Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 2 ~ Imogen's Fight (IX)

WONDERLAND - 2

When the pit of my stomach falls into oblivion, I know that I should've taken the ticking time bombs over whatever the hell this is. There's no ground beneath my feet, there is absolutely nothing that will save me from slamming into the ground as a pile a shattered bones and shredded skin, and the only thing I am completely certain exists are the walls of the tube around me as I fall, fall, fall.

Another thing I'm certain of: my uniform has been completely jacked and traded out for something much worse than the standards said. It's tight, dangerously so, and it feels as though it's squeezing every bit of function out of my lungs. Any second they could collapse in on themselves and I'd be powerless to prevent it. It's not like I can just strip in the middle of everything, and in mid-air? Yeah, not gonna happen.

Making my hesitation to remove the fabric tightening over my skin heighten, a rush of cold air ripples over my body as soon as the tip of my foot dips into the abyss - and then, light. It drenches me, soaks me to the core, and then I'm shivering violently as I fall with no concern for where the ground may be.

Screams fill the air, they ricochet off the walls of whatever chasm this is. Finally, I manage to pry my eyes open and, through squinted eyes, I see what's pulling all these yelps and hollers out of everyone.

We're falling, everyone, and there is no ground. It's just confirmation for something I already knew, but now that it's reality and I know I'm not just hyped up on drugs or something, cold isn't the only thing rippling through me, but fear.

Falling with us rather far away is the Cornucopia, and scattered all around it, falling slower than the massive construct, are weapons, packs, supplies.

If they hit the ground - and that's a big if - none of those supplies save for a few blankets will make it through the impact against the ground. Especially if they've already been falling for the endless minutes that I think we've been falling.

Endless minutes. Nothing to tick it away. Not even a clock.

Again, I find myself yearning for the tick of that clock. Maybe then I could really pull all my thoughts together again. But instead I'm left to fall through a trench called "Confusion," and let my thoughts, ideas, everything scatter to the breeze around me like those supplies. Let's say I'm the Cornucopia: a weighty thing that will never stop falling, not at the hand of any tribute or any foundation other than rock-hard ground.

And the supplies, those are the thoughts, the ideas, and soon each of those tributes will catch on and start snatching them up. Once the initial looting has been gone through, I'll be left with nothing. Nothing to work with.

All these analogies are just drivel, though. It's not like anything I manage to string together will actually be comprehensible to my body. My limbs still refuse to move. It's then that I come to the conclusion that I don't care.

I'm going to die anyways.

Why bother trying to defend my thoughts? They'll probably be useless in a couple hours. Without a functioning brain, they die out. Not scatter, but fade.

Still, it'd be nice to splatter blood against that glass pyramid that I learned was trying to save me, not confine me. My brain seems to have taken a completely different turn at this, and with it, my whole body turns, facing the falling Cornucopia. I raise a brow at how everyone is flailing about, save for a few others. That Garlic Sauce boy is falling upside down. Elijah is the only one that seems to be having the littlest trouble out of all of them, his chest puffed out as he falls straight down. I squint at his movements - he's kicking forward, almost like a swimmer, to the Cornucopia. Immediately my first impression is that he's nuts, that if that thing hits the ground, he'll be crushed.