I was failing or anything, I was failing all my subjects –except of for Chemistry. Maths was just on a whole new level of hard, and as weird as it sounds, a chemistry girl, like myself, failing Maths. I absolutely sucked at doing anything in Maths. Guess what? I did not give a rat’s ass, either. Also skipped second period and third period as well. Art was dull and the history of Panem. Ripred I was tired of hearing that same old rubbish. Rebellion here, rebellion there. Oh look the dark days, let’s all not repeat that. Oh and while we are at it, we’ll chuck in the Hunger Games, kill off all you youngster’s. It is the same every class, and when we aren’t suffering in a stuffy room hearing the same old lectures about what we have done wrong, and why we all are paying for the mistakes of our useless, snobby ancestors, they talk about the history of district four (the glorious fishing district – and heightened by the teachers great approval- one of the three career districts –the place where your children are trained to kill!). If that was only enjoyable then maybe I would pop into the class once in a while. But of late, the three times I have gone to class within the month has been so very dull. The teachers are doing nothing to keep me entertained and the few times I’ve tried to make it entertaining have not worked. They just keep on kicking me out. Hell, one of the teacher’s asked me whole the hell I was. I mean it is not like I’m one of her students, because everyone just wants to sit in her class and listen to that ugly face as she drones on about shit. Ripred the brains of some people. They aren’t bragging or anything like that. I mean rubbing it in our face every day isn’t enough? I don’t know. I have a growing distaste of the Capitol that only seems to increase with every passing day. Lately it has become increasingly harder, as well, to slide past my mother without her raising and eyebrow, scowling and sometimes –no, actually a lot of the time, screaming and yelling and demanding that I tell her why I’m missing classes. It irritates her for some reason. It’s not like she ever went to her classes. Pffft. She is a stupid old lady with pathetic religious beliefs that drive me insane and she calls me the crazy one. The nerve she has to say such things. It is rather repulsive to be in her presence at times, it lowers the IQ of the entire room, in all honesty. It wasn’t enough for her to kill off my dad, following those haunting religious traditions. She then had to snag my sister with her claws and drag her into the beliefs that had led to that twisted, awful mind of hers. Sometimes I wonder if there is actually a brain beneath it all. One day I’ll have to smash it open and find out. Most people would find that horrifying, the fact that I wanted to smash my mother’s head in, but hell she so deserves it. She killed my father, she drowned him, and then she tried to get me into her religious nonsense. Ripred (I don’t even believe in Ripred, or whatever his name is, but sure as hell is a lot of fun to say. The looks my mother gives me, something to do with saying his name “in vain”. What a laugh) knows what is going on in that woman’s head. She’ll kneel on the freaking ground for an hour everyday praying. She stopped caring about me, that much, the day I told her to fuck off, because I was sick and tired of hearing her religious crap, telling me to pray or I would die a horrible death. Well I’m alive, healthy and I am not planning on dying any time soon. The toilets are filthy. Paper, rubbish and dirt lay scattered everywhere. A smirk flickers across my face and I head over to the nearest toilet stall. Eagerly I reach forwards wrapping a thin pale hand around the nearest toilet role. My other hand tugs a lighter out from my pocket. The smirk turns into more of a wicked grin, eyes flashing with joy I gather the rest of the toilet rolls before heading back to the sinks. I dump them all into the closes sink. Then with care I set them all on fire. I'm ready to go-oh oh oh (Get me out of my mind) (Get me out of my mind) I'm ready to go-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh

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[Ivana Vox [Chime]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 10px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] To say I didn't understand anything anymore would be a lie, and a bad one at that. I understood perfectly well everything that happened. I could repeat back to you the lessons that we'd had all week, word for word, dropping, hushed voices and sad tones including into the list of "facts." If you could even call them that, the dramatized stories that the teachers were required to feed us as a curriculum. They were nothing like real facts, something solid and tangible. Instead they were meant to instil fear in the students and make them cowards. I would not stand for that. I would not be a coward. I couldn't be. I wasn't a Career, no, far from it even, but I wouldn't fear their Games. Not the ones inside an arena projected for the world, and certainly not the ones that were fought and lost right in our homes. They were poisoning us, bit by tiny bit. Switching their serums every so often to make sure we never became immune to their biting words, but still it was that same symptoms. The same blank expressions and small personalities, the fear to step outside of what they'd decided what was right. This wasn't school, it was a prison. The units we were required to take weren't made to get us anywhere, they just wanted to stick us into this constant loop, beating us relentlessly to fall, fall, fall. I'm tired of my teachers drowning me, but there's nothing I can do. "You have to go to school," they say, my father and mother and all of my brothers. They don't know, don't know how even the teacher avoids my eyes. I'm almost certain that even they don't know why they do it, their gazes flickering from my right side to my left, where Jacqueline usually sits. I took that seat beside her in every class we have together, to keep her close to my heart, within an arm's reach. I will not let harm come to her, will not let those blue eyes fade to grey. Not like mine have. But this is a class we don't share, one on the weapons used by the Capitol during the Rebellion. (But I know, I know it's so wrong, I know that you can kill an army with one hard look, she's told me stories and she knows best.)

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Then there was just a scruffy boy looking over my shoulder, sniffling every once and a while as he tried to distinguish my writing on the thin sheets of paper, scrawling and scratching straight through to leave smudging marks across my desk. I wanted to stand up and hit him over the ear. Luckily, he couldn't read the words that I'd pushed so hard onto my notes that my pencil was precariously close to snapping right in two, my grip white knuckled. He couldn't see that I was correcting the teacher with every word that dropped out of her mouth. Some stories don't die. They're passed down from family to family, haunting whispers of illegal tales. War stories. The real deal, with the close calls and the Capitol casualties.

