Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 1 - Kaleo May

PANEMDEMIC - 1

There were an awful lot of pretty things in the world.

If asked to regurgitate the words that matched up with such things, he could keep going on and on, even spilling out words you wouldn't expect someone to associate with beauty; he found some foods to be just as visually satisfying as a flower.

These were the words he found himself tracing over on his arm as he sat in wait for his name to be called. He'd already written them down a while ago - a fresh slate of skin, just for his trip to the Capitol. They'd begun to fade, though, and the stylists kept on trying to rub it all away so he'd have to start all over on his quest to developing a list that filled his whole arm. For naught! The pen pressed deep, and the ink flowed fresh and free. The smile right firm upon his face was an easy one, a satisfied one.

He saw "lilacs, fresh strawberries, city lights" nestled under a patch of "blue hair, train wallpaper, chandeliers." He smelled them from memory; but heard his own name from the present. "Kaleo May," they'd said - and he was proud of hearing it, so proud that he placed his hands on the table and shoved himself up with a flourish until he was at a brisk walk, right to the door they wanted him to enter. He kept his sleeves up, too. His excuse was that the room was warm, and though the gooseflesh creeping over the backs of his arms said otherwise, he convinced himself.

It wasn't a difficult task to enter the room, for he'd gone head-on, not offering a single question as to why the lights were on; surely, if they were off there was a reason for it, a perfectly plausible one that he wouldn't question in the slightest. He saw nothing wrong with the drop in temperature, not even when he began to tug his sleeves down, and he saw nothing out of the ordinary with the empty resonations of his footsteps until he'd made it to the very center of the room without so much as a command or direction.

There, he forced himself to a pause, for if Pimbep had been allowed to follow, he was almost positive she'd have taken him by the arm and made him. He knew her well enough to follow her demeanors without her present. He did it if only to convince himself that there was a sense of normalcy in the room; that perhaps there was only a delay in the lighting up of the place.

Now, Kaleo was an awfully quick fellow, so when the intercom burst to a crackle above his head, he was swift in lifting his head to the ceiling, searching for even the smallest flicker of a fluorescent bulb to match up with the strong waver of a rather masculine voice overhead.

"You seem like an excellent young man, one I see going far in these Games."

It took him aback, not because of the easiness at which he accepted the compliment (he rose a brow and even cocked a smile, spreading his hands out in front of him as if to say, "Yeah, I'm pretty great."), but because of the disembodiment it held from the rest of the room. It echoed, it clanged.

It gave him a sense of discomfort when he looked down, but perhaps it'd been a direction in its own right, because a little glowing had crossed his vision.

Once again, he didn't question approaching it; he merely went.

Though he went, he went slow, and this begged forth another comment from above, one of an amused confidence, a subtle taunting. It was a different voice entirely, a lighter one, a higher one. He bristled, for he didn't like such indecisiveness. Could they not've chosen only one to guide him, or was that just too much work for the Mighty Makers?

"What sticks out to me most, though, is your hope."

Kaleo blinked, shifting his legs forward at a steady pace. "Well, I'm awfully glad you think that's stand outish. Such flattery." He imagined kicking at a pebble as he made his way through the dark, stuffing his hands in his pants like he might've back in Nine walking along trails to work and such. He moved rather easily, and though earlier Pim had warned him about winging things, he saw that he'd made the better decision, for whatever it was these people were pulling, it was something unanticipated.