by gloaming » Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:33 pm
Casey listened in silence as the Capitol escort introduced the Capitol, as the anthem played his thoughts began to stray. He kept glancing towards the families around the outer edges of the square, all looking worried. He looked up as the girl tribute was called. She would probably die, along 23 others. As the escorts hand groped around the bowl of male names his shoulders tensed. The hand grabbed a slip of thin paper, and unfolding it quickly, read out the name. "Casey-" a pause. "Simmons!" Silence. No siblings running up to take his place, no parents screaming his name,no friends looking to comfort him. Absolute complete, and dreadful silence. Casey sighed. Pushi g his way through the crowd he ducked under the rope, straightening up and brushing himself off. He slowly walkedup to the stage towards the beckoning hand, head held high shoulders pushed back. He was quickly ushured into the Justice Building then into an empty room for goodbyes. "There's no need for that." The peacekeeper turned to him, confused. "What?" Casey rolled his eyes. "I don't need to say goodbye. There's no one here for me." He said it with no infliction, his dark eyes showing nothing. "Uh- Oh. Well you have to stay here it's procedure. I'll come back for you in three minutes." With that he left, leaving Casy alone again
┏━━━━━━━━━━━┓
“
When you are born,” the golem said
softly, “your courage is new and clean.
You are brave enough for anything:
crawling off of staircases, saying your
first words without fearing that someone
will think you are foolish, putting strange
things in your mouth. But as you get
older, your courage attracts gunk, and
crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and
knowing how bad things can get and
what pain feels like. By the time you’re
half-grown, your courage barely moves
at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So
every once in awhile, you have to scrub
it up and get the works going, or else
you’ll never be brave again.
”
┗━━━━━━━━━━━┛