Triple Crown

[Sonmi-451]

Bump!

[Sonmi-451]

More added. Is there any interest in this story at all, or I should I not continue?

“Lizzie, it’s time to eat,” Max tells me as he pokes his head in my room. I can tell that he senses my depression, since he’s quieter and has a less demanding tone than usual, which I’m grateful for because he can get awfully loud. “By the way, try to get the other champions to at least stand you; you’ll last longer during the second and third rounds if you make friends.”
“You actually think it’s in my capacity to make friends with people I’m going to have to kill?” I ask him incredulously. I probably wouldn’t make friends anyways even if I didn’t have to kill them.
“Lizzie, just try.” Max sounds tired and resigned – he was probably expecting that answer – so I decide to at least try, but I’ll probably just scare the other champions off by trying to make friends with them. Well, it’s worth a shot at least. “Come on Lizzie. We don’t want to be late,” he adds, and I rise off my bed, sighing and wondering which one of my fellow Section Eight champions is going to die first.

“Everyone, this is Lizzie, the last champion from Eight,” Max introduces, and I step out from behind him to get a clear view of the people who are going to die besides me on national television.
The first champion is a boy, whose name tag says is Nick Hill, probably twelve or thirteen and small for his age with a hollow face that speaks of years of not having enough to eat, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t have a chance at winning, that he’s probably one of the ones to die first. The second champion is a girl named Sarah Mills, who is also thirteen at most and is five feet tall if she’s lucky. Her face is also hollowed out and her resignation to her death is obvious, and I feel a twinge of sympathy for her. Well, at least she’ll get to eat well for a little bit before she dies. The last champion, however, even though he’s facing away from me, looks vaguely familiar. He’s tall, probably six-three or six-four, with broad, muscular shoulders and fluffy blonde hair, and something about him is just… familiar. When he turns around, I know exactly why.
“Luke,” I murmur, staring at him in astonishment. He and I have gone to the same school since eighth grade, and, since that school happens to be in a different dimension, that brings on the question: What in the hell is he doing here?
“Lizzie?” I see him look me up and down a couple times, amazement tinting those stunning ice-blue eyes of his, as though he’s making sure I’m real and not an illusion. “But… how?” He turns to Max now, staring at him in utter confusion. “How’s she here too?”
“You two know each other?” Max asks us, looking back and forth between both of us and seeming to be as shocked as Luke and I are.
“Yeah,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off of Luke. “We go – or I guess went – to the same school.” I question Luke, knowing I have to be very careful about how much I reveal, “How did you…?” leaving off the ‘get here’ part that could cause the other champions to be suspicious.
“Max,” he answers, and I know the same thing happened to him that happened to me. But why would the Triple Crown committee take a boy from a different universe who, even though he’s pretty muscular and maybe a good fighter, isn’t guaranteed to win?
“Why?” I turn to Max and stare him down, willing him to be truthful, even though he’s probably not supposed to be.
Unfazed by my intense gaze, he just shrugs his shoulders and replies, “Orders,” which, even though it probably is the truth, doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out why Luke was taken.
Up until now, the other champions had been basically invisible, but now the boy, Nick, clears his throat and says in a small voice, “The food’s here.”

[Sonmi-451]

Bump! Any comments at all?

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Well, let’s eat!” Max booms, and we all converge towards the table where huge dishes of some of the best food I’ve ever seen have been laid out. Mountains of steamed and buttered vegetables, loaves of fresh, still warm, bread, whole animals and so many choices of drink that I’m completely overwhelmed. I get a small amount of carrots and a chicken leg, then sit down next to Luke. The whole meal is basically silent except for Max trying – and failing – to make small talk with us champions. I’m too busy thinking about Luke and how he got here to talk, and the other champions are probably thinking about how they’re going to be dead in a month, which doesn’t exactly make someone want to talk, so eventually Max shuts up and we all just eat. I finish first, since I took the least, but don’t go back for more because my appetite’s disappeared, just leave my plate where it is and take the elevator up to the roof. I need to think. In private. As soon as I step out of the elevator, a chilly breeze hits me, and I relish its cooling effect as I collapse into one of the chairs spread out across the roof.
“Oh God, this makes it so much harder,” I groan as I bury my face into my hands. “How can I go home without Luke and respect myself ever again?” I know Luke’s parents – they’re really nice by the way – and I know how much he means to them, being their only child and all.
“You know, I won’t be able to go home without you either,” a voice behind me says, and I whip around to find Luke standing behind me, his stunning blue eyes glued to my face. “Because I’ll have to think every day about how I let a girl I knew and kind of liked die just because some committee of old men decreed that she should.” I can hear the bitterness in his voice and I think idly that I really should’ve gotten to know him, since we seem to have a lot in common. He pulls up a chair and sits down next to me, his intense gaze still affixed upon me.
“So what do we do Luke? Do we both die and not return? That might be easier than one of us having to go back without the other.” I capture his eyes with my own and I hope he understands that I’m perfectly serious. After all, if we both die, El Nieve won’t get their Triple Crown winner, and that in itself is enough to make me want to go through with it.
“I guess that could work. I just never thought I’d die like this,” he murmurs, dropping his gaze to his feet.
“What, with a whole nation screaming for your blood?” I ask, feeling the exact same way, because dying like this definitely wouldn’t be high up on anybody’s ways-to-die list, much less mine.
“Yeah, something like that,” he answers shortly, and our conversation collapses into silence.
After a few minutes of looking back and forth between Luke and the city spreading out in front of us, I finally rise to my feet and say, “Well, good luck Luke.”
Just as I enter the elevator to go back down to my room, I hear him mutter, “God knows I’m going to need it.”

