100 One Shots...Hopefully

[Moonblaze-Angel]

I'm a procrastinator in the extreme, and I'm terrible at going by prompts, so feel free to PM me to write the next one. Also, feel free to post comments, critique, etc.! Edits are always helpful, too. Thankies!

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#1 | Injured | Cindy/Ariel | Basketball Approx. 990 words | Read Time: 3-4 min
#2 | Sinking | Hedera | Hunger Games Approx. 850 words | Read Time: 3 min

[Moonblaze-Angel]

I look over Cindy's finger once more, wondering what I should tell her. It looks broken. It definitely feels broken, and it's already swollen and turning colors. Maybe it's jammed, liked Peyton's, from last year, but I highly doubt it. I have broken way too many bones before; and the fact is, she's not crying. People always cry when it's not broken, but I myself (and every person who's broken something after age 5) have never cried when breaking a bone. Breaking a bone hurts much less than flesh wounds, for sure.

I smile sheepishly up at Cindy. She's beautiful as always, even though she says she isn't. She's not one of those people you tell are pretty, and they aren't. No, she's drop-dead gorgeous. She is also much too kind for words, but she underappreciates herself. Her skin and hair are flawless, and even when I had long hair, it made me jealous.

I snap myself out of my appreciating her prettiness, and prepare for the bad news. "I can't see the bone, so that's a good thing, right?" She giggles a bit, and I smile back at her. "I think it's broken, though. Se how right here is already purple? That's exactly what mine did last year, and I had to wear a splint for the rest of the season." I let go of the finger, and she nods.

See, I've kind of become the main consultant for injuries among the school. Having broken my left arm alone five times, not including the hand or fingers, I've become a bit of an expert. Now, I don't have X-ray vision, or a doctor's degree, or even an EMT class, but I'm almost always right. If I tell you it's broken, you better go get it checked out. My mother is an EMT as well, so my teammates usually have me and then her check it out. If we come to the same conclusion, well, good luck with that cast.

My most recent cast-worthy injuries were within the last year. I have never made it a season in my life without having some sort of splint, cast, or brace put on me. During Volleyball season, I had landed on my elbow wrong and was put into a fiber-glass splint for two weeks. Apparently I had managed to 'crush my muscles'. The time before that was during Basketball season last year; I had smashed my middle finger in pretty good during a practice. I had somehow managed to break my middle finger while catching a ball. At some point in time during the volleyball season before that, I had put my hand in front of somebody's face to save it from a ball. The coach had spiked it at them for not paying attention, and being the Good Samaritan I was, blocked it by fracturing my wrist.

I had bothered the same wrist injury the game before, so I simply wrapped it off the court. I have it wrapped right now, actually, as though it was an excuse for today's lousy performance. We have exactly 7 girls on the team; three seniors, two freshman, a junior, and a sophomore. Cindy is one of the Freshman who doesn't usually start, but she did today, because another of our girls had 'jammed her finger' the game before. I thought she was fine, but with Cindy starting, and one less girl on an already bad team, it really made a difference in how we played. This was part of the reason Cindy got injured, I suspect.

Speaking of Cindy, she's just asked me if I want to sit with her and the rest of team, excluding the seniors. "Sure," I reply, a little happy they had invited me, "Just know I'll most likely be reading." The rest of the team thinks me slightly crazy for packing three books per game, but today I had actually only read one. The others were given to a cheerleader and another teammate to read.

After changing, we all collect our stuff and head out to the bleachers. The three seniors were already out there, and had chosen to sit rather far away with their families and the coaches. Us younger ones are pretty antisocial (and scared of the coaches), so we chose to sit on the end closest to us. Nobody sat on this side, even though it was a tournament with four teams, boys and girls. We had no clue why, we just sat there. The junior and the other freshman went first, and sat on the very top bleacher. There were five of them, and with their bags, water bottles, and the balls, we (Cindy and I) sat on the one below them.

More of, we tried to. Cindy made it safely to her seat, below the junior, and I went to sit down next to her. I stepped up on the bleacher, turned sideways, and tried to squeeze past the stuff in the way. I had always been skinny, but when I took a step over some water bottles, I knew I needed to lose some butt weight. My butt had decided, sometime in the last five seconds, that it really wanted to hit those water bottles. It got caught, and I fell sideways. Down every last bleacher.

