Wanted: lonely boy seeking lively girl {kay}

[Meghan]

Lonely boy had gotten a lot more lonely in the past couple of months. It felt like everyone around him, even his little brother, had forgotten what it was like to be humiliated in front of the entire district. As he stood, alone (was that much of a surprise?) in the training center, he could just feel their presence echoing across every pristine surface in the entire damn place. Across the walls, Milo Birch leaped, fire in her hands as she threw a knife at each target with eagerness that far surpassed her young age.

Dummies splattered false blood all over the manic form of a grief-stricken Beatrice as she sought her revenge on the only thing she could. Applause engulfed her vulture form until the day of her death, when the only pure part of her entire being flew from her broken body. The face her brother had revered, worshiped even, as she whispered sweet comforts and sang hopeful songs until he had fallen into a drunken slumber night after night had disappeared to become consumed by only dirt and tears. (Cassius had confessed these things in a stupor one night, so long ago, and Terry had never forgotten his vulnerable words as he spoke of the future. "I just want her to be happy, really." He had told him, and it had seemed Cass' had gotten that wish for one short summer as little Bea, only twelve years old at the time, had run from mountain to mountain screaming her praises for the goodness life had brought her through her brother. "I love you, Cass!" Terry remembered her scream from the rooftops as they had leapt through valleys and run through forest without a single care. Oh how ignorant they all were that year).

Yet, Beatrice had fallen, and Cassius too. Taken by the controlling glitz and glamour and glory of the bittersweet Capitol.

Everyone forgot what it meant to breathe; everyone forgot what it meant to think rationally. They weren't untouchable, the Birches. No, in fact it seemed even Hades had become consumed by the family's failure to perform. They had been embarrassed, torn apart, and discarded like last years tributes. Everyone wanted to prove themselves, to show that no, they really could be the best despite the humiliation caused by Cassius and Beatrice.

The 66th games were no different, and they only served to push Terry further into the depression he had been feeling for the past three years. No member of his family had been called, but that didn't stop them from volunteering. His body froze with a now too-familiar fear as both Hannah and Ares abandoned everything they had worked for to jump onto that stage and declare their own deaths. And now Terry Birch, lonely boy, was truly alone - deserted by two more people he thought to be dear to them.

And so he stood, alone, in the cold training center on the night of the reaping. He held a sword in his hand, but it was forgotten for just a moment as he stared blankly at a plain wall. Were they happy with their choices? Did they really think they could win the games, or were they prepared for the heartbreak they had just written on the memory-book of a family already so riddled with holes it could practically be called swiss cheese? Terry felt like the desert field, dug up and abandoned in search for some treasure already long forgotten.

They didn't care for him, nobody cared for him anymore.

And so he swung his sword towards the nearest dummy, a snarl on his face as he ripped it to shreds - just like he had been trained to do. Yet he didn't kill the innocent thing for the praise that inevitably would have followed if he had told the world of this accomplishment. He didn't even kill it to prove something to himself. No, Terry killed it simply because he was mad. They had betrayed him, and he had to get his feelings out somehow, someway.

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