EXIT MUSIC (FOR A FILM) // SELF-PARA
There is a gun in my stomach. There is a hole in my throat. There is a reason why every good thing ends with a forest burning. Your hand on my throat. None of that is good anymore. How could it be? I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m not even a girl. I haven’t been a good one since I was a kid. Not even then.
— excerpt from There’s A Lot of Good Reasons to Go Out West by SK Osborn
wake from your sleep.
There was certainly something satisfying about being a creature of habit. Click. Snap. Getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, scraping together the will to leave the room and doing it. Click. Snap. Every morning. Getting up and going on. Perhaps and occasional coffee to break the routine. Sending a friend off to a battle for life or death with a casual wave and realistic but encouraging words. Click. Snap. Three years now and counting and the glittering landscape of the Capitol was slowly becoming more familiar than something extraordinary to marvel at. Standing high up on a building in a city that surely rivaled anything civilization had seen before, with the bustling and chatter of the lively inhabitants draped in extravagance unseen or heard of before. Click. Snap.
This was not a day like all the others.
If there had been a routine to settle into, this was surely not it. The press conference must’ve been announced beforehand, surely, but Jeannie hadn’t paid any mind to it until she’d finally heard where it would take place. She had to force herself not to gape in shock at the flushed Gazette journalist that fluttered by her.
“-at the 111th Arena! Yes- Yes, shortly before launch. This ought to be interesting. District Thirteen and District Thirteen Arena? A stroke of genius-”
She didn’t listen in for more. Instead, she left the journalist to her conversation, long, intricately designed nails tapping rhythmically against her ear piece. Jeannie detached from the crowd, moving back into the Tower.
District Thirteen and District Thirteen Arena? A stroke of genius.
If it had been up to her, she’d have described it differently. A stroke of pure evil, perhaps. Or just another dig at her and the underground District they’d pulled right into this mess. Did anyone back home know? Were they aware? Gamma was here with her, but Jeannie had tried to reach Radia and hadn’t heard back on any of her messages since she’d arrived here. Alongside the news she’d just heard, it made her hands tremble.
A press conference, right where people had died. Right where she had died. To celebrate the slaughter of more innocent children. There was always a price to pay for survival, but this surely couldn’t have been it. They already had Thirteen in their clutches, was that not enough? Why add humiliation to the bunch, as well?
Jeanine got herself into the elevator before she could’ve collapsed out in the middle of the Tower’s lobby. She sunk down to her knees, fists clenched so tightly that crescent moon marks appeared on her palm, one of them going in so deep as to draw blood.
She didn’t feel the pain, but she did feels herself trembling still, like a leaf shaken up by a strong wind. There was something closing up her throat, pressing down on her lungs. There was a flame flickering to life in the pit in her stomach.
Jeannie was well acquainted with what if felt like to burn.
This was not quite it.
the drying of your tears.
It clicked into place, the husk a little heavier in her hands than it usually was. It no longer trembled. During the one hour it took her to storm to the training center, sneak past the guard and take what she’d needed and coming here, resolve had miraculously dissolved the jitters into a tight grip.
She was afraid.
She no longer wanted to be.
Rubble crunched underneath her shoes, the material far more expensive and clean than it had been when she last was here. Many things had changed. Jeannie in particular. It was like this space beckoned her home, while at the same time rejecting her for what she’d become.
Alive. Alive. Alive.
You know, you shouldn’t have survived that, right?
It all clicked into place. The vessel was as small as ever, but a bit heavier nonetheless. Click. Snap. Unfamiliar. Jeannie’s grip tightened more, the metal croaked in her palm, faintly, reassuring.
Jeannie climbed up onto a particularly big piece of rubble. She saw some people in the distance. Discreetly, the little metal square was slipped between the stones.
Perhaps, it was someone else’s turn to be a little scared for once.
today, we escape.
The smoke had barely cleared when Jeannie had returned to the Tower, hands buried in her pockets. People were glued to their tablets, the TV screen in the viewing rooms. A hush had fallen over the Tower, before all hell broke loose, and Jeannie was left to watch in wonder.