My lips twisted into a thin smile as I stared straight ahead, the teacher dropping her chalk on the floor as she fumbled under my gaze. A rustle of paper over her bumbling, incoherent mumbles, the sound of my "work" being stuffed into my book bag, a pencil or two rolling on top of the heaping pile and the whole thing being slung over my shoulder. I was done with this. I'd find my sister and tell her I was going home, that's all I needed to do. I couldn't stand this anymore, not the stifling air or the idiotic instructors that wanted to feed us lie after lie with a healthy dose of a deadly virus called cowardice in every spoonful.

I mean to go to my sister's classroom, to at least follow protocol. I have a feeling that crawls underneath my skin that she won't be there though, that she'll have gone home or outside or somewhere far, far away from the ghosts she says lurks in the corners of the classroom, drawing the oxygen out of the air and making her see black, black, black. She says they don't clear away the cobwebs here, and I never know what she means. I just know that she hates it as much as I do, she just never complains. Not to the people that could pull her out of classes and leave her where she wants to be. Wherever that is. Even I don't know. I just know that I should at least try to tell her I'm leaving, and if I get whipped for it, so be it. I try the bathrooms first, as sometimes she'll hide in the stall and lock herself away.

It's not empty, and my shoulders tense up at the realization. I didn't mean to stumble across something like this, another girl who I would have to play nice with. I don't want to play nice though. [/i]

That's when I heard the sizzle, crackle, pop of flames and saw the red, orange, yellow dancing in the sink, lighting up the dirty mirrors and finally making them reflect. Paper goes up like kindling and water just makes it smoke. Briefly I considered leaving so I didn't get in trouble, but I couldn't drag myself away from a girl's grin or the glow reflected in her face, every sputter of the fire dancing in her eyes. I thought for a moment that maybe she could be the closest thing I've ever seen to a deity. At least any one worth worshipping.

"Let me give you a hand."

It wasn't an offer or even a suggestion, it was a decision that I had already made for her as I dug some of their stupid notes out of my bag, holding it close to the licking sparks and waiting for the corner to catch before letting it float to the floor. The one sheet wasn't enough to burn the walls, but I had more. In the closest thing I'd come to sharing with anyone besides Jacqueline, I held out a handful of papers and ripped textbook pages as a challenge. Just to see if she was serious. To see if this stranger had truly broken away, or if she was going to crawl back to them like a stray dog begging for rotten scraps.[/color]
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[cass]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; background-color: 0A0B09; border: 7AADB7 solid 2px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 50px;][atrb=width,300] You think you're ready for it? I wanna know why you got me going So let's go, We'll take it out of here. I think I'm ready to leap. I'm ready to live, The flames danced, flickering and rising higher and higher. A thin trail of smoke begun to spin upwards, twirling up until it hit the roof where it began to form into a thick, black cloud. My eyes followed this trail, before halting on that forming cloud of billowing smoke. It looked like an angry sheep, black, angry and smelly. I loved it. It reminded me of the last time I had burnt a room. The fire had not gotten very far before a teacher had found it, ending my little experiment. I had ran, full on sprinting away as he screamed for me to stop, thank god he didn’t get to see my face, he’d seen my clothes, hair and well everything else, but not my face. The Peacekeeper’s had come in the next day at school, before door knocking on every house where the children had been away for the day. They’d demanded answers, also allowing the teacher to check each female student, seeing if he can spot, well remember who it was. I’d not gone to school that day, but neither had I stayed home. I’d simply spent the day wondering around the district and in the end some poor girl had been taken in, the Peacekeeper’s had just need to punish someone so they took it out on her. I wonder if mum told them that I’d gone out for the day. Would she have ratted me out to the Peacekeeper’s? I mean I knew she hated me and I hated her, but I was sure, well as sure as I could be when I was talking about my murderous mother, that she had enough decency to keep me alive. And to be honest there was not a lot of confidence behind that statement. To her I was a lost cause. And lost causes were dead, she didn’t need them, so I had actually expected her to tell on me. She knew my wild nature, she knew half the stuff I got onto and if a Peacekeeper was to take even a glimpse into my room they’d see all they would need to see to lock me up. There was everything in there, all my notebooks filled with the thousand pranks I had pulled, step by step instructions on how to break into buildings –whether they’d work I did not know, well some did, others were a bit more on the ‘you’ll get caught’ side of things. They say she got whipped three, four times, not that much, but enough to make it into some kind of punishment. I’ve never felt bad. Shit happens in the real world, why should I ever have to feel responsible for something I did not do. I’d simply played the game like all the other prankster’s in the school. And in a game like this there were casualties. The weak ones always offered themselves up, when they heard someone was getting what they deserved, but it was those in the elite, those like me and Devon who were the stars. We were never seen, we were never caught, but everyone knew it was us doing the pranks; they just had no way of getting us punished because they could never get the evidence. It was why I always turned for the most daring, risky pranks of all. Setting the toilets on fire? Pffft. That was a walk in the park; I was only standing here and doing this right now because I was bored, not because it was some ingenious prank of mine. If I wanted to do something reckless I’d blow up this entire building, but as it was the toilets did not deserve that. When I didn’t want to be in class they were the best place to escape it all, especially when you were running from teachers. The last stall had a window above it and it slid open pretty easily, so if you could beat the teacher to the toilet you could slip out through there and disappear before they knew what had happened. I reach forwards and shove more toilet paper into the ever growing flames. They flickered and danced above the rim of the sink. I frowned for a moment; I need to make this bigger and better if I wanted to set this whole place alight. It was rather boring to set just the sink and go; there was no fun in a wasteful prank. I had one rule with my pranking. If I was going to do a prank I’d do it right, there would be no half attempt, there would be no backing out half way. I was serious in this one side of business. So right now this was not a very good affair. The flames were boring me; they weren’t big enough, nor bright enough. Just as I’d decided to empty the entire lighter fluid into the fire my thoughts are interrupted by the appearance of another person in the toilet. I freeze. Ooops. "Let me give you a hand." Well that was unexpected. I cock my head to the side, raising a curious eyebrow. Well I had not expected her to grab some paper from her bag and set it on fire. Hell I’d never seen this girl before. I didn’t know if she was just playing along getting rid to tell on me, or if she was absolutely serious about what she was doing. Huh. She could be some maniac nut-job that was having an emotional moment that she would later regret and spill everything that had happened to the teachers. It was not a smart idea to stay and chat and join in. That was just stupid. But I do it anyway. I grin, my eyes flickering dangerously. She offers me a wade of her papers to burn. That makes me laugh. Ripred some people did not understand what going to an extreme meant. I could see a challenging spark in her eyes and for a moment I think we are on the same page. Was this girl like me? Or was she like the rest of them, the ones that just got super excited to do something dangerous, but chickened out at the last moment because they were scared of the consequences. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was exactly what she would do. There weren’t many people who had the stomach and skill to do most of the pranks I did. “Honey, those few papers are only going to smoke. Besides, you should keep them, you might regret doing that, because no offence you don’t look like the type of girl that would do something like this.” I smirk my tone teasing. The best way to push a person to do something dangerous was to play with their pride and to play with their pride you had to get them angry. Shrugging I nod towards the fire. ”This is how it is done.” I grip my school bag and without hesitating chuck it into the flames. The small fire begins licking at it, but really it isn’t good enough. I grab my light and with the ease of someone who has done this a thousand times, I rip the top off before pouring the lighter fluid into the flames. Instantly the flames sky-rocket, they reach up, greedy fingers begging for me fuel. I grin wickedly, before turning to the girl, and raising an eyebrow, challenging her. Ready to see if she’d run back to the hole she’d came from. I'm ready to go-oh oh oh (Get me out of my mind) (Get me out of my mind) I'm ready to go-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh

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[Ivana Vox [Chime]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 10px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] If I had ever understood what I was doing, I don't anymore. I'm moving on a different wavelength, my mind telling me 'No, this is a bad idea, back out while you still can,' while smoke filled my head and told me to go, go, go. There's nothing safe about this entire idea, there's no way out. I refuse to runaway before a job gets done, and there's a huge chance of getting caught later. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or in a coupl of weeks. But I don't know what the punishment is for children who try to burn down schools in the District, schools that I'm sure the Capitol once paid for so they'd have somewhere to lock us away. Somewhere they could put us and never have to pay attention to again. The thought sickens me just enough to make me stay, to keep me safely rooted to the ground and not even think about backing off. Maybe it's partly the ethereal girl in front of me, the one with fire for hair and the same glimmer trapped in her eyes, under her skin. Maybe it has something to do with how she doesn't back down, but I know I shouldn't let it on that she's found a crack in my walls that I didn't know existed and she's chip, chip, chipping away at the bricks. "Honey, those few papers are only going to smoke. Besides, you should keep them, you might regret doing that, because no offence you don’t look like the type of girl that would do something like this." I can feel her words melt some of the ice in my veins and turn it to something that has laid dormant in me for years. The smoke filling my vision is poisoning my thoughts and making my head feel full, and I know that I should be afraid. That I should be warning her of what I might be able to do, but even I don't know and I want to find out. I want to see this prison go up in flames. I don't think I'd mind if some of the people were conveniently trapped inside, but I know not to say a thing. I know that's not normal, and that will have her running for help. For now, I need this girl and her experience, because I'm a child of the ocean and sparks have never been anything to me. But I want to watch them all burn. Deep breath, black air filling my lungs. I can feel it sticking to my insides. "So sorry, I didn't realize I was going to be running into a pyromaniac on this fine day. I'll make sure to come better prepared with actual kindling next time. Not that flimsy toilet paper is much better than my homework." Even sarcasm doesn't come through on my voice. It's all the same monotone that scrapes at even my own hearing, but I can never seem to copy the way other people speak with inflection and lilts. They'll never realize how lucky they are to show something simply by opening their mouths when I'm hollow inside and everything about me shows it, from the greyness of my eyes to the tips of my sand-white hair and the way my tongue doesn't seem to curve around vowels like they're things to cherish, but instead biting monstrosities that all deserve to be pushed out at once with no care at all. "And you can't see me past the flames in your eyes or you wouldn't be calling me anything sweet as sugar." My voice drawls on before I snap my jaw shut, clenching it tight for a second in a little punishment. I don't get the chance to go on anyways, my attention captivated by the oranges and reds not just crawling or climbing but exploding up into the air, the heat on my face suddenly becoming something I have to step away from. I'm a frozen girl and this is not what I'm made for. Some instinct that had never had a chance to creep out is telling me to run, to back away from the hungry flames and not look back until I was far enough away to not be suffocated by the smoke or hear the screams of the less unfortunate trapped inside of a collapsing dungeon, buried under lost battles and body counts. A new collection of dead to be added to the hundreds in the districts, this time dying for nothing but a prank. I wonder briefly how much it will take for the whole place to fall to the ground. Then I face the stranger, for nothing else can really explain this bizarre girl who really ought to have introduced herself before this, and flick my hair out of my eyes as if it'll help me see through the smoke. I dig through my bag for a second, and I know it probably looks like I'm searching for a way out. Or maybe something unimportant that I wouldn't mind sacrificing to the flames, but everything I own is an accumulation of useless scraps anyways. There's nothing that I've been given in class that I care enough about to risk my pride over, but she doesn't know that. My fingers clasp around a cool, metal bottle, and I pull it out with a twisted smile. "Cleaner for the boats. After school chores." I slosh the liquid inside, swirling it around as I stare at the damage so far. There's no way that the walls will really light up, not in a bathroom where everything's a disgusting sort of damp. For a second I wish I knew where the janitors put the cleaning supplies since dumping a bottle or two of rubbing alcohol on the floors and walls would bring the entire room down in minutes, and enough of a trail would have the hallways ablaze too. There's only enough in my bottle to keep the flames going, but after that even I know it's up to chance. Inanimate objects, no matter how they flickered and licked, didn't have a mind of their own. There was probably an equal probability for success and failure. I didn't want to fail, not when I was being watched. There would be no real second chance. Hell, there may be no more anything after this if I got caught. I uncapped the bottle in my hand and judged the carnage, hoping I wasn't misjudging as I gestured for the other girl to step back. I didn't want to do her any damage, not if I could help it. She was sharp-tongued, sure, but I kind of admired that in an odd way. It was refreshing to see someone with some real soul. Though not as refreshing as it was to step as close to the exit as I dared in case someone passed by and caught a glimpse of me, just in case something went wrong, and half-threw, half-splashed liquid all over the walls, turning the fire a strange mix of a blue brighter than the sky. Brighter than even the clearest river or the sporadic patches of unpolluted seas. A dazzling, unnatural colour that made me want to jump in the air and scream, my arm high in triumph as I watched the walls catch and smoulder where the flames licked. 'I won't let you win.' I don't know if the thoughts creeping into my mind are for her or for the tyrants who stuck me in this building. Either way I find it rather fitting that I - we, because I guess it is like that now - should burn the whole place down. Or at least as much as we can manage. I swallow my euphoria and ask her instead, "Better?" in a way that I hope makes it obvious that I already know that it is.