[Lizzy<3]

Love it i need more!!!!!!

[Sonmi-451]

More added.

“Lizzie, it’s time to go get ready for interviews,” Max tells me gently as he pokes his head inside my room.
“Which entails?” I ask through my yawn, pulling myself off of my bed and stretching luxuriously. Training would be good; I’d really like to beat on a dummy right now.
“Going to the stylists to get dressed.” I sit straight up, hoping I heard wrong, as any sense of relaxation is evaporated by that awful word. I have a clinical aversion to makeup and makeovers and any kind of clothes except for T-shirts, jeans, basketball shorts and sports uniforms, so any mention of the word ‘stylist’ invariably freaks me out some.
“And what exactly am I going to be dressed in?” I stare Max down, thinking that he might just lose a couple teeth if he mentions anything about dresses.
“To be honest, I have no idea.” He shrugs, pretending not to notice the murderous look on my face. “It depends on what stylist you have and on what look you’re going for. By the way,” he adds, “you might want to try something besides hostile and angry. It could keep you alive in the second and third rounds.”
I say nothing and follow Max obediently out to the elevator, keeping my mouth shut because I know that I can’t give away Luke and I’s plan. I watch the lit numeral that shows what floor we’re on as it falls with us, changing from eight to zero in about a second. “And here we are,” Max announces, then shoves me out of the elevator and is on his way back up to the eighth floor before I can say or do anything in response.
“Thanks for the info Max,” I mutter venomously under my breath, all of this talk of stylists not helping my already mediocre mood. “I really hadn’t noticed.”
“And this must be Lizzie Lightning!” I hear a voice squeal excitedly behind me, and whip around to find three people – well, I think they’re people – standing behind me with looks of joy on their faces.
“Who are you?” I ask suspiciously, balling my fists as I look from one strange form to the next. The first person, a short and slight woman, is perfectly blue. Her hair is a brilliant metallic blue, as are her eyes and her lipstick, and even the tattoos running up and down her arms are blue. The second person, a man this time, seems to have gotten the monochromatic memo as well, as he is entirely orange. His hair is the color of fire, and his eyes are like sunsets in their burnt orange hue, and there is even a slight orange tint to his skin, though he doesn’t have any tattoos. The third, another woman, is also following the one-color theme with her all-white appearance. Her hair is shock white, her irises are pure white and her skin is nearly transparent it’s so white, and I wonder how anyone could think that anything like this is attractive and not overdone.
The first woman steps forward and shakes my hand, mesmerizing me with her amazingly azure appearance, as she tells me, “I’m Kate and this is Theo and Macy…” She jerks her head in the direction of the other two freaks, then adds, her tone full of awe, “… and, of course, you’re Lizzie Lightning.”
I nod my head in response, my eyes darting between all of them as I try to figure out what is so familiar about their color schemes, and am barely able to suppress a smile as I realize what it is. “Broncos colors,” I murmur under my breath, my gaze traveling from blue to orange to white as my lips twist into a grin briefly. However, the three colors, as I have now nicknamed them, don’t seem to notice, as they’re too busy talking among themselves and giggling.

[sparkle.+bballmta]

I like the story but unfortunately it sounds wayy too much like the Hunger Games.

[Sonmi-451]

I like the story but unfortunately it sounds wayy too much like the Hunger Games.

Well, do you have any suggestions as to how I could change it?

[Sonmi-451]

Bump!

[Sonmi-451]

More added. Any comments?

