Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 2 ★ Deja Vu (PC)

VICTORS OF THE ARENA - 2 - PERCY COLE

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.  

Bile rose just as the ground did, tangy and acidic at the base of Percy's throat. There, he tried to speak to himself, to reassure himself, to rationalize with himself. In vain. The speed of ascension certainly choked him, and he slammed his back against the glass, hands pressed to the walls. They dripped with sweat, and too easily did they slide around his tube, leaving streaks in their wake.

One hand slewed too quickly, and Percy was quick to quiver. "Ho, shit. Shit."

Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

Each flicker of white-hot light subsequently plunged him into temporary darkness. When he looked down, he could hardly see himself. A dark wetsuit grasped him all over, save for the arms, and the only signifier of his palpability was a bright orange strip crossing over his chest. Orange, of course, orange, of course. There - he clutched at the color, huffing.

It was happening again.

The tube shook, and Percy hitched quietly between a wheeze. Nausea threatened him again, and in doing so, it squeezed his eyes shut. He'd always done this when he was seasick-

Happening again. Again. Again.

"Listen," he said to himself, flinching at the rattle of metal plates above, "listen. Quit pussing out, okay? You're not the slowest. You're not the worst. You know this. So stop. Just stop."

Light, bright and scalding, lit up the backs of his eyelids, but he refused to open them, still waiting for the sensation of impending death to fade out. No big deal, right? For many a moment, he let the senses overwhelm him, cancelling out thought, emotion. He simply felt.

Humidity wrapped about his being. Water slapped against some far-off source. With a tremble and a heave, the ground locked in place beneath him.

"Tributes, let the Starving Artist Games begin!"

"Victors. Let the Annual Hunger Games begin."

How grand a thing reminiscing was.

When he opened his eyes, he found that the world glistened. Just as the swamp had, this world undulated, but unlike that wretched place, this water was clean, far, and smelled of salt. Heaps of familiar land leaned against his pedestal.

A healthy mix of ease and trauma filled him, then, and he allowed this world to stretch and encompass its inhabitants; to his right, someone snickered, and it was this airy sound that cued him in on the fact that he was facing the wrong way. With great care, and great redness in the face, he turned to the depth of the sand-laden territory, catching sight of green, of brown, of rot and decay. Numbers drilled off above a leaning shack - something he'd see back home.

Home. Now that was an idea. Home, where a brother sat in wait with his fiance. Home, where a brother wrung his hands in his lap. Home, where a brother said, much to the disgrace of his District, "Nothing will change the fact that we're fucked."

Home, where Percy stood on a screen, seventeen again, with the same panicked clench in his jaw, the same patchy redness on his face, sweat on his neck.

Home, where the six in sixty disappeared, and all that remained was a zero and a gong.

When his foot launched off the plate, he sucked in a great breath, as though one wrong move would send him plunging through murk. But he didn't, and he moved. Constantly. A triggered habit entered him; he knew to keep his strides long, great, pounding, but not to trudge, not to skid too strongly.