It couldn’t have been that big of a news now, could it? Just a little bang, some scared faces. She’d always dreamed big but failed at the execution. There might have been more dramatics laced into Capitol blood than she’d been used to lately.
She stepped closer to the screens as people scrambled for their belongings, some rushing from the room. With mild interest, she wanted to see a little fear in Lysander Vultur’s eyes.
Jeannie’s breath hitched in her throat once she comprehended the words flickering on the TV.
Head Gamemaker Lysander Vultur has been killed.
Just a little bang, nothing serious. Just a little fear.
Click. Snap. Bang.
we escape.
She was trembling again.
This time though, there was no journalist around calling a press conference a stroke of genius. But, she wasn’t alone, even though she felt numb enough to be. Gamma was there. Gamma, who was always there to offer a steady hand, guidance with its own special edge to it. Jeannie was in desperate need of guidance right about now. Actually, she’d gone long enough without it.
Enough with being an adult. The experience had no merit. Only loss, another loss, and even more loss.
The head of the sovereign guard knelt in front of her while Jeannie sat on a chair, head buried in her hands. She was breathing raggedly, deep inhales and exhales as instructed by the older woman.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Click.
Snap.
She was trying to breathe, because, according to Gamma, nothing could be worth freaking out over like this. Once Jeannie found the voice to tell her, to confess, to plead on her knees for forgiveness, Gamma would be speaking differently. Perhaps, she wouldn’t even look at Jeannie the same way, or at all, anymore. She wanted to keep this last bit. She wanted to so desperately keep it.
Bang.
The door crashed right against the wall as it was harshly thrown open. Jeannie flinched violently in her seat, while Gamma was on guard what seemed like a millisecond. She’d never seen the Head of Tower Security up close before, and now, she was glad for it. Emerson Mars was terrifying, the way he regarded her with a stare that might’ve frozen her to a statue right where she sat, if it just could have.
Bang.
The Peacekeepers that had come along with him wasted no time to push past her guard and grab Jeannie by the arms, pulling her harshly to her feet. It was uncomfortable, painful, frightening. “No-” she gasped, fruitlessly squirming in the tight grip.
“What is the meaning of this,” Gamma asked, anger simmering in her usually composed tone as she stepped towards Emerson Mars.
He ignored her. Instead, his gaze was still fixed on Jeannie as she fought against the peacekeepers that held her restrained.
“Jeanine Twill, you’re under arrest for the murders of Lysander Vultur, Weiss Bellpedal and Galvan Hardford. Amongst many injured who were in attendance of the press conference held at noon on this day.”
“No,” Jeannie repeated, voice cracking as her panicked gaze flickered to the Head of Security. “No, it wasn’t me, it couldn’t have been. I-”
“Let her go, now.” Gamma’s harsh voice cut through the atmosphere. “She’s the next in line to Thirteen’s throne, do you have any idea-”
“I have plenty idea,” Emerson chuckled coldly. “That doesn’t make her less of a murderer.”
“I’m not a murderer,” Jeannie blurted out. “I didn’t- It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, I swear.”
He neglected to listen, or he simply refused to believe. “Get her out of here.”
In a flash, Gamma was between her and the door, her own gun drawn and aimed.
She said something that Jeannie didn’t hear, and Emerson responded with something that still stuck with her, with how it had sounded as though it had been whispered into her ear.
In another flash, an additional Peacekeeper had appeared in the doorway that Gamma had her back turned towards.
Bang.
There was a ringing in her ears. Jeannie’s throat was raw from one second to the next. She must’ve screamed, but she didn’t hear it. The robotic Peacekeepers dragged her out of the room, but her gaze remained fixed on what was still in the room.
Jeanine was still screaming, still kicking and squirming.
A crumpled body, a pool of blood.
Another friend, cracking their teeth on a bullet meant for her.
Click.
Snap.
Bang.