I cough loudly, hoping to catch their attention and get this whole styling business out of the way. As if on cue, Kate looks up and exclaims, “Oh, right! Right this way, Lizzie.” She gestures into an adjoining hallway and I follow her and the other two colors into what appears to be a spa. In one corner, I see a tub full of a green, foul-smelling liquid and am immediately repulsed. Am I really going to have to touch that?
“Now, Lizzie, you’re going to have to take your clothes off so we can do a full-body polish,” someone behind me says and I pull my gaze away from the olive-colored fluid to find all three of them watching me expectantly. I give a huge sigh and roll my eyes, then do what they’ve instructed. I hear someone click his or her tongue in approval and I glance down at myself for a moment to be reminded that I am a world-class athlete and have a figure as such.
“If you’d step into the tub please.” Theo places a hand on my back and half-forces me into the green stuff, which burns my skin everywhere it touches me. However, I grit my teeth and tell myself that, if I can win a Triple Crown, I can survive a full-body polish.
The green liquid, it turns out, is actually a hair remover, because apparently I’m supposed to be hairless for the arena. After I’ve sat in that tub for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time Theo has pulled out half of my eyebrows and stripped my arms of hair as well, I’m moved to a tub of pure water to get all of the remaining olive stuff off of me and to give Kate and Macy time to do my makeup. The whole time, they’re all taking to me nonstop about nothing of consequence: I learn about what parties they attended and who’s getting married soon and who’s dyeing their hair a different color. For the first five minutes, I at least try to look interested, but, for the rest of the time, I just try to stifle my yawns. When they finally bid me goodbye and leave, I am left standing alone for a few moments before a door opens and another person comes in. It’s a man, which makes me instinctively cross my newly hairless arms over my chest, with chocolate-brown skin, kind brown eyes and short dark brown hair with a small gold earring in his left ear and no makeup on his face. Even though I feel like he’s nice, I watch him carefully as he makes a few circles around me, his eyes x-raying and examining me.
After about fifteen seconds of this, he nods his head and finally looks up at my face, and I realize that he’s probably got four or five inches on me. “Miss Lightning,” he murmurs, holding his hand out for me to shake, which I do cautiously. “My name’s Mitchell, and I’m your stylist for the whole Triple Crown.”
“Well, if you’re the stylist, then what were they?” I ask him curiously as I jerk my head in the direction of where the colors went, presuming that they were the stylists, considering all of the horrible things they did to me.
“They’re your assistant stylists,” he answers with a kind smile, handing me a robe from a rack behind him. “Come on, let’s talk.”
I slip into the robe and follow him through a door into a different room, intensely quizzical about what our talk’s going to be about.
“So, Miss Lightning, considering your last name, I thought it would appropriate to do something lightning-related,” Mitchell tells me after we both sit down on some of the chairs lying around the room we’re in.
“And what exactly does that mean?” I regard him warily, wondering how stupid or corny this idea is going to be. Trust me, I’ve had my share of puns and costumes based off my name, and none of them were ever good.
“Well, what does lightning do?” He captures and holds my unyielding golden gaze with his soft brown one and I lower the intensity level some, thinking that I probably should make him like me since he’s going to be responsible for my public appearance. “It creates sparks, so I was thinking we could make you Lizzie Lightning, the spark.”
Instantly my heart starts pounding and I question, “You’re not going to set me on fire, right?” I don’t like fire. I’ve nearly been burnt alive too many times to care for it.
“No.” Mitchell shakes his head and smiles, revealing a set of white, straight teeth. “No, we’re going to do something even better.” I see the almost manic glint in his eye and I wonder if, under that calm, gentle appearance, he’s really a lunatic. With that, he rises and leaves the room for a moment, leaving me sitting there in my robe wondering how this society became so twisted as to have children kill other children on national television. But then I think that it’s probably a very effective control method, since, every year, thirty or thirty-one children are sent home in coffins and the other one or two are broken beyond repair, and living with that constant reminder of the government’s power would definitely intimidate you into not rebelling.
“Why do they do it?” I ask Mitchell as he walks back into the room, a dress hanging over one forearm. I have to know, I just have to.
“Do what?” He looks at me curiously and carefully, his warm brown eyes scanning me up and down.
“Do all of this.” I gesture all around me, trying to encompass the whole Champions’ Center and arena. “Do the Triple Crown, have innocent children kill other innocent children, break the survivors beyond repair. Is all of this really necessary to keep the people in line? Because from what I’ve seen, they’re all pretty broken to begin with.” I capture his gaze with my own and refuse to let him pull away, staring him down and demanding answers with my eyes.
“I don’t know Lizzie,” he answers dejectedly, and I finally let him drop his eyes to the floor. “They’ve been doing it for ninety-nine years, and it’s served its purpose well that whole time, so why would they not do it?” I am almost shocked by his perfectly cold and calculating words, as they sound like something I, an outsider, would say, not Mitchell, someone who’s lived with the Triple Crown his whole life.
