#aoptask2

[little-red-finch]

The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound. || Grassland Task.

The night is quiet.

The night is calm.

And then it is no longer.

There's hardly an instant to collect myself, and tell myself to get up. On the ground below me, large beasts are springing from the ground. Mutts, deadly and ready to kill me at all costs. But while they're large, they're clumsy and rear at the tree I sit in.

They can't climb, I notice, but they can jump at one throws itself into the trunk and sends me clinging to a branch for support. I can't stay here, and so I shimmy myself out onto a limb and reach for the next tree. I make it, but they're limited in the grassy plain. I know I can't make the next and I'm assured as I jump from the tree as the beast knocks it down.

A pain shoots down my shins as I land, and I stumble forward. I land among the rubble of the torn up ground and I feel a cut across the bridge of my nose and down my cheek from the brush. It's going to scare, but I can't think of these things right now because I have to move or die. And so I move, and my legs are sore from the fall, but I keep them moving and the animal charges behind me. They're clumsy like this when running, and overall fascinating.

I move swiftly through the tall grasses, and in the distance I hear them -- tributes must be nearby. The thought makes me push myself harder until I am conscious of the lungs in my chest ready to burst. But then I'm not there.

I hear his laugh behind me. I'm a child again, running through the forests of my home. I am trying to beat Augustus with all my might even though I know with his long legs he's letting me win.

And I win. But I do not beat Augustus because I realized I have beat them. They've stopped behind me as if they can go no further. I fall to my knees. I can't move. I can't make myself move. I don't want to. I want to go back to that memory. At this moment, I want them to come for me. I don't want to be here.

My wish isn't granted. They never are. But I become aware that in the horizon and the early glow of the morning that the Cornucopia sits there. I've completely retraced any progress I have made. But it's a good thing.

My legs are legs and my lungs are lungs and I am me and this is my reality.

I need to find them.

My feet rise and I take the step.

The oxygen pulses through my lungs and out again.

I move towards the Cornucopia, my old friend.

I will find them. I will find Logan and Larka.

And so I go.

[loganbaxwoll-blog]

Running with trains: The Diary

Title: Home

Today was a pretty boring day.

My parents weren't happy to hear I hit a boy in school, so my dad told me not to leave the house for my entire suspension. When he left for work, I could've slipped out the door at any time. My mom was already relaxing into the chair, with Morphling coursing through her veins. I could've left. But I decided to be a good...son. Besides, school was still going on. The only other person I could talk to was my mother. We didn't talk.

I took the needle out of her hand, and the tablets off the table, back to where my parents liked to keep their drugs. When I came back, my mom was speaking, in a jumbled speech. Like she wasn't fully there, but I'm use to this. They were always addicts. It's still weird to me how I didn't end up like them. But every time I see either of them like that I...it makes me not want to be like them, even more. Anyway, I thought I heard her say something about food, so I made her a meal.

Everyday, from my window, I can hear the trains my district makes, leaving our district. I can't see them from our house. I can only hear them. I can see Hovercrafts, lift to the sky, and move. Adults and small children, walking around the district. I'd assume some are off to work, like my dad. Some teens, trying to buy some of the addictive drug. Maybe I should get into the business of selling Morphling. It would help put food, and for my parents, Morphling on the table.

I want to get out and run with the trains. I feel stuck here, with nothing to do. But if the sun's starting to set, then Bise will be out of school soon.

I was right. Bise shows up to my house with his goofy smile and cool personality. Bise is my best friend. He's a year older than me, but he's like my brother from another mother. Some people from school think we get along too well, that we, quote  "might as well start dating". We're both not afraid to admit, that shit's funny, but Bise and I like girls, so that'll never happen. Bise shows up and tells me what's going on in school. How life's been, with four younger siblings and two parents. He said he had to stop to "take a hit". Bise isn't an addict, but he likes Morphling too. At first, he used it to deal with the stress he had, before. Now he takes the tablets whenever he feels like it. Just not so much like my parents.

Not like a real addict. I would know.

We talked for a little while longer, had some laughs, then my dad came home. Bise took the back door, out. Before he left, he said he wasn't sure if he'd be able to hang out, tomorrow  I told him it's fine. I'm probably not going to be stuck at home, all day, tomorrow.

When I saw him, my dad went straight for the Morphling. Me? I went straight to making him some dinner.