[cass]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; background-color: 0A0B09; border: 7AADB7 solid 2px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 50px;][atrb=width,300] You think you're ready for it? I wanna know why you got me going So let's go, We'll take it out of here. I think I'm ready to leap. I'm ready to live, "So sorry, I didn't realize I was going to be running into a pyromaniac on this fine day. I'll make sure to come better prepared with actual kindling next time. Not that flimsy toilet paper is much better than my homework." I can’t help myself, but smirk. There was something about the girl that reminded me of, well, me. She had that same fiery attitude and even though the sarcasm made me prickle with annoyance it also made me want to laugh. It was boring, an all manner of boringness, going home and trying to draw a full on conversation out of my little sister. I couldn’t go two or three sentences before she’d interrupt me and spill her need of words, her comments and her thoughts on the matter. Sometimes I did want her help and her opinion, but sometimes I just wanted to rant and to be able to speak my mind without her though process interrupting. More so, more often than not, nowadays, she was adding these crazy religious beliefs, those saying’s and phrases of the holy ones that my mother was teaching her. “Be strong”, “have courage” and bull shit like “thou shalt not kill.” I mean come on, where did she think she was living? On the moon? Out entire society revolved around a game where it was kill or be killed and she was babbling on to me about rubbish that was completely and absurdly crazy. And mother thinks I’m the crazy one. I wish I could see her face when her dear daughter was called. What would she say then? If my sister ended up in the games I’m sure she’d scream murder all those bitches. Oh. Did I forget to mention the fact that she has killed. Preach what you teach, as useless as those teachings are. If she followed them, even one tiny it, I’d still have a father. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just walk away. Head out on my own, strike out like those other kids. Have my own life that isn’t dictated by the will of a crazy woman. But then I remember I have my own life and none of that is true, because what my mother says I ignore. What she tells me to do I don’t do. What a lovely family. I blink, as the growing flames send more and more smoke up and into the air. After a few moments that ever growing mass of blackness has covered the entire roof. I hold back a cough, covering it up with another smile. I loved fire. It was so ridiculously dangerous and odd. It was so hot and it burned. It held that kind of pain that no one should suffer. It wasn’t like most when after a bit it could go away, it would become numb. Fire stayed and as the moments passed the burn just grew and grew in pain until it threatens to swallow you. It was nasty stuff. And if you got past that beautiful black smoke without dying there was burning part to it. I mean the smoke fried your insides, it like ate away at all the oxygen and stopped you from breathing, so you burned on the inside. Well, that settled it; I was not going to burn to death anytime soon. I shudder at the thought. That was probably how my father had felt as he struggled to breath. It was a lot like breathing in smoke, wasn’t it? Except it had been water and hell that would burn just as much. ”And you can't see me past the flames in your eyes or you wouldn't be calling me anything sweet as sugar.” I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. She had a nice cocky attitude and a witty way with words. Is that what I sounded like? That makes me laugh, because thinking about it I was sure that was exactly how I sounded. I was short, blunt and sharp with my words. I was always prepared with a witty jibe, something that would sting. The comments that made you flinch were always the best. They made people hurt the most but then they also made people fire back with the same attitude and soon you’d all be laughing. The girl bends over her bag and pulls out a bottle, I say nothing, except raising an eyebrow questioningly. ” Cleaner for the boats. After school chores.” Seriously? People just carried around bottle of that kind of stuff? That was super-duper dangerous. And come on, you worked a job after school with that kind of stuff, so you carry it around with you. Wow. Just wow. I snort, shaking my head at the profound possibility that there were crazier people then I in this district. Well, not crazy, but certainly a little bit more worrisome with the kinds of things they carry around with them. This girl had some whacked up stuff, but it was extremely cool stuff as well. Damn that stuff burns amazingly, I was starting to like this girl a lot. Then she did it. She splashed all that beautiful liquid across the walls, and the flames went dancing. They twirled, drinking up that juice like some greedy little child with a bottle. And soon the place was alight with the glorious flames from hell. I could feel it right on my face, the heat pressing against me. The liquid caused the smoke to be tainted and the already foul substance was choking. I coughed, my eyes watering, but the whole time I’m smiling like some maniac. Burn. Let it all burn down. It would look much better as a pile of ash. It would even smell better. Fire was amazing and the damage it could do was incomparable to that of something like a crowbar, or spray can. That kind of damage was repairable, but when you burnt something down it had to be replaced. It was not the best thing for pranks, but when you just wanted destruction and mayhem it was perfect. ”Better?” My eyes are drawn away from the fire, and I turn my attention to the girl. That had been a lot better. Impressive, even. But I was not sure if this was just a one off kind of thing, or if this girl was just having a messed up day and decided to take it all out on the toilets. Or maybe she was like me and she got a thrill from doing this, she got kicks out of causing mischief and doing pranks. ”Look, let’s get out of here before we burn ourselves and before some stupid teacher comes snooping. I don’t want to have to leave you behind when the teacher’s come calling for blood.” I give her a wink before stepping past and outside. I turn to see if she is following, ”I like you kid, what’s your name? I’m Evening, just call me Eva, everyone does.” With that small introduction I pull myself together. This was danger time, anyone could see us. I give a quick sweep of the area, to make sure there was no one in view, to my horror one of the maths teachers appears. I curse, without thinking I grab the girls arm and yak her beside me before spinning and dashing around the nearest corner. A smirk finds its way back to my lips at the pleasant sound of a teacher’s screams. ooc – [If that bit of power playing with Eva grabbing her wrist is not cool, just say so and I’ll edit it ^^] I'm ready to go-oh oh oh (Get me out of my mind) (Get me out of my mind) I'm ready to go-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh

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[Ivana Vox [Chime]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 0px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] Through and through They want to walk all over you Run where they can't follow Wait underwater with me Swim 'til you're half asleep I know there's something wrong with me, I've known for ages. You can't ignore things like that, can't just shut off your mind to observing everyone around you and noticing time and time again that they all work differently than you do. Move differently, talk differently, laugh differently, smile with their hearts and their eyes and open up their souls to let the world in. To let anyone's curious fingers probe and touch and mess up all of their wiring. It's good that I'm different though. I don't want people digging around in my head and destroying everything I've worked so hard to build up. I'm stronger than all of them because I won't let anyone inside. The only thing I can do is swallow back the bile in my throat as other people spit out beautiful lies and tug on everyone's heartstrings, playing them like the delicate instruments brought back by Victors so they can show off to all of Panem. I am not a toy. I am not a skill to be acquired. I am not something to be tamed. The dancing flames tell me that, sing to me and whisper their heat over my skin, raising the hair on the back of my neck. For the first time in ages I don't feel like I'm burning from the inside out. I feel like I'm on fire from the outside in. I'm burning and so is this bathroom. Soon enough, the walls will be ash and everyone will be free from this disaster, if only for awhile. I feel something slide down my face as my eyelashes kept fluttering, kissing my cheeks before running away again, butterfly wings that were too afraid of my skin to touch down for long. I brought my hand up, feeling down the path to wipe away the foreign tear that had cleaned away some of the soot from my face, burnt dust or dry wall or maybe something that was put in these walls to poison us, some kind of mineral that was slowly choking the life from our lungs as we sat in our chairs and listened to the teachers ramble on and on about how we would all die. Stealing our breath and our health and with it our desire to even live, to fight for our families and our future children, something to numb the desire for rebellion. I wouldn't put them past making a poison like that, but if they had, they wouldn't have made it so easily washable. I wiped at the salty water on my face and hissed as I felt the streak dry before I could get it, the flames starving and gluttonous and running out of things to consume. I didn't realize she was looking at me until she was speaking, and I didn't realize how my chest was burning until I took too long to really hear her. The smoke was choking me, was probably choking us both. Whatever was in the cleaner made the air thicker, made the smoke darker and bit at my throat every time I tried to inhale. I follow her on somewhat shaky feet as my head starts to spin and the world tilts to the side, even though I stay upright, pretending that the walls are doused in venom that will eat into my skin and the floor will break if I lurch forwards. "Look, let’s get out of here before we burn ourselves and before some stupid teacher comes snooping. I don’t want to have to leave you behind when the teacher’s come calling for blood." The words bounce off the sides of my head before I get the chance to start to laugh, taking in more of the smoke as my body responds to how I'm shutting down and my legs suddenly itch to run. I don't let myself, don't let myself be weak in front of this stranger even as every hair stands on end. This is a District of pure air off salt water, refreshing and smelling like freedom and distant places that we'd never see, things that could take us and lands that we could build kingdoms on. Faraway castles that we could crown ourselves as queens. She's talking though and I'm still laughing, drunk on chemical flames. "I like you kid, what’s your name? I’m Evening, just call me Eva, everyone does." Her words don't register until her hand is around my wrist, and then we're running and I'm not sure why. Then the sound hits my ears, over our pounding feet and my thumping heart. I twist my hand to take her's in mine, tangling our fingers so that we can rule together, our coronation the echo of crackling flames and a teacher's enraged wails. I don't know if I whisper or shout or just say my name, can't tell anything except how any kind of voice scratches at my throat and seems to come up with puffs of ashes as my lungs try to remember how to breathe air that's almost clean. "Desdemona, but don't bother with all of that. Just call me Des." I want to scream it down the hallway so everybody knows. I want to carve it into every wall of this school and hope only those chunks survive while everything else crumbles. I want so badly to let everyone hear that I'm not one of their moulded corpses; that I won't be a wax model to be controlled. But I know that I can't. Not with Jackie to keep safe. She'll get out now. I know she will. She's probably not even here, already gone. She would have heard the hungry fire before we even set it. She would have known. She's somewhere far, far away, fleeing on her little rabbit feet and hiding away in her beautiful, broken mind. This whole building ought to collapse, fall right on all of their heads. They don't deserve to live. They're not District 4's future victors and survivors, they're going to die. Fall to a better Career or even worse, someone tiny and weak and teary-eyed as they plunge a knife through their spines. Nothing will come out of my home if they're what we're relying on for the spoils of another Games one. Sitting at a desk won't teach us all how to survive, it'll teach everyone why we shouldn't bother when the Capitol is always going to be at the top laughing in our faces. "You should have kept your lighter so we could burn every last support of this school and watch it crumble." She probably thinks I'm insane, and the thought makes me grin. She's right if she does. "They'll try to put it out, you know. They'll probably splash water on the walls and screech. I hope that was filled with grease and oil and it just spreads it. Let them explain if the whole place burns down like it should. Let it be their faults. It was always their fault anyways. If they taught anything worth knowing this wouldn't happen." I don't know why I'm talking, but for some reason, I can't stop. "If the whole place goes up in flames, you'll watch and wait with me, won't you, Eve? Or are you gonna ding-dong-ditch on me just when things get good?"