I nod, everything buzzing around like a cloud of flies in my head. Closing my eyes for a moment, I try to make sense of it all and sort my thoughts. Finally, after regarding it for a while, I murmur, “I wonder why they think it’s so great though, the people of El Nieve. I mean, do they not realize that those are real children with real lives and real families they’re never going to see again?”
“Lizzie, they don’t. This has been their ultimate entertainment for so long that they blur out the fact that real kids are killing other real kids for the sake of being happy, for the sake of being entertained.” His voice trails off, and I can hear the barely masked hatred and sadness that makes me feel so bad for him. It must be awful, to get to know and like two kids and then send them off to slaughter every year.
I shake my head, dropping my gaze to my feet to study the pattern of the white tile for answers. “How did it get this bad, this twisted, that they’ve given up their freedom, their humanity, their ability to feel and be human for the sake of entertainment? I just…” I begin, shaking my head in confusion and denial. “I just… I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it either,” Mitchell murmurs, and we sit in silence for a little while as we both digest the horrors that have been his life for God knows how long and will end mine in a week or so. Suddenly I see Mitchell move out of the corner of my eye and he tells me gently, “Well, the interviews start in a little more than an hour, so we probably should get moving.”
I stand up and sigh greatly, looking for the first time at the dress Mitchell’s holding. It doesn’t appear to be anything special right now, just a plain orange dress, but I know that there’s more to it, that it’s definitely more than just a plain orange dress. Unfortunately, the only way for me to find out is if I put it on, so I take off my robe and go about the task of slipping myself into the dress, which is a lot easier said than done.
“What did you do before you came here?” Mitchell asks me suddenly, and I look up at him in surprise, since that’s a pretty odd question to be asking me. He sees my look of confusion and elaborates, “You are very tall and muscular, so I was just wondering what you did to get that way.”
“Um, I was an athlete,” I tell him. It’s partially true, and it’s the most I can tell him, considering that no one is supposed to know what else I did. “I guess I was a pretty good one too,” I add, grinning slightly. Pretty good is an understatement.
“Hmm.” He nods, gently pulling at a spot on my hip where the dress has bunched up. “Well you certainly look the part.” He gives me a warm smile and then walks around behind me to zip up my dress. “Would you care to see how you look?”
I nod my head in assent and Mitchell gently guides me into another room to stand in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, where my breath is taken away by the creature I see in front of me.
The makeup creates sharp angles and dark, swooping shadows on my face, accentuating the light gold of my eyes and the slightly darker gold of my hair. And the dress… well, the dress is amazing. Every time I move, the shades and hues of orange, red and gold change ever so slightly, giving me the appearance of a live spark ready to set a fire. I reach a hand out and touch the mirror to confirm if what I’m seeing is real.
I want to say how beautiful how look, how amazing the dress is, but all I say is, “I don’t… I don’t look like myself.”
Mitchell laughs quietly, looking down on me with kindness in his eyes. “I know. By the way, you look absolutely stunning in that dress, although I can’t take all of the credit for it. You gave me quite a lot to work with, Miss Lightning,” he murmurs, his gaze locked on mine, “so all I did was accentuate the beauty you already had.”
“All you did was make me look like a real live spark, Mitchell. That’s not an ‘all you did’. That’s a ‘you succeeded amazingly and made me look like I’m burning’.” I turn around to face him and embrace him, feeling like I can’t repay him for this wonderful deed. At first seeming taken aback, Mitchell then returns my hug when I don’t let go within a few seconds and gently kisses me on the forehead.
“Miss Lightning?” He gazes down at me, his eyes locked on mine, and, as I notice all of the little gold flecks swirling around in his irises, I think that whomever he’s dating is one lucky woman, since Mitchell is one amazing guy.
“Yes Mitchell?” I scan his face, looking for emotion, and find sadness – not surprisingly – emanating from his expression. He probably thinks that, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be dead, and I can’t blame him; the odds say I will.
“I found this in your room, and I want you to wear it, as a symbol of who you are, during the interviews and in the arena. Don’t worry, I’ve already had it cleared by Triple Crown officials,” he adds when he sees I’ve opened my mouth to interrupt him, and, even before he opens his hand, I know exactly what he’s talking about.
I gaze down on the exquisitely carved and absolutely stunning wolf’s head necklace with a reminiscent air and gently reach out and touch it, struck by the moment I received it and everything I’ve grown to associate it with: my freedom, my humanity, my ability to feel, and I think that it’s incredibly ironic that I’m going to be wearing a symbol of my sense of self and my compassion into a place that is most definitely going to strip both of those – and a lot of other things – away from me.
“Promise me you’ll wear it.” Mitchell grabs my hand and encloses the necklace in it, his eyes begging me with a desperate plea.
“I promise,” I tell him, squeezing my hand around the necklace. Filled with a new determination, I put the necklace on and look at myself in the mirror, knowing that I’m going to die myself, not a servant of the Triple Crown and El Nieve. They will not break me.