The Fifth Annual Writer Games: The Fall

The Fall of the Martyrs - Males

District 1 Male – Chet Jackson

Snow papers over - well, Chet isn't sure what it's papering over, because it's papering over all of it, but it's something. And it hurts, man. It's like an ancient prospector from the fricken tenth district of Ten paced this place for a thousand years and pushed each of his eaten away toothpicks into the frozen ground with their pointy bits primed to prick. Or an army of gnomes downed their tools after their leaders agreed the terms of surrender, probably upon the stump that just passed by. Or the trees overhead shed sticks and needles as they dried and died and when the wind looked upon them with unfavor. That's the most likely scenario by a distance, Chet thinks, but he also thinks it's the least inspiring one by a similar distance. It gives as it takes. Whatever it is rakes at his back and his seat. Even if a dusting didn't drown out the danger, and even if he wasn't being dragged backwards into it by the wolf pack, then still all he could do for the pain is wince over it ahead of time. Chet winces all the time and the effect is the same, save some distance.

All he can see with clarity is the wake coming off his boot. Sometimes it rears up when he fancies sticking his heels in the ground and resisting, but mostly it is as lazy as he. He's suffering from a case of severe hypothermia, what's the wake's excuse? Nothing he hears is clarified. The members of the wolf pack talk between themselves at that volume where every word is about the eavesdropper even when it isn't. It is in this case, but in any case. Bakari talks about getting him to warmth. Benthic says it's like keeping a bait minnow underwater and he says by that he means keeping it alive and he says this elaboration was for anyone who doesn't know fish too good but his stare addresses the outsider from Eleven alone. They talk about Venus as well, and Chet doesn't know why she has to have anything to do with this. Minnows he can see, but his ally? No way. He is he and he alone.

One against the five. At least. They break past the pines and into the skirt of a tree taller than all which surround it. Its branches arch to the sky rather than jutting out straight ahead and all of its branches have been stripped naked by the winter queen. An unassuming mound of gathered snow swallows the trunk of this great tree. Chet can only assume that this is their base. By the size of it, two, three, new recruits could cohabitate on top of the notorious five. Part of him hopes they're sitting in there now. One on eight would read better for him, and the front page would read better for Melvin and the bills would read better for Mom and Dad. Yes, he decides, that would be for the best. And then he is spun out, and shoved through the tunnel of the igloo, and into an empty - of life at least - room. One on five then. This reads better, he thinks. He and he alone in the wolves' den.

Chet is not alone, not really. A made-up daemon stands before him as a shield. It is a Venus who cares enough about him to do something careless. It is a Venus who could never exist. He pictures how she must be in this moment, awake but laid in space like red wine spilled on carpeting. As an actress, the smallest parts of her can tell an epic longer than his fat mouth ever could; her pinky finger and the corners of her lips must now be saying nothing. And that says it all.

Nevertheless, this is the Venus who haunts the night terrors of the pack. They think he is a part of her, and thus, she is a part of him. And it was Eitan who put it best when he argued that Venus and Chet were twice as powerful apart as they were together. And even that wasn't very well put.

This is why Chet can still take breaths. And it's why Bakari flings him upon a sleeping sack and flings the flaps around him and zips it up until the track bites down on his snot-pimple nose. "This should warm you up," Bakari says with a grin and a smack down upon Chet's bound up shoulder. Chet tries to say that it better not chafe, but it comes across more like "mrr mphfmurrr mm mphf" because of Nerida's net rope which runs once twice thrice between his teeth. He glares at it for it and finds her admiring her work, flashing fangs free from any mortal limitations.