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ooc ;; sorry for all of these changes! I'm still trying to figure out something that I'm happy with, but I think I've got it now. c: [/justify][/blockquote]

plot by cass and alecia
template and graphics by chime
faceclaim is miglė latušenkaitė
lyrics by the antlers

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[cass]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; background-color: 0A0B09; border: 7AADB7 solid 2px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 50px;][atrb=width,300] You think you're ready for it? I wanna know why you got me going So let's go, We'll take it out of here. I think I'm ready to leap. I'm ready to live, I know there is something wrong with me. Something burns within the confines of my chest, within the confines of the empty cavity of my rib cage and where my heart should be there is a ball of fire. A bright, burning, ball of fire that burns all the way through me. I can feel it racing through my skin, I can feel its warmth seep into my veins, into my body and into every inch of me. I know when the poison has spread and I know when it sits there, in my blackened, charcoaled heart awaiting to be awoken and to come on out and play once more. Sometimes I’ll wonder if it is an entirely different part of me that is fighting to go out there and into this world. Sometimes I’ll wonder if it is a part of me and all I am simply doing is telling the difference between the good and the bad. That sounds more like it, because as much as we all want to believe people don’t have those whacked out apart of them that just takes control and makes them go made. It is part of who you are and it comes with the good and the bad, the bad does not just overwrite everything else. It does not work like that. There are only sick, disgusting, absolutely messed up people when they have problems. And those problems rip their mind and soul into two parts and it becomes a race between the good and the bad. That was what my mum became she became this monster. She used to be someone that was normal, like me. She use to have the good and the bad, but now she has become something split into two. It is destroying her. It is killing her and making her into something she is not. I no longer see her as a mother. Hell I don’t see her as anything, but a monster. In my eyes the title of mother, carer, and family died with her mind. And yet even though there are all those issues, problems and mistakes going on with my mother I also have a good enough head, a good enough mind to know that there is something wrong with me as well. I’m sot swell, I’m not perfect, I’m not in the perfect shape, or condition. I’m a broken good. There is something wrong with me and in that space where there should be a heart there is blackness. But guess what? That does not make me a bad person. Hell I am far from the worst person you could ever meet. Beside my mother I look like a fairy. She is the one with the deep shit issues, I have my own, but at least I ain’t buried head high in a religious cult where my arse is so far stuck up my bum that I could put a hat on my head. I try not to exaggerate, and really the few times I bring it up a few notches it is hardly more than a string along on the truth. Ripred, I really must hate my mother if I think of her in such a way. "Desdemona, but don't bother with all of that. Just call me Des." She shouts, her hands clinging to mine. Where my fingers had grasped her wrists she moves, entangling her hand, weaving them around my fingers. My first reaction is to yank myself away, but I hold on, because we were still running and this weirdo girl was laughing like some maniac and who knew she just might stop running and get us caught. Well, I wouldn’t get caught, but she would. And if there was one thing I did not do, which was let others, get the shit for my doings. Still it was thoroughly confusing feeling her fingers in my hand. I was not used to, nor comfortable with this kind of contact, especially with another girl grasping my hand the way she was. I shrug off these uneasy feelings, my feet moving swiftly and lightly over the ground. I wasn’t a bad girl, I could handle a hand hold. "You should have kept your lighter so we could burn every last support of this school and watch it crumble." She is still laughing. Ripred this girl is different. Still, there was something likeable about her. Creepily weird, but likeable all the same. I’m not sure if the fact that now she wants to burn down the entire school is a good thing. I mean it is cool, I want to do that, but this girls sudden interest was startling in comparison to a normal person’s growing desire to destroy everything. Maybe there was something wrong with her, just like there was something wrong with me. Maybe we were the same and we actually weren’t that different. "They'll try to put it out, you know. They'll probably splash water on the walls and screech. I hope that was filled with grease and oil and it just spreads it. Let them explain if the whole place burns down like it should. Let it be their faults. It was always their fault anyways. If they taught anything worth knowing this wouldn't happen." I nod my head, my next words slipping from my head before I can speak them. I smirk, my turning my eyes to the girl with the whacked out attitude and weird behaviour. She was growing more stranger and different by the second. "If the whole place goes up in flames, you'll watch and wait with me, won't you, Eve? Or are you gonna ding-dong-ditch on me just when things get good?" She had done it. I yank my arm away from hers. “Let’s get this straight, Des. My name is Evening or Eva, it is not Eve. I’m warning you this time, but if you call me that again I will punch you in the face.” I snap my face just inches away from hers. I guess it was funny how my personality and the way I act changes in less than ten seconds. But I could not and would never stand for someone calling me Eve. That wasn’t me and therefore I will not stand for that stupid ridiculous, offensive title. I lean back, a sigh drawing itself from my lips, maybe I was not the only crazy one here. “I don’t ditch. But you would not know that, seeing as this is probably the first time you have burned anything. We aren’t staying here. You might welcome the idea of finding yourself tied to a post being whipped, but I do not. But if you don’t want to come with me then don’t. I am going home and getting some more shit to burn something else.” I'm ready to go-oh oh oh (Get me out of my mind) (Get me out of my mind) I'm ready to go-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh

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[Ivana Vox [Chime]]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left:0px solid #000000; border-right:0px solid #000000; border-top:0px solid #000000; border-bottom: 0px solid #db7093; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px;] Through and through They want to walk all over you Run where they can't follow Wait underwater with me Swim 'til you're half asleep Something snaps within me but I can't for the life of me pinpoint just what it is or why it broke like string pulled taut for days. All I know is that suddenly I want to yell, that the yank on my arm is enough to have me whirling, to have my teeth clamp shut on the laughter that was bubbling out of me like blood from an open wound. This girl is not a goddess, isn't anything better than anyone else in this District, isn't someone to look up to or someone to hold any kind of esteem for. My head ran away as smoke crawled up the walls and flame devoured paint. The chemicals melted away my mind and left something ghastly behind, some mere whisper of proper thought that has kept me alive for so long. That has kept my sister and I safe from the prying eyes and the pushy voices of all those around us. The seconds in which I lost myself were the most dangerous in which I've ever lived, but she's tethered me back to this world and all it has broken. My heart stops pounding in my chest and I lift my chin with the dead expression I've come so used to wearing, hollow sockets where my eyes should be and lips sewn tight around the screams of my dying brother. A mouth that knows how to stay shut against the darkest of secrets. My laughter is a foreign echo around the room, a horrible reminder of my slip into a land of giggles and carelessness, of something as free as the shattered things that escaped as chemicals doused the walls of the bathroom and sparked it all up in flames. Whatever I was thinking to be so foolish, I'm glad it has disappeared just as quickly as it came. Even if my fingers still itch to see the place burn down. Now I know to be quiet, and more than that know better than to ally myself with a strange girl whose eyes dance with reflected destruction. Looking at her now, the bewitching crackle of fire loosens its grip on me, and as it falls away so does her enchanting challenges. "Let’s get this straight, Des. My name is Evening or Eva, it is not Eve. I’m warning you this time, but if you call me that again I will punch you in the face." I feel my lips turn up into a skeleton's smirk at her threat. She still has spirit, even if she's lost whatever respect I'd had for her. She's still better than the ghosts that haunt these halls, doing what they're told and crying when they're scolded by people who never deserved their obedience. She's not disciplined, not house-trained, not another marionette strung up on spider-silk strings, dancing around for the teachers and Peacekeepers and Capitol representatives to clap for. But that doesn't make her good enough to be allowed to speak to me like that. "I don’t ditch. But you would not know that, seeing as this is probably the first time you have burned anything. We aren’t staying here. You might welcome the idea of finding yourself tied to a post being whipped, but I do not. But if you don’t want to come with me then don’t. I am going home and getting some more shit to burn something else." "She was belittling me?" I almost felt another laugh threaten to build in my chest at the simple idea of it. I was used to many things. Glares, suspicious looks, cowering. A strange, questioning expression that I often found on my parents' face, as if they couldn't quite figure out if I was really their's, or if maybe I'd been switched at birth with some kind of faerie changeling who hid retractable claws on the ends of her pretty little hands and razor-edged wings under her raggedy dresses. Being spoken down to was not something that I knew. It was not something that I had experienced, nor was it something that I wanted to become familiar with. For a second, red threatens to swallow my vision whole and turn me into something disastrous, but I can stay calm. I can play. Deep breath. "Slip of the tongue." I'm not quite sure if it's a lie or not, or even if it matters if it was. The truth of it is that I wasn't paying much attention to what I was saying at all. Then, for good measure, I add in a drawl, "Eva." If she's so particular, it doesn't matter. I couldn't care less what people decided to call me, but every one must have their little sore points. If her's was based on a misplaced vowel, then so be it. I had better things to worry about. "You obviously just don't know how to not get caught," I replied with a shrug, looking around at the hall. I can't hear footsteps after us yet, but I know they'll follow soon. There's no way the entire place will go up, not when the teachers have already seen the damage done and must by now have it at least partially out. The rest of the students would probably be stuck in their classes, waiting patiently in their faceless rows, staring at a chalkboard filled with facts that they've always known. They'd be better off with a prison sentence. I can't help but think that maybe if the Peacekeepers did come after me and decide to try and break me that maybe then they'd finally get it. They'd finally understand that I'm beyond their realm, beyond the ties of their control. Maybe then they'll stop trying to force me into their moulds. A part of me wants to leave, wants to claw at my eyes until tears are running down my face, want to fall like a blubbering mess at a teacher's feet and explain how I'd seen her in the washrooms, how she'd savagely trapped me and made me watch her set papers and books and everything in between on fire with a few sparks and a splash of fluid. Make up a story spun from the sweetest of lies, peg it on a girl who might be just as broken as I am. Teach her a lesson for speaking to me as if I was anything less than her, as if I could just be deftly waved away and underestimated based on such petty things as experience. I've never needed to be a pyro to get a few kicks. I've been happy as a dead girl walking with a precious secret. Or at least as close to happy as I need to be. Still, despite how her voice is grating against my skin, something close to curiosity itches at me and I can't help but ask, "What else is left?"

