The Fifth Annual Writer Games: The Fall

The Fall of Icarus - Males

District 1 Male – Chet Jackson

Five.

"It's cold in here too, huh?" Chet rubs his nose with the back of his hand. Snot and the blood of that one kid from that one place wipe off in a streak on the glove which usually isn't there. Which complicates things. He squints at it before and after smudging it off on the leg of his weighted pants. The fluids remain. One, two, three, four, five fingers pull free from their little eastern finger traps. Chet's unrequited glove flops across the room like a mitten, and falls at the epicenter of the amphitheater made up by the five who are mesmerized by him.

The others from the Lows and their charity-case High plaything watch on as Chet runs his naked hand across the cornucopia wall. Scaffolding holds a menagerie of blades in place against it, and he brushes over them as well. Each touch pricks him with a chill sharper than any of their points. His little finger man jumps off them with little finger man exclamations. "Sheesh, you'd think if they really wanted people to fight for this they'd install some in-floor heating or have some cocoa or something. You know, like? You can't cuddle with a sword. Or a raisin," he toes a shriveled up bag across the snowy floor. Then his fingers run into a wall, "Although," he turns towards the obstruction and lets his shoulders melt at the sight of it, "I could certainly hold this one softly. Take a look at that," he pulls it from its sheath. He doesn't run his hand down the edge like someone who meant what he said would, though. He tucks one end under his arm and plunges the other into the frozen ground. After a brief peek to make sure the right end is the right way up, he leans his elbow upon it and lounges.

The boy from Two looks up from the pack of knives he's parsing through and winces at this. Boy from Two is not one to leave things at a wince. "Do you abuse everything you take to bed as such?" he asks, nodding at the bend in the iron.

Chet stares at the ground before his feet for a few seconds. "Yes," he decides, kicking up his backsword and twirling it with an amateur flourish before tucking it into his side. "Matter of fact I do." And that conversation is his third kill of the day. Its blood flushes his cheeks, but they were already raw and red from the weather. He pulls the zipper of his parka up to his nose, then rushing to stick a frostbitten hand out to his foe. "I'm Chet, as you'll already know."

"Eitan," the boy takes it like a fouled handkerchief.

"Hey, I tan as well! Well, I uh," he spots out every seam in the cornucopia construction, looking for any sign of cameras, and of course, there is a pinhole lens where all the slabs of cold steel come to a point. The Gamesmakers are quickly improving in the secrecy of their secret surveillance. To be fair, this is their tenth data set not made up by not only Capitolites, but Capitolites that respond to surveys. Those dimwits couldn't point out a cow if they were in a cow. Regardless, he tilts his head towards the camera and wraps a hand around to the other side to spray two spritzes of an invisible cannister on his exposed neck. "But hey, no lines!" Chet uses an arm around Eitan's shoulder as an axel, swinging himself around into a sprawled seat among the powder. Snow and packets of pulverized peaches. "I think we're gonna get along just fine."

Eitan rebuffs with a tone like something said under his breath, but with volume able to overpower then crinkles of the pack of jerky Chet has found. "I find that unlikely," he says.

"Well," Chet chews and chews with the corner of his mouth, wielding the dried meat like a leash to pull his clamped down teeth akimbo, "not if you keep acting like that." He ignores Eitan and his counterarguments as much as he dares, sneaking a check on Venus, who is draped over the mouth of the cornucopia, giving and taking daggers. Meant to be making sure none of the fodder wants a second helping. Chet chews on this. He moves on to the next spar with zeal, looking up to the girl from Four. He repeats his own introduction. She tells him her name is Nerida. "And this is my friend Eitan. I'd like for you to meet him," Chet adds. She pauses, swiveling to look at everyone else but they give her nothing. Eventually, she shakes Eitan's hand as well mumbling something meaningless. Every movement she makes seems a struggle here. It's like she has two coats on rather than the one everyone else got. Maybe she has swiped one from the dead, Chet guesses for a second. But no, if she did, then she would actually have two coats rather than the one she actually has. Yeah.