There's no time to cry...! [OPEN!]
Jul 24, 2013 16:39:30 GMT -5
Post by Raeoki on Jul 24, 2013 16:39:30 GMT -5
As the elevator descended, Caritas thought about fear. He thought about how selfish it was, to be frightful; how foolish those people were, when they became frightened. For it was all so very egotistic, to worry about one’s own life and welfare, when it was very obvious that there were several other people who struggled more and suffered more than the said frightened person could hope to be. They worried for themselves; it made them concerned only for their wellbeing. Fear was the curse that could corrupt an altruistic person; fear was the instinct that could drive someone to individualism, for they might be driven to shed themselves of others. And Caritas Devhish considered these things because he – the child of warm and budding hyper-altruism; he who knew that he was above all, for he was the least selfish of all; he who had been grinned upon by the great and glorious and divine president himself – presently knew panic.
It was not the Hunger Games and his star-crossed future that brought him anxiety; but, rather, it was the present and the antagonists who lurked in its dark corners that brought him to such a frazzled state. He was currently not going to the training floor for the sake of survival in the future; but, instead, as an escape from the aforementioned devils that crept all around him in the District 10 apartment – and he knew, with all his palpitating, altruistic heart, that each and every one of these devils bore a single name: “Melpomene”.
The prep team member seemed to be everywhere; she appeared so suddenly and so frequently that Caritas had proceeded to contemplate whether or not Melpomene was following him. Her face was everywhere: haunting him behind his eyelids when they were closed; flickering and ducking about in the shadows of his room the previous night; slinking through the halls like purplish, tragic-faced lizard she was. There were times when he heard her voice, but he could not see her – of course, this only happened once upon intervals, and it was a rather short and vague sentence, bearing an overlying context that Caritas did not know, as if she was discussing something with someone, but still, it made Caritas shudder and feel as if a splinter of ice was being wedged into his spine. Caritas decided that he hated her; he knew he oughtn’t – to hate was to have a preference, and to prefer was to be selfish; but, somehow, Caritas could not help himself. It felt like a necessity, to hate and to fear; he found it was almost comforting, to acknowledge these emotions, and they became as essential to him as a survival instinct. However, he could not help but despise himself, and claw at his chest with his fingernails when his heart began to palpitate at the very mention of her name, as if he was trying to rip it free of his body; for it was all so selfish and so immoral of him to know these emotions, and whenever he thought about it deeply, an opaque smog of despair smothered his young heart, and his face became downcast.
The elevator came to a halt; a small, metallic ping was exalted by it as the doors swung open. Caritas proceeded into the training center, his hands held behind his back, his body straight and rigid, and his young face austere, like an aged veteran who had known several tribulations. As his clouded green eyes flickered hither and thither, observing the various stations and considering them (though the only reason he had any intentions in partaking in them was to give him something to do, and to be compliant to his mentors’ will), he remembered last night, promptly after dinner, and he had been proceeding to his quarters to retire for the night, for the archery station had made his body rather sore and complaining. He had been arriving to the mouth of the corridor that led to the prep team members’ rooms (not that he wanted to; he simply had to, as it was on the way to his and Amelia’s rooms), and had just approached it’s corner, when heard Thalia the Other Prep Team Member’s squeaky and cheery voice batter his ears. “Oh, Melpy, you’re so silly!”
Caritas’s body promptly stiffened, and his face paled. Instinct screamed at him to flee; fear kept his feet shod with invisible anchors, however. He barely understood Melpomene’s perpetually dejected mumble: “Am I…?”
“Oh, of course you are!” Thalia huffed in reply, and her squeaky voice had an edge of indignation in it. “We’ve three victors already - that’s pretty impressive, by usual lower district standards! Sure, we don’t have four victors like District 1 has, and sure, they technically have five, seeing as how that Sparrow guy one twice and all – but with our supply of victors, we oughta get plenty of sponsors, don’t yah think?”
