The Author Games: Literature

Kanai Lathan's Tornado

"No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."

As Kanai looked around a room he recognized as his own, his hands gripping The Wizard of Oz tightly, he realized the words held a truth that he had previously been unable to realize. There really is no place like home.Setting the book down on his bed, a surge of homesickness went through him, sharp and unavoidable. Like weeds, they grew between the cracks in his heart, forcing themselves to be felt and acknowledged. Even as he looked around his room, so familiar with its tiny knick-knacks and collection of memories, Kanai knew on instinct that he wasn't really home. He was in some facsimile of it that the Gamemakers had constructed. He would never be home again, even if he did go back to District Four.

And yet, everywhere he looked there was a memory. The small collection of shells a reminder of when he and Kadie had scoured the beaches for the "coolest" shells in existence. The rumpled pile of dirty clothes bringing to mind his mother's exasperation when trying to do laundry on her rare days at home. The multiple paintings pinned to his walls evidence of birthdays. The nostalgia was a keen pain in his body, and Kanai switched his gaze to the window. There were fewer memories there.

As he stared out the window, a spiraling column of black met his gaze--a tornado. The tornado came closer and closer as he just stood there, frozen in place. When it was close enough for him to see the inside of the swirling mass of black, the floor beneath his feet shifted to the side, sending him tumbling to the ground. As Kanai struggled to regain his footing, the house jerked and tumbled wildly, making it hard to stand. The contents of his room were slipping around at his feet, cluttering the already messy floor until he was forced to clamber onto his bed, clutching at the headboard. His stomach churned with the same rhythm of the tornado, but he couldn't make himself look away from it. Dark, amorphous silhouettes passed by as the tornado spun, leaving Kanai in a perpetual state of anxiety, wondering if one of them would fly in and kill him.

An unexpected glint of light caught his eye, and he leaned forward, eyes widening as a familiar shape came into view. A large, ornate mirror hovered briefly outside his window, the same mirror he'd seen mere hours ago. His eyes flicked to the inscription carved into it. ishow no tyo urfac ebu tyo urhe arts desire. I show not your face, but your heart's desire. And just like before, an image burst across the surface of the mirror. This time of his family, all of them crowded together and smiling like there was nothing and no one that could hurt them in that moment. It made Kanai's heart ache with homesickness again, and he was grateful when the mirror was jerked away by the tornado's eddies.

He didn't want to see his family unless he could see the real them, instead of a pathetic version of them.

Almost as soon as the mirror disappeared, another familiar figure floated past. Mr. Tumnus. The sight of the faun jarred Kanai; he was certain that the other had been gone for good once he'd left Narnia. But the faun was there, and he seemed nonplussed about being in the middle of a tornado, his eyes closed and features calm and relaxed. Kanai called out to him in confusion, but his words were lost in the rush of the wind.

Memories drifted through his mind. Ruby Grace and blue eyes that never stayed the same color. A kind, "Well then, how it would be if you both came and had tea with me?" The brief feeling of warmth and kindness before it was torn away by searing pain and a child's daydream crumbling to pieces. The arena's Mr. Tumnus had become a symbol to Kanai- a symbol that kindness and security never lasted. Kanai shook his head, blinking rapidly when he realized that his eyelashes were wet. He lifted his head to look at Mr. Tumnus again, but the faun had already disappeared from sight.

A cold, sick feeling descended over Kanai. Tiredness seemed to sink into his bones, weighing him down as he continued to stare out of his window, waiting for whatever was next.

He didn't have to wait long. The ring he had let the Giver take from him now floated outside of his window. Despite its diminutive size, it captured his attention just as it had in the Shire. The golden band was just alluring and beautiful as it had been the first time he saw it, but now there something darker and colder about its beauty. Just like a siren's song, it was beautiful and deadly. He hated it.

The gift that came with a price.

In his mind's eye, Kanai replayed the memory that he had seen in the Giver's Annex. Anger pooled with frustration in his stomach, freezing and then splintering into a thousand sharp shards that sliced his insides with guilt. Kanai shoved himself off of the bed then, reaching for the ring. He wanted to destroy it. To slam it against the wall and watch as it crumbled into dust, to throw it in a fire and watch the metal melt and twist into nothing, to shatter it, as it had shattered him, however briefly.

The need to destroy bubbled up inside of him, foreign and terrifying and something he needed to do. He was suddenly no longer able to just sit on his bed and watch as he relived moments of his life in the arena again and again. But the ring remained out of his reach, and Kanai found himself half hanging out of his bedroom window, perilously close to falling out.

There was no fear inside of Kanai, none of the panic he normally would have felt at being so high up, simply a burning need to do something to appease the rage inside of him. It flickered inside of him, a raging storm of fire. Something smacked his ankle, and some of the anger leaked from him, replaced with pain. Kanai fell backwards into the room, landing hard on a pile of books.

It felt like landing amid a pile of rocks, and a high-pitched whine left Kanai's mouth. Every moment seemed to send sparks of pain through his spine, and he shuffled back towards his bed slowly, anger gone in the face of pain. He snorted in disgust at himself, features twisting into an ugly mask. I always was a wimp when it came to pain.

Even with the soft sheets below him, Kanai could still feel the pointed corners of the books digging into his flesh, and he ground his teeth together. In an attempt to ignore the pain, he looked back out the window. Should be something else coming to make me feel even worse, right? An unknown amount of time passed before he could see another dark shadow headed towards him. Whatever it was looked like it could be a human, and Kanai could feel dread coiling in his stomach. Before, he might have been curious about it, about what it could be, but his curiosity seemed to have dried up, leaving behind only suspicion and a sick feeling in his gut.

When the figure finally became clear, Kanai could only manage a weak, semi-hysterical laugh.

The Cowardly Lion. Of course. He wondered, with some vague, cynical part of him that he hadn't realized existed, if the universe was playing with him. If it was showing him all of these things to remind him of the horrors the Games had forced upon him. Or, rather, the symbols of whom he was, who he had been, since he first set foot in the arena.

First, the mirror, with its pretty pictures of things he could never have. Then Mr. Tumnus, the constant reminder that however interesting and amazing his settings might seem, there was always something ugly beneath. After him, the ring. A shiver ran through Kanai. The ring. He never should have taken it to begin with; he had read the book it came from, knew what it was like, but still had taken it. A reminder of his own foolishness.

And now, the Cowardly Lion.

The character in The Wizard of Oz whom he had never been sure whether he liked or not. An archetype, predictable to the end, even after he "found" his courage. The character that he had always been. Or rather, was most like. All false bravado and big talk, but with nothing to back it up. Because he was a coward.

He was afraid. But not of death, like he had been in the beginning. But rather, scared of himself, because he was no longer the same person that had walked into the arena. He had changed, softened and hardened in the same breath. He might not have killed anyone, but he could no longer see the world through rose colored glasses as he once had. And he no longer knew who Kanai Lathan was.