promise no promises | {ezen/tobias} blitz

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

up with your turret
aren't we just terrified?
shale, screen your worry
from what you won't ever find

He stared at the far wall of his room, remote in his hands. The entire thing was like a television screen, only it showed different walks of life and nature instead of the news broadcasts of Hunger Games coverage that was on nonstop in the common room. He clicked through the beaches of District Four, skyscrapers of One, fields of apple trees and grapevines in Eleven. He stopped only a moment to stare at a pine forest with the number 7 watermarked in the lower right corner. It was weird how they were able to replicate it so well, yet still make it seem so foreign, so unreal. The trees were too vibrant, soil too rich. It was too perfect, and had Tobias been one for rose-colored glasses, he might not have even noticed the difference.

He wondered if Jacinta would notice.

An alarm went off by his bed. 12:30 pm. Lunch time. He checked himself in the mirror and straightened his shirt collar before disappearing downstairs.

Even the buffet lines seemed like perfected versions of what the tributes were used to. Crescent rolls topped with raisins, District Seven's signature. But never were they this fluffy, soft. Wood stoves had a tendency to slightly overcook everything, after all. Still, he placed a piece of it onto his tray, as well as a bagel. Jacquelyn had explained that he needed as many starches as he could get, just in case he had trouble finding food in the arena.

But when he took his seat across from a lonesome looking boy with a 1 emblazoned on his sleeve, he noticed that the boy had no food. Maybe he wasn't hungry, or maybe he had already eaten. Maybe he couldn't eat. Tobias held the bagel out between the two of them.

"Here. It's better to at least try, right?"

don't let it fool you
don't let it pull you down
down fills the ground
gravity is proud

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

______________________

I wanna dream
I wanna dream
Leave me to dream

Decadent as the food might be here, I don’t have the stomach for it. I think it’s the nerves; I used to get like this back in One, back in that godforsaken house. It was impossible to eat with anxiety pulsing through my brain like a bad migraine, and it was even more difficult to find a safe place to enjoy anything. That’s why I always ended up at the bookshop; I was fairly confident nobody would try to cut my throat there. The worst I could get was a papercut.

And the bakery next door wasn’t bad.

Books and heroes and sweets are one thing, but these people are another entirely. As I wander through the tables and find a place to sit at lunch, I’m painfully aware that I look like a fool with an empty tray and nothing to do but sulk about death.

How are some of these people so chipper? Don’t they realize we’re all going to die?

Oh, right – they think they can survive.

I’m a man of evidence (er, a young teenager of evidence, maybe) and no matter how you think about it, my odds are the worst of the bunch. I’m one of the youngest, one of the weakest, and I don’t even have a bit of pluck to back up this self-deprecating nonsense I’ve got going on.

I think I’m giving off this sad and lonely vibe, because one of the tributes looks as if he’s ambling this way with the purpose of sitting down. I try to avoid his gaze, but he takes a seat anyway.

"Here. It's better to at least try, right?"

The other guy hands me a bagel, and I stare lamely down at it. I seriously can’t eat anything, but I take it.

Is he here to figure me out?

Then again, it doesn’t matter. Nothing I could do would ever make me seem vaguely threatening or competent. Anyone walking by could quickly stereotype me as a weakling.

“Thanks, really, but I’m a bit…” I don’t know exactly how to end that sentence, so I end up staring at the number on his sleeve. “You’re from Seven. Nice.”

Not one of the Career districts. So.. safe. Or.. relatively safe. Or…

Nobody’s safe here.

Ugh.