- Logan

[barton-templey-blog]

Pre-Reaping Task #2 "The Journal"

It was a shopping day today. That meant getting up before sunrise and making the walk to the town square where the vendors set up their shops. Now some people might scoff at that but let me tell you, District Nine is a big place. When you live on the outskirts by all the grain fields, that "little walk" can take a few hours. Luckily enough for me today turned out to be one of the nicest days in a long time. 

As the sun started to rise over the horizon I stopped a moment to watch. This was one of my favorite things to do; watch the sun as it drifted lazily over the expanses of grain. It's light cast a great golden glow over the fields. Gently swaying the stalks as if the entire district had caught fire. I swear I could stare at that sight all day. It was in a word, breathtaking.

The next few hours were relatively uneventful. I bought what meager supplies of food I could manage with the money I had earned for the week. I disliked being in the main part of District Nine. Too many cramped houses and processing factories. The whole place reeked of misery and smog. The whole thing just felt too cramped and polluted to me. I missed being out in the fresh air and openness of the fields. 

Once I got back home I found my mother helping my brother get ready for school. She gave me a brief hello before chasing the little hoodlum out the door because he had refused to wear his pants and run away. Yup, this was a pretty average day. I brought the bags of food into the kitchen and laid them out on the counter. The amount was smaller than last week, guess I would have to eat a little less.

By the time my mother had wrestled pants onto Skander and brough him inside I had prepared them a breakfast of rolls with a little wild strawberry jam that Nana had prepared. Nana was well known throughout the entire district as the sweet old lady who sold odds and ends. Everyone belonged to her family and you could go to her with any problem you had. She gave the jam to me for free when she saw how few coins I had this week, placing it in my hand with a sly smile. 

After breakfast I walked Skander to his schoolhouse a few miles down the road. Because all the citizens of District Nine were so spread out, they had to have multiple schools scattered throughout the district with a larger central one in the middle of the district. The one Skander went to had only twenty students in it. He was always nervous when I dropped him off but I made sure to tell him that I would be there the minute he was let out as I did every day. That seemed to calm him down a little and he detached himself from my hand and disappeared inside. 

Returning home I headed out back to the shed where I ran my father's pest control company. My heart sank when I saw there were no postings for today on the job board. Another day without earning money. At least that was one thing you could say about my father; despite being a lazy, drunk, abusive, good for nothing... he knew how to force people to give him jobs. A skill I hadn't quit grasped yet. 

The rest of my day was spent tinkering with a new trap I was designing. I hadn't got it quite right which frustrated me to no end and if I didn't have nothing else to do I would have given up. The hours ticked slowly by, I went and picked Skander up from school, cooked dinner for him and waited for mom to get home. And frankly by the time the sun started setting I was exhausted. Too tired to sit on our porch swing and watch the sunset. I almost didn't have enough time to write this. Now to wake up and do it all again tomorrow. Hopefully someone will give me a job because I'm not sure how much longer our family can keep going like this.

[little-red-finch]

Pre-Reaping Task #2 || "The Diary"

District 7 is one of the larger districts with its acres of forest that supply the Capital and surrounding districts with the timber products they require. Like any district, 7 can be divided into the higher class, Victor's Village, the slums, housing, and the market. Life is decent in most areas, although it can be hard growing up in the slums. My family is small compared to others. Most families have multiple children whether they can afford them or not. We grow up being taught that boys must be strong and the girls to be brave, not like other districts for fighting, but simply for the environment we live in. Living in the Northwest, or so the teachers tell us, means harsh winters and deaths in the slums. Children are taught how to scale trees from the time we are young and heights mean nothing. Most by the time they are ten can swing an ax like any worker. Logging is a deadly job with many of the elderly women of my village being widows. Nowadays, things are safer with the so begged for improvements from the Capital. My own father is a carpenter and my mother stays at home selling baked goods she makes. School is not very important. Very few people stay in after fifteen when they leave to find jobs, and the officials do not mind because we need the smaller workers for cutting limbs off the top of the huge oak trees. I've stayed in this long because my mother says we need educated people around. I like to disagree, but she gets her way. My house is a simple cabin like the others identical to it. My day consists of school and then the long way home through the Slums filled with people on the streets; it's only another thing my mother forbids duet safety, but this time, I can get my way.