“It’s not the victors the sponsors care about,” Melpomene muttered, “but the tributes. And they’re both very young – neither are twelve, but the boy might as well be…Thirteen-year-old tributes aren’t that different from twelve-year-old ones, you know…And sponsors usually don’t go for younger tributes, yah know? They don’t survive…and no one wants to waste their money and effort on little kids that can’t even defend themselves…”
“Oh, Melpy!” Thalia grumbled. “Well – well – what about that Sampson girl from last year, huh? Remember? She was the last one to be killed by them - we almost got ourselves another victor, and then…”
“And then she got knocked off by the District 1 couple – I remember.”
“Well, well – don’t yah think that that means something for this year? Sorta like a…like a promise?”
“No,” Melpomene said, her voice flat. “That was then, this is now.”
Caritas could tell by the sadness that dragged her voice along that Thalia then accepted that she would not be triumphant in their debate. “Oh, Melpy!” she sighed – and that was all she said.
Without any prompt or order from their masters, Caritas’s legs lifted upward, then downward, his step becoming a militaristic march as he passed the mouth of the hallway. He felt then, within his chest, a strange prickly sensation that filled him with a strange, energetic pain that tried to seize his muscles and control them. Caritas tightened his hands into fists, and made sure that his march was level and rhythmical, and carried him only to his room, and no place else. Caritas did not initially understand the energy and pain that made his blood quicken; only till he was at his room, with his shoulder blades rested upon the closed door, that he could give it a name: “hatred” – the darkest of all the demons of selfishness. And this realization sent within him a deep and trembling despair; one that made him feel as if all his hopes and ideology had been dashed and shattered; one that made him feel as if he ought to join them. For Caritas knew that he was being selfish, and he knew also that it was Melpomene that he felt such abhorrence for – for her doubt; for her coldness; for her perpetual, tragic mood. And he wanted to call her selfish; he wanted to see her with the same spite that he saw all other selfish people – but fear did not permit him, and it made him feel as if doing so would be like mocking an evil, tyrannical god that could crush him with a blink of her eye.
At the present hour of this narrative, Caritas blinked his own eyes for a moment, and as he did so, his body lurched backward slightly, and then he jerked it back into straightness. He closed his eyes, and ordered himself to purge all thoughts of Melpomene and hatred and fear and selfishness from his mind; he would only be thinking of altruism now – Melpomene was ten floors away; no need to fret about her any longer. His nostrils flared and became circular as he breathed through them, and his mouth promptly opened and he exhaled. Caritas’s eyes opened, and there was a hardness in them, a callousness that suggested resolution: for he had then decided that all future actions for the rest of prep week would be out of the softness of his heart, where the altruism lay, not the coldness and hardened edges of it, where crept the fear and the hatred.
He turned his face, and there, before him, was the first aide station. At first, he thought nothing of it, and Caritas turned away from it; then, it occurred to him that there was a probability that the facts gathered there by him could be pertinent in the lives of one of his fellow tributes. He paused for a moment; then he gradually turned around, and let his eyes roam over it, inspecting it. It was true that Caritas did not expect to live long in the Games; in fact, he rather welcomed his swift demise, so that another tribute shall ascend to the title of victor; but, still, plans always find themselves changing – a sudden, unexpected compromise would transpire, and Caritas might find himself surviving the Bloodbath, somehow. There wasn’t any reason for him to assume otherwise; and so, he decided it would be rather logical and wise of him to assume that there shall be an inconsistency with his plan, and thus he strode towards the station.
During his approach, he noted that there was already a trainer there, who was giving a demonstration to a small congregation of tributes on a dummy. The context was vague and, as Caritas entered the congregation, he wondered if he ought to leave – but he quickly dismissed the idea, for it would be selfish of him to have the trainer repeat himself for Caritas’s sake, only because he had been too foolish and too slow to approach when the demonstration had initiated. It then also occurred to him that, if he left the station without proper understanding, then he would be of no good help to whatever harmed tributes he might encounter and have to heal. So, for the sake of avoiding future unselfish, Caritas realized that he would have to be presently selfish for only a short instant by drawing the attention of another tribute away from the lesson and onto himself. In recognition of this, Caritas leaned towards one nearby tribute, and whispered in a very humble, meek drawl: “Ah – ah – hello? Uh – sorry about this, but…uh…What exactly is he talkin’ about?”
