Author Games - Ghost Town

Task 4 - Male Entries

Clement Janwerd Jr

I didn't know I cared for anyone. Apparently the Capitol thought otherwise. It must've been from the counselors at the Institute. I did tell them about her, but I didn't think they'd tell anyone. Sort of a rhetorical counselor-counseled promise?

I remember the moment she appeared. She stepped out of the beam as if awakening from a dream. Her bare toes pressed against the concrete, eyes cold and steely. In her soft, small hands she gripped a long sword, too big for her, yet held without struggle. "Tre?" I whispered, stepping forward in surprise.

The young girl didn't answer. Of course not. As a runaway Avox, she couldn't. I remember the day I met her like it was yesterday.

It was a normal lunch at the Institute. My nurse allowed me to take a walk around the facility by myself, to calm down after a hectic argument in the lunchroom with another guy over my stolen bracelet. Hey, it was important to me, alright? Anyways, I was slowly jogging farther away from the building; as I was rounding the corner, a body crashed into mine. "Hey!" I yelled at the little girl, rubbing my chest where she head-butted me. The tiny girl backed away, whimpering. That's when I noticed her face. Scratched up and bloody, she looked as if she had been through a war.

I had taken her back to my nurse, worried. After she was cleaned up, she wrote down who and what she was. Her name was Tre, and she was a foreigner from another country. When the peacekeepers captured her family, they were all slaughtered except her. She was sent into Avox-dom, and just recently escaped their clutches. She had been running for days.

Naturally, I took her in, hiding her from my nurse and everyone else once I knew what she was. A few days after arriving, we staged a dramatic scene of her leaving, crying and everything involved. After that day, I would take my walks in the park near the place we first met, and bring her food and water everyday.

Until they found her again. I was forced, as well as the rest of the clients and patients at the institute, to watch peacekeepers beat her bloody, relentlessly asking questions about who and what she was doing here. She was meant to be an example, of what happened when you hid information from the Capitol. I couldn't stand it.

They killed her that day. We buried her body behind the chapel, and it was the worst day of my life. And now here she was, standing before me. It's impossible.

I pull out my sword as another beam shines down, striking the ground closer to Clara. A young boy steps out, barely old enough to hold the wickedly long blade in his clutches. Tre steps forward, stance ready. We begin to circle each other, hunger in her eyes. She jumps forward, swinging the sword at me. I parried, but the shock sent me jumping backwards. "Tre, stop it!" I scream, dancing just out of the way of another attack. She doesn't hear me, but if she does, ignores me.

This time I take the offense. I jab my sword at her chest, wincing myself as I manage to impale her arm. She strangely doesn't let out any sort of pain; she just continues lunging away from my attacks with blood running down her front. In a final desperate attempt, I dive into the bushes beside her. Confusion, a familiar emotion on her face for me, blossoms on her features as she spins around, searching for me. I begin to creep around her until her back is facing me. "I'm sorry," I whisper as I lunge out, stabbing her through the neck.

No cannon sounds for her death; she was never a tribute. I wipe at my face, and my hand comes away wet. I didn't realize I was crying.

Clara screams, an agonized, pained scream. I turn quickly to see the little boy, hovered above her, slowly digging a knife into her flesh. Yelling in anger, I run at him, swinging my sword at him. A cannon goes off, but it's not his. My sword simply bounces off his chest, barely phasing him. If he were a normal human, that would've gone right through his upper body. He obviously isn't human, then. But it was enough to knock him loose off of Clara; I pull her up as she whips out her long javelin of a fishing spear. A snarl paints her face as she rushes at the boy.