CLOCKWORK ━ Hunger Games

- you [chpt. 4]

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CHAPTER FOUR. YOU.

Falling.

You were falling into verses, into a puzzlement of sensory illusion. Gravity cradled you, soothing wounds as you fall, falling down, down, down, under the ground and into reality. Basking in swift air, you moan and turn, griping with yourself, scratching vast cheeks and leaving scars. You are a bomb. Made of human skin, the ignition in a gasoline-heavy warzone. Swelling, your hands bulge as you writhe yourself into consciousness, exploding into shatters.

Scything the air, this sequence was less than a millisecond, and now–

–now, the sky mourns the heavy earth as it burns.

Stars blistering the night can only gaze, peeling pieces of its hand helpless, as the world falls to mankind. You, by contrast, are the catalyst, the ignition: the candlestick to wrath-venomous gasoline. The fire. The arrogant flame consuming the building, the ravage, consumed by fury. People are afraid, and scurrying like wild sheep. Some gawk at your charred, mutated skin in astonishment, trembling their lips. You see how the burning flesh creeps up their noise, blasting their eardrums and tainting their tongues with ash. It is almost dysphoric, awkward: you are a ghost intruding during their demise.

Fire is a horrendous thing. It sends heat like fireworks unto the sky: and its embers curt the ground, branding it, spitting at the grass. The colours in the night, by comparison, are vulgar, rude, they smirk at the bloodshed and smoke cigars while the people shrivel and perish. Clouds have bloodshot eyes and slurred mouths.

This is where you are placed.

Dazed, eyes as glossy as chapstick, whilst groaning quietly as those around you scramble. Every sense in your body is in overdrive, overly self-aware, clumsy and unused, almost mechanical in manufacturing. You feel sick. Standing to your feet, you clutch your head and join the anarchy, limping with the crowd.

Praying for an exit, your hands blossom into roses, red as day, and your heart thumps with a million souls. You stand as people scram, staring wildly, scanning the crowd for options.

The building is a fireball, folding like a sea into itself, roaring and proud of its own failings. On the floor is bodies swamped with dirt, some stood on; head injuries and amputees moaning to themselves. They wrestle the stalking, blustering heat, a few being consumed by the living flames. Screaming and yelling are thunderbolts in your ear, rummaging through your sanity and taking your warmth – every cry pierces your moral code; every falling piece of rubble clashes with the pounding gunfire. And in the midst of it all, you are one of two-hundred lambs awaiting slaughter.

Tears, and rage, threaten you.

PAUSE.

What do you feel? During the fire?

You are the dominator in the fraction of your world. The common cause. The pathogen. Corrupted by your own skin, even your mask has shrunk. You are a ghost still-living, exposed to the crawling bacteria of hatred. Those bugs won't get off your skin: they bite and scar the porcelain organ, ripping it apart and searing its edges. Then, they invade you; snapping your immune system in half.

And it was your fault because you invited the bacteria in.

You slaughter those who are nameless; flowers of people, silk-threaded clothing and love-infested faces. Innocent, wounded, purple-bruised and khaki-stained, praying to the sky, begging for cleansed water. They don't want the bacteria. They don't deserve it screeching down their throats, demanding blood and collapsing their own-self image the way it has done to yours.