Jeopardy: The Fourth Quarter Quell

Drifting - Liam

Liam

My arm hurts. Not like the burning pains of so far, but more like a dull, throbbing ache. Like a headache, only really bad. A drop or two will make it go away. My throat screams hoarse for it but my mouth doesn't move.

Everything feels kind of...light. Like my body isn't really a body any more but is just an idea, and now I've started thinking in poetic crap. I know it's there because I can feel it hurting, but it's like it's coming from a long way away, and it's weird and...and it's actually quite nice. Like being drunk but without the other people shouting. More peaceful. Better. To not feel much for once. I haven't felt like this since Emmy...Emmy.

Forest, Emily.

She must have looked different when we first met because we were both thirteen. Thirteen in Thirteen. Hah. Funny. I'm a funny guy. But anyway. Emmy. During the Games because we were both wearing black armbands. Maybe she was new, new stock, because I would have remembered if I'd seen her before that. Some kind of class because they were reading out names and I was first like always. Armitage, Liam. Present. Then onto the next name.

Someone wasn't here. I was doodling so I didn't notice but later I knew that it must have been her because there was a silence and then somebody stumbling through the door, breathless apology and I looked up at that voice and boom. Beautiful.

How did she have her hair? Tied back, maybe, or maybe that was a later thing because all the girls did once they'd been long enough. I can't picture it. I'm seeing, but what I'm seeing is an outline and a thousand memories at the same time; smile to light the room, a gentle laugh, a prod, a kiss soft and warm. There's this blankness, this far-away peace. That something is right.

She'd sat three in front of me and two to the right, and did she look around or did she focus? She certainly didn't look at me. Of course she wouldn't.

Her nose is crooked. It leans slightly to the left and when she's annoyed she wrinkles it and it looks so funny that you have to laugh, and she laughs too.

One of the boys was trying to speak to me but it's just a buzzing now. I didn't want to hear him; I wanted to hear her. So on the way out after a lesson I'll never remember or forget, I paused, wondering if I dared, and then bumped her gently against the door frame.

I thought she'd cry out, or something. She would think that I was a jerk and move on, sit and watch the Games and never pay me a look except hate. But a look is a look.

But what she did was to laugh and turn her eyes to me; I was smaller. And I exploded, or it felt like I did. Little tiny pieces scattered for her to see. She looked at them, each one, and she smiled. "Hello," she'd said, "I'm new."

I said something back. Something fumbling, words spluttered over a tongue that was suddenly too big for my mouth. I know. I'd have remembered seeing you around. Except not that.

"It's weird here. Am I allowed to say that?"

In that voice, you're allowed to say anything. Except not that either. I shrugged, maybe, or said I don't know. I didn't. It was like everything gone from my brain, my body somewhere else. Light like air. Floating, drifting.

"Maybe you could show me the ropes." Yes, yes, yes. And I'd taken her...where? Wherever it was, we weren't supposed to be there. A girl with one eye slightly lighter brown than the other found us and shooed us along. My age but she seemed older, grown up, because...because Emmy and that was all the reason.

Time is commodity in Thirteen. We saved ours, held it precious, held each other. Hair like silk and flesh warm and soft. Not like the cold hard metal shells that melted away around each other. It all faded away, all of it. The marks on my arm meant nothing and there was space, all of a sudden there was space that I'd never felt before. Room to breathe, a sigh, a laugh.

She used to say that she missed the trees and the noise they made. Curled up in my arms, always my quarters because she had sisters, and she'd trace gooseflesh patterns on my arm and smile when I shivered. Never did get used to it.

Alight, on fire, two flames dancing together. Light the flame and light as in light, floating just the two of us somewhere only we know. Knew. Heat to scorch the metal walls and melt them down. Next day I had to check I wasn't flying.

And somewhere, some time was the warning that I missed. Too high to see. Drifting far from pain, loose and light to be dragged back down, shot back down. "I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore."

Those exact words. That exact face. I filled up with lead, too heavy to move. The walls cramped in, curving around to leer and laugh; we got you in the end. "I've got Advanced Technology next" - she never shortened names, not hop for History of Panem or AdTech, or Rec, only name she ever shortened was her own - "I'll go."

One brief barely-there kiss and then there was no room and heavy limbs, and whatever had happened I still don't know.

There was one Peacekeeper who used to take swigs from a little flask he kept to his belt. Used to fill it up from a bottle in the Kitchens, always closely guarded but I was dumb and mute, knocked closed, and they didn't even notice. The first drops burned, then cooled in my stomach and swirled my brain, stirring away the heavy to replace it with the light. It pushed the pains far away, as if they didn't belong to my body at all. Perfect, perfect.

This is more perfect. No bright lights and sneaking. Just dark and my body far away and then what am I? I am content. No shakes, no aches, all of that is happening elsewhere. Drifting again. Why would I want to leave? Somewhere there is pain and fear but it isn't here with me.

The world is peaceful here...