I managed to catch myself just before falling off onto the court, but I hurt. I was also quite embarrassed, because eight teams' worth of people and their families had all just seen me fall down the bleachers. I was both glad and absolutely horrified that it was half time, because even though it meant I hadn't interrupted a game, it meant the entire gym had noticed me fall. My teammates, wonderful as they are, sat and laughed at me trying to untangle myself from my bag. I finally managed to escape both it and the bleachers, but I was hurting just about everywhere.

---

Sadly based off of the last tourney my team played in. T.T Entirely true. Cindy will have to get surgery on her finger (the assistant coach saw and tried to 'pop' it several times, making it worse) and is out for the season, taking us down to six girls. I ended up with a fractured thigh, bruised rib and hip, and hurting my wrist more. Fun, right?

[Moonblaze-Angel]

Hedera ran after him, her feet pounding on the ground. He had taken it! The little peasant had taken her keepsake, and he was going to pay!

She leapt over a fallen log, having gotten good at that since starting work at the plant. She was one of the two tributes from District 7, and she was determined not to lose in a forest. If word ever got out about her failing in a tree-surrounded area, then she'd have to kill herself. She couldn't face going back home after killing the other tribute from her District. It was an accident, of course, but everybody who saw it said otherwise. Why would she kill the weakling? She had been looking forwards to letting him be tortured by another - he was a pain in the neck.

Speaking of pains in the neck, the small boy from District 11 had taken her only keepsake from home and run off with it. Either he was an imbecile, or this was a trap. She couldn't care either way, as long as that little rat died. She knew the woods pretty well by now, and she knew there was the edge of the lake coming up. Some of the tributes from four had tried to swim across early on, and it had resulted in both being eaten by scary-looking platydogs. It was like somebody had fused together a duck, a beaver, and a dog with a shark. It dragged them down until they couldn't be seen, and then the water turned red. In reality, it was a boring death, unless they had a camera under the water.

The water. A thought comes to her, and she pulls up just short of the edge of the forest. She can see the kid in front of her, nearing the edge of the water. Did he figure out how to avoid them? Or is he trying to lure them out somehow? She doesn't care, and the only thing she can think about is how to push him in. She'll have to get him closer, and further out, and the only way to do that is to grab him and haul him in herself. Maybe she can wrap a vine around him and throw him like a log? First, of course, she'll need the necklace back.

Yes, a necklace. It's quite cliché, but it is her most prized possession. When she dies, hopefully they'll auction it off and give the money to her family. She knows she won't make it, not with killing people the way she has. Three of them have been giving to her killscore, and she's about to make it a fourth. Hedera snarls at him through the trees and waves her axe a bit. She really is quite good with it. In fact, she could throw it now, but it would be a risk, both because he could dodge, and because she'd lose her only weapon. If it is a trap, she needs it with her.

The boy has now gone about a foot out, into the water, and is dangling her necklace over it. He has a whistle with him, and he's blowing through it, but nothing seems to be happening. She can't even hear the whistle, not over the wind and the gentle waves. She slowly comes up behind him, preparing to sprint out of there at the first sign of danger. She watches the necklace, and she watches his hands. She has one eye on her surroundings, in case his buddies come for her.

She's about fifteen feet away when he turns around, a big smile on his face. He waves to her with his open hand, the whistle around his neck. He still has the necklace dangling from his other hand, and it's now swaying back and forth. He waves again, and drops the necklace into the water. It creates a small sploosh, and the water ripples around it. Hedera sees red, and she does the only thing she can think of. She charges at him.

The boy holds still, perhaps shocked in place. He shuffles a bit and the water moves again. She throws the axe at him, and he tries to sidestep it, but she'd been prepared for that. He did slip on something, though, and instead of being lodged in his stomach, it cuts deep into his arm. It turns the water red, and the waves have started to froth now. She keeps going, and is almost there, when something brushes against her foot. She ignores it and plunges further, but the boy stops her in her tracks.

He laughs, and pulls the whistle back up to his lips. He blows, and suddenly the waters are frantic. The lake comes alive with platypups, and she can see the glint of their teeth. One grabs her foot and pulls her in deeper while the boy gets out. Why they don't attack him, she has no idea, except for...the whistle. Her last thought as she sinks in to the darkness is that he's trained the mutts for amusement.

---

I feel this could be a fun twist in one of the games. Anyways.