_____________________________________
Water Closet: 1,760
It was not the Hunger Games and his star-crossed future that brought him anxiety; but, rather, it was the present and the antagonists who lurked in its dark corners that brought him to such a frazzled state. He was currently not going to the training floor for the sake of survival in the future; but, instead, as an escape from the aforementioned devils that crept all around him in the District 10 apartment – and he knew, with all his palpitating, altruistic heart, that each and every one of these devils bore a single name: “Melpomene”.
The prep team member seemed to be everywhere; she appeared so suddenly and so frequently that Caritas had proceeded to contemplate whether or not Melpomene was following him. Her face was everywhere: haunting him behind his eyelids when they were closed; flickering and ducking about in the shadows of his room the previous night; slinking through the halls like purplish, tragic-faced lizard she was. There were times when he heard her voice, but he could not see her – of course, this only happened once upon intervals, and it was a rather short and vague sentence, bearing an overlying context that Caritas did not know, as if she was discussing something with someone, but still, it made Caritas shudder and feel as if a splinter of ice was being wedged into his spine. Caritas decided that he hated her; he knew he oughtn’t – to hate was to have a preference, and to prefer was to be selfish; but, somehow, Caritas could not help himself. It felt like a necessity, to hate and to fear; he found it was almost comforting, to acknowledge these emotions, and they became as essential to him as a survival instinct. However, he could not help but despise himself, and claw at his chest with his fingernails when his heart began to palpitate at the very mention of her name, as if he was trying to rip it free of his body; for it was all so selfish and so immoral of him to know these emotions, and whenever he thought about it deeply, an opaque smog of despair smothered his young heart, and his face became downcast.
The elevator came to a halt; a small, metallic ping was exalted by it as the doors swung open. Caritas proceeded into the training center, his hands held behind his back, his body straight and rigid, and his young face austere, like an aged veteran who had known several tribulations. As his clouded green eyes flickered hither and thither, observing the various stations and considering them (though the only reason he had any intentions in partaking in them was to give him something to do, and to be compliant to his mentors’ will), he remembered last night, promptly after dinner, and he had been proceeding to his quarters to retire for the night, for the archery station had made his body rather sore and complaining. He had been arriving to the mouth of the corridor that led to the prep team members’ rooms (not that he wanted to; he simply had to, as it was on the way to his and Amelia’s rooms), and had just approached it’s corner, when heard Thalia the Other Prep Team Member’s squeaky and cheery voice batter his ears. “Oh, Melpy, you’re so silly!”
Caritas’s body promptly stiffened, and his face paled. Instinct screamed at him to flee; fear kept his feet shod with invisible anchors, however. He barely understood Melpomene’s perpetually dejected mumble: “Am I…?”
“Oh, of course you are!” Thalia huffed in reply, and her squeaky voice had an edge of indignation in it. “We’ve three victors already - that’s pretty impressive, by usual lower district standards! Sure, we don’t have four victors like District 1 has, and sure, they technically have five, seeing as how that Sparrow guy one twice and all – but with our supply of victors, we oughta get plenty of sponsors, don’t yah think?”
“It’s not the victors the sponsors care about,” Melpomene muttered, “but the tributes. And they’re both very young – neither are twelve, but the boy might as well be…Thirteen-year-old tributes aren’t that different from twelve-year-old ones, you know…And sponsors usually don’t go for younger tributes, yah know? They don’t survive…and no one wants to waste their money and effort on little kids that can’t even defend themselves…”
“Oh, Melpy!” Thalia grumbled. “Well – well – what about that Sampson girl from last year, huh? Remember? She was the last one to be killed by them - we almost got ourselves another victor, and then…”
“And then she got knocked off by the District 1 couple – I remember.”
