(This angst brought to you by VR. Thanks VR!)
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Blaise could be studying right now.
Tock.
He didn’t fully recognize the boy on the TV screen.
Tick.
He could’ve done something, talked Coda out of it, played the mediator between his family the way he had always done before. Told his brother he loved him. Changed Coda’s future.
Tock.
His roommate’s old alarm clock wasn’t particularly loud, but easily drowned out all other noise in the room. Blaise was too shocked to speak, to move to do anything. The clock’s familiarity was the one thing keeping him grounded.
The top right corner of his glasses has a large smudge. Blaise didn’t bother to clean them. There was no time for distractions, all eyes had to be on that young boy. With a lime green bowtie, shaggy black hair, and a fake leg.
This was not the Coda he knew.
Tick.
Tock.
He thought of textbooks sitting on his desk. His notes needed revising. His shelves needed dusting. He had forgotten to eat lunch. There was a fantasy novel on his bed, that he needed to give back to one of his friends.
Tick.
“Dude.” His roommate, Claus, finally spoke, breaking the vow of silence. “You’re pale.”
Tock.
Coda, Blaise wanted to say. The word caught in his throat and lingered on his tongue. He couldn’t bring himself to spit it out.
Tick.
“They’re taking spins,” Eva mused, curling up closer to Claus. “Maybe Coda will get lucky.”
Tock.
Coda? Lucky? After that boy almost tried to kill him?
Coda picked up a moss green token; Blaise remembered it had once belonged to a Career, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. All that mattered was lime green. Coda.
“Blaise?” Claus asked in an unusually soft voice. “Are you okay?”
Blaise said nothing. His mouth was dry.
Coda spun again. Another Career token. A bow and some arrows.
Blaise was getting worried now. He tried to think of something else, something to bring him hope. All his studies. The novel he had just finished reading. A phone, and...god damn it! When was the last time he called his family? He spoke to his brother?
Coda reached for the gold token. Finally, Blaise’s voice cracked.
“Don’t do it.”
The wheel began to spin.
Tick.
Tock.
The sight displayed on the TV screen made Blaise want to scream. Gold, gold light everywhere. Coda couldn’t move. Coda couldn’t get up. Coda, rapidly bleeding out, cursed by the hands of cruel fate, to be the bringer of his own death.
Blaise jumped to his feet and his chair fell to the side, slamming the floor hard.
Tick.
Maybe...if he tried hard enough...if he was delusional enough to believe...he could reach into the cold electronic box and pull his brother free…
Tock.
The cannon fired.
Normally, on any other day, Blaise would be calm, serious and rational. He would’ve accepted the situation at hand. He would’ve moved on to more important things that required his attention.
This was no normal day.
Blaise grabbed the remote, ripping