Author Games: Panem Entangled

When Whacked By A What ?! | Entries 7-12

District 7 Female: Puck Georges-Bouffairet

There's a universe out there where Noble is still alive. There's also a universe where he's a blue fricking cockatoo, so Puck doesn't know what to make of any of that.

She still hasn't left the closet. There's a white wicker washboard window cut out at about her height on the rollout door he had made sure was closed tight. If she stands on her tiptoes, she can peak through the slits and watch past events like they're Capitol broadcasts.

It was far enough into the night that they should have been asleep, but they couldn't sleep. Not before the clatter thang rang out, and certainly not after it. Like Noble had said would happen, the noises came from the floor above them, the ultimate one of the high rise tower. It gave them time to act, maybe enough to save themselves. Noble did not think so, so he did not try. With a biting hiss for silence, he struggled up from his spot on the floor. He came to her bedside and pulled the down-feather comforter away and told her to get up. Then he went to the kitchen. He took his berry-stained dinner plate from the bottom of the sink and his glass for tap water too and set them both out on the granite dining table as if he was going to eat another meal off them. Puck's dirty glass got thrown into a spare cabinet and closed up tight. She watched this all with a panicked curiosity as she tried to piece together a motive for his actions and continually came out wanting. Ignoring her hushed queries, he brushed by her doorframe alcove to mess with bedsheets again, leaving a mess for one at the table. Then he passed by her again, taking her by the shoulders to the closet she's in now. The bored finger pressed to his lips did not answer her when she asked why, nor when she didn't ask the thousands of things she wondered in her head. He told her to stay no matter, and then he went to bed, face all scrunched up against one of the four cotton pillows so nobody would be able to tell he was faking it.

Some Careers came into their room. It could have been all of them that were left, but Puck doubted that. They saw the meal gone cold and untidy on the table and saw it was for one. It told them they were going to kill one. Then they went into the bedroom and saw one and killed it. One was a fool - he slept soundly and left trails wherever he went. Not for a second did they think he was hiding Two. They slashed his stomach open with a cross incision and when he cried out they hurried to leave so the possible others alerted by this would not have time to run away.

They left a mess.

Through the white wicker slits on the rollout door, Puck watches blood creep from Noble's sallow gut and pool on the floor. The footsteps and clatters have come and gone. He told her to stay no matter. The wheels on the bottom of the panel make little clicks as they roll over the grooves they settle in when it's closed. First, she only looks at the scene unfiltered. She steps around the border of blood on carpeting and looks at the saturated swath of silk that has been transporting it there drip by drop. Regardless of intentions, the source is unmissable. Organs peak from the two cuts, fluid splurges. It's the second dead body that hasn't been burnt up that she's ever seen. Looks different. She can't say exactly how it looks so different because it's so hard for her to look at, but that's one way itself. Then she paces around to the other side of the bed - where the only red is what has bled through - and climbs onto it.

CERANNU, she wonders, why is it that it is? Did I act wrong? I know I only ever need YOU, but forgive me, I thought he could have been sent by YOU? Mysterious means and all that. It almost makes her laugh, but she chokes on the tail of it and crumples at her waist. "Oh Noble," she says aloud now, forehead against the trim of his shirt which sticks to his skin and is slick with his insides. It wicks nervous sweat and circulates pus in its stead. "I'm sorry, so sorry." Every word she speaks now has been given to her by him. She thinks of his parents, and she thinks that that's sick.