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plot by cass and alecia
template and graphics by chime
faceclaim is miglė latušenkaitė
lyrics by the antlers

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[cass]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; background-color: 0A0B09; border: 7AADB7 solid 2px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 50px 50px 50px 50px;][atrb=width,300] You think you're ready for it? I wanna know why you got me going So let's go, We'll take it out of here. I think I'm ready to leap. I'm ready to live, When I was seven I woke up one morning from a loud thump. It was coming from down stairs and was quickly followed by the slamming of the house door. At the time I was a gullible little girl that shared a room with her irritable and awful little sister. But the little sister whom she desperately loved and, at the time, would have risked her own life to protect. So I, thinking that someone had broken into our lovely district four house, with its rich interior and slightly filthy look went on scrambling down those stairs. I took them two at a time, which was an awfully difficult and dangerous process for a seven year old with tiny little stubby legs. I went down and down and leapt onto the ground, landing hard my breathing tight and my heart racing. When I hit the ground I kind of halted, icy fear taking over at the realisation that I possibly could have just run down and straight into the open arms of same murderer with a knife who could pounce out and onto me in any moment. That was when I gasped and ran left, I ran straight to the door, this new and oddly unfamiliar form of terror taking control of my movements. I ignored the fact that if there was someone in there I was leaving them to kill, hurt and take my sister. She wasn’t really important anymore. As fast as I could I ran outside, my bare feet pounding on the ground. I looked left and then right, I then froze. It was an odd thing waking up in the middle of the night to strange sounds. It was a stranger thing, even, to work outside and see your mother’s figure fleeing down a street; a large, heavy shape slumped over her shoulder. My mum use to be a career, she was perhaps one of the toughest and most skilled careers of her age and even at the tender age of forty she had skills enough to lift heavy loads and if needed to kill. At the time none of those thoughts entered my mind, all I saw was my mother fleeing down a street, running away from her daughter. That was horrifying. It was why I took off after her, my feet light and desperate on the cold, hard ground. I stumbled through the darkness, letting my instincts take control of where I stood. I did not, however, catch up to my mum, for some reason I hung back and instead followed her. These days I feel as though that was a big, big mistake. Because if I had of said anything, or done something. Maybe talked to mother, or screamed or done anything at all I could have saved my dad’s life. But I did nothing, instead I watched the whole situation fold out before me. It was as though I wasn’t watching my family, but rather watching a horror story, and not caring what the consequences of my silence could do. I watched, I watched as my mother dragged my dad’s body forward to the edge of the ocean. And as the tide pulled upwards it drew closer and closer to his face. Slowly it began to envelope him and within minutes it covered him and my mother stood and watched as her husband drowned before her eyes. And I watched as my father drowned before my eyes. Without a word I slipped back into the shadows my puny little seven year old brain struggling to comprehend what I had seen. I ran home and slipped into bed, unwilling to confront my mother, unwilling to say a word. I guess it was because I was scared she would do the same to me. So I stayed silent, I asked nothing and acted as ignorant as anyone could in my situation. Believe me, it was hard. And it still is difficult to face that woman every day, but I do it. And, in all honesty, it is an awful lot like facing this girl. In a few quick minutes her replies become sassy, and dripping with sarcasm and I am so ready to hit her and I am so ready to shove her and leave her here to get in trouble. I was now sure I did not like her. I hated the way she said my name, the way she pronounced it. It was like it was such a difficult task. Ripples of anger slip through me. Ripred, the attitude coming from her, just the way she speaks makes me want to grip her tight and shake her until she cries. She was an idiot and by the way she said “not to get caught” it sounded like she was also very ignorant. I roll my eyes, forcing the rising wall of anger within me to settle. Hitting everyone did not always do me good. I was trying to stop myself from punching everyone who annoyed me in the face, but Des was really testing that thinly woven control. I eye her, my eyes cold and menacing. ”You have a tongue on you, kid. A real snarky, bitchy attitude as well. Just calm your tits. Okay? Calm it. I don’t need your shit.” I snap, my patience having run away. I turn and head down the hall. “There is nothing left. If you have anything now is the time to speak.” I call; I throw my eyes skyward, my hands itching to throw a punch her way. With a deep breath I force that ever pushing urge down. I'm ready to go-oh oh oh (Get me out of my mind) (Get me out of my mind) I'm ready to go-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-a-oh-oh

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