“Well, well – don’t yah think that that means something for this year? Sorta like a…like a promise?”
“No,” Melpomene said, her voice flat. “That was then, this is now.”
Caritas could tell by the sadness that dragged her voice along that Thalia then accepted that she would not be triumphant in their debate. “Oh, Melpy!” she sighed – and that was all she said.
Without any prompt or order from their masters, Caritas’s legs lifted upward, then downward, his step becoming a militaristic march as he passed the mouth of the hallway. He felt then, within his chest, a strange prickly sensation that filled him with a strange, energetic pain that tried to seize his muscles and control them. Caritas tightened his hands into fists, and made sure that his march was level and rhythmical, and carried him only to his room, and no place else. Caritas did not initially understand the energy and pain that made his blood quicken; only till he was at his room, with his shoulder blades rested upon the closed door, that he could give it a name: “hatred” – the darkest of all the demons of selfishness. And this realization sent within him a deep and trembling despair; one that made him feel as if all his hopes and ideology had been dashed and shattered; one that made him feel as if he ought to join them. For Caritas knew that he was being selfish, and he knew also that it was Melpomene that he felt such abhorrence for – for her doubt; for her coldness; for her perpetual, tragic mood. And he wanted to call her selfish; he wanted to see her with the same spite that he saw all other selfish people – but fear did not permit him, and it made him feel as if doing so would be like mocking an evil, tyrannical god that could crush him with a blink of her eye.
At the present hour of this narrative, Caritas blinked his own eyes for a moment, and as he did so, his body lurched backward slightly, and then he jerked it back into straightness. He closed his eyes, and ordered himself to purge all thoughts of Melpomene and hatred and fear and selfishness from his mind; he would only be thinking of altruism now – Melpomene was ten floors away; no need to fret about her any longer. His nostrils flared and became circular as he breathed through them, and his mouth promptly opened and he exhaled. Caritas’s eyes opened, and there was a hardness in them, a callousness that suggested resolution: for he had then decided that all future actions for the rest of prep week would be out of the softness of his heart, where the altruism lay, not the coldness and hardened edges of it, where crept the fear and the hatred.
He turned his face, and there, before him, was the first aide station. At first, he thought nothing of it, and Caritas turned away from it; then, it occurred to him that there was a probability that the facts gathered there by him could be pertinent in the lives of one of his fellow tributes. He paused for a moment; then he gradually turned around, and let his eyes roam over it, inspecting it. It was true that Caritas did not expect to live long in the Games; in fact, he rather welcomed his swift demise, so that another tribute shall ascend to the title of victor; but, still, plans always find themselves changing – a sudden, unexpected compromise would transpire, and Caritas might find himself surviving the Bloodbath, somehow. There wasn’t any reason for him to assume otherwise; and so, he decided it would be rather logical and wise of him to assume that there shall be an inconsistency with his plan, and thus he strode towards the station.
During his approach, he noted that there was already a trainer there, who was giving a demonstration to a small congregation of tributes on a dummy. The context was vague and, as Caritas entered the congregation, he wondered if he ought to leave – but he quickly dismissed the idea, for it would be selfish of him to have the trainer repeat himself for Caritas’s sake, only because he had been too foolish and too slow to approach when the demonstration had initiated. It then also occurred to him that, if he left the station without proper understanding, then he would be of no good help to whatever harmed tributes he might encounter and have to heal. So, for the sake of avoiding future unselfish, Caritas realized that he would have to be presently selfish for only a short instant by drawing the attention of another tribute away from the lesson and onto himself. In recognition of this, Caritas leaned towards one nearby tribute, and whispered in a very humble, meek drawl: “Ah – ah – hello? Uh – sorry about this, but…uh…What exactly is he talkin’ about?”
_____________________________________
Water Closet: 1,760
