[Closed] Welcome to Reality

TASK FIVE: Male Entries

D1M- Holland Lennox

DECEASED.

D2M- Dylan Kirsten

I'm able to hide my emotions. Every stroll I take through the streets, I bite my tongue, hard enough to draw blood.

I feel fear. Fear strong enough to blind the weakest tributes. I'm horrified by what I've done, and I know that even if I win, this fear would never leave me. This is the kind of fear that lasts forever. You'll learn how to hide it, but when you're alone and you know that you aren't being watched, it will surface, and then there if no escaping the reality from there.

I've learned how to hide it. I'm being watched every moment I breathe in the arena. I might never be able to show the emotion.

I hear something snap behind me and I turn around, blind terror enveloping me. I bite my tongue harder. Nobody is behind me. It's my imagination.

Sometimes I believe that your imagination is a separate being. It likes to play tricks on you when you least expect it, and when you are expecting it, these tricks never seem to end. I am expecting it, and what would normally be a five minute walk is now a twelve minute one.

The dark clouds suddenly erupt in light. I jump and quickly run to the nearest cover, the theater. Soon, the light dies away and I sigh in relief.

And then comes the thunder. Loud and deafening, it seems to last for a minute, and even when I cover my ears, it happens to penetrate straight through and seep into my ears.

I take ragged, deep breaths as I lean against the wall. For a moment I think I've managed to find some sort of escape, until the anthem plays. I don't exactly know how I'll be able to see that regular broadcast of fallen tributes, for the clouds cover every inch of the sky.

And then I notice the light. I only notice it out of the corners of my eyes, but I know for sure that it means something. It's blue. I turn towards the light, which happens to be coming from in the theater. Light. Light! Something I haven't seen in forever, if you don't count the sudden bursts of lightning, which does nothing short of frightening me. I know almost exactly how long I've been asleep...almost twelve hours. I know this because I didn't sleep normally. It was almost like I had this dream...a long dream of...nothing.

Nothing used to be boring at home, but after all of this drama from the past few days...nothing seems like it could replace paradise. Nothing as in that word you thought couldn't exist, although it ends up describing most things in your life.

When you're in the games, everything from home seems ancient, as if it had never existed, or that you hadn't been there when it did. It seems that the days I've been here have stretched into weeks, which have stretched into months.

It seems like I've been thinking for hours, which really has only lasted for a couple of seconds. The gamemakers are doing their regular broadcast of fallen tributes. Avery...

I immediately run into the theater and pinpoint where the light is coming from. It's coming from Theater Eight...Violent Dreams. I run in just as Holland's face disappears. Holland. I never was close to him, but we had had our conversations. I close my eyes as the other face appears. My District partner. I've only talked with her once, and that was during training. She had offered me an alliance, but I ended up calling her a two-faced spoiled brat that deserves no such thing. I yelled it in her face and that scared her away from me. I guess it sucks that she's gone.

The next two faces hardly phase me as I sit down on the seat farthest from any exits. I close my eyes, curling into a ball as the movie starts. I think of the games. I think of how my alliance had started with a solid number of six, and now has dwindled only now to three. I guess we aren't an alliance anymore though. And that scares me. With only ten of us left, I am beginning to wonder how I'll be able to manage through the games. By the final ten, my father still had four in his alliance, excluding him.