Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 3 ~ Impossible Flamingos (GF)

WONDERLAND - 3

Garlic has learned three things since making it past the Bloodbath. One; he is not, in fact, dead, but very much alive. Two; he's still packing on a few pounds from all those steaks he ate before, ya know, completely losing his appetite for them. Three; he has no idea where the hell to put this dead body.

But is this body really dead? Maybe she's just sleeping. No - she's not moving - wait, her finger just twitched, didn't it? Look, her eyes are opening! Ew...the eyeballs are rolling to the back of her head. Does that mean she's dead? Her hair looks like its been dunked in sewage water, does that mean she's dead? She's as pale as the ghost of his old pet rat, Snaggletoothed-Hag, does that mean she's dead? I mean, she's got a few snaggle-tooths in that open mouth of hers, and she kinda reminds me of an old hag with that blond hair of hers...does that mean she's dead?

Saying Garlic is panicking is an understatement. There's the possibility he just killed someone! How does someone die from being hit over the head with the handle of a weapon? Baseball bat, maybe, but he hadn't been using a baseball bat, and he swore he didn't hit her that hard. Or did he? Who knew? He questions literally everything. Why is everyone walking into doors? Why are they leaving him alone? Why the hell is he still holding Hag-Woman in his arms?

Torn between taking her someplace safer and placing her here, he stands, completely dumbfounded at what to do. He didn't want any of this when he came to the arena. He didn't think he'd have to make such hard decisions, and he didn't think he'd become a possible murderer. Murderer. No, he refuses the word, takes it by the legs and throws it out of his mind. Murderer. He falls to a crouch and lays the girl on her back, as gently as he possibly can, maybe even too gently, if that's possible.

Her hair brushes his arm and he notices how soft it is, and that surprises him. He fully expected it to feel like straw and granite. His certainly felt like straw and granite, at least, compared to hers. Same thing with the skin he doesn't mean to linger on for so long. He's not trying to be creepy - they're just tiny little brushes between hands and arms that mean nothing. Especially since, y'know, the hag is unconscious. He recalls her name being something like Emo-gene or Emoticon or something. Creative, I'll give her parents that.

He's reluctant to stand, but he does it, throwing a wary glance here and there. It's then that his vision falls on the doors. Confusion is a key element in what makes him up. That, and a love for flamingos, but that comes later. His concern intermixes with sulkiness, for he's still upset that he couldn't bring his beloved pajamas into the arena with him, not even when he said, "Pretty pretty please, with a cherry on top?"

No one human denies cherries, therefore, he's deemed the Gamemakers and everyone working for them inhumane; they are repulsive beasts that hide behind screens, watching them, waiting for the demise of every living soul they manage to entrap in their nets which are strung up with the hairs of tributes past.

Ew.

One door in particular catches his attention, something he knows he'll be too short to reach: a small, white cupboard-like door sitting snug above a door made of what looks like emeralds. Sulkiness pulls in shreds of anger when he gets closer, when he sees how the door shimmers and shines. Such a waste. They're over here using valuables to make doors while we're starving out in the districts. He's angry at the door, and he knows it's not right to be so harsh over it, but it's also not right to let others live on mere scraps of food no one else could finish eating.

He feels like making a point.

The flamboyance of the larger door is in stark contrast to the plainness of the smaller door sitting atop it, and even though Garlic is convinced he won't be able to make it up there, he tries. He'll show that door, he'll show the elegance of that door that in the end, it'll be nothing, unused. No one will see what really hides behind its surface.