Emryselle Hawke (@AiBella) Task Three
Emryselle woke with a start, hitting her face hard on her shield. Before she could stop herself, she cried out from the pain. Slapping her hands over her mouth she looked around. This was CERTAINLY not where she had fallen asleep! Standing, Emryselle stretched her hands out to the walls of her prison. A clear cylinder stretched into the far distance, and from where she stood, there was no way out of it.
The loud sounds of the Panem national anthem blared through the tiny space, over-lapping the sound that had woke Emryselle up… the cannons. Wracking her mind through the meter of the cannon sound to when she’d awoke, she figured on five cannon blasts. How had so many died between last night and now? And why was she entrapped in this clear cylindrical prison? Last night there had been only five dead, with the additional five the death-toll was up to ten!
Feeling short of breath, Emryselle looked toward the sky to hear what announcement there might be. Other than the absence of egress, Emryselle could not really see any sign of threat where she was, so there had to be more to it. She was right.
Firein Magwhite’s larger than life face appeared just as the last tones of the anthem trailed off. With a sneer and a sinister sounding chuckle, he greeted Panem. “Good morrow to you all! You will have heard the cannon’s blast. Regretfully, there was a mix-up in the statistics department, and while the perpetrators of the mix-up have been, shall we say- mixed- up themselves, it still leaves us with a problem. You see, the number of people that died in the eruption itself was not accurate and there were also one or two unaccounted deaths.” The Head Gamemaker smiled and Emryselle glared up at his face through her transparent prison. “We will get back to the identities of the additional fallen in a few moments.”
Emryselle took a deep breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips. Not only did this man get off on torturing people on live television, but he also got some sick satisfaction out of acting like it was all for the benefit of the tributes… all while still being so absolutely malevolent in his attitude toward his captive audience. –and captive they were.
“Tributes, your numbers have dwindled considerably. You are now down to fourteen remaining contenders. However, your nation is bored with the dull-drum way this game is beginning to play out. I mean, every one of you was peacefully asleep when this announcement woke you up.” Magwhite let out another one of his patented evil chuckles and raised an eyebrow as he continued, “Of course, we may have helped you with that. There was a sleeping poison mixed with the vapors and ash that the volcano spit out, and all of you that survived the eruption were affected by this poison.”
Grabbing her shield from the floor of her prison, Emryselle launched it at the walls of the tube like it was just a large heavy discus and she was in the Olympic games her mother had told her stories about. At least those games weren’t always to the death. It was true that some people died during those games, but it wasn’t the objective them.
The shield bounced off of the walls like a rubber ball on foot thick steel and the vibration of the prison, for quite a few moments after that, completely disoriented Emryselle. When she came to herself again, she noticed that the shield had not even made a scratch in the wall and Magwhite’s voice was still droning on.
“… your worst fears come alive.” He finished as Emryselle shook her head clear of the ringing in her ears.
A deep generic sounding announcer’s voice came next along with the faces of the five who had died. Emryselle noticed the girl that had fallen to prey to the careers, but froze as the next face flashed across the sky. “Rowan!” she screamed. The tears fell unhindered down her face to mix with the blood pouring out of her nose as the rest of the five faces were displayed. She didn’t see them, couldn’t bring herself to care. Who would take care of Lila and Jaya now? Snapping out of her pity party she realized that she was their last hope. She had to pull herself together in order to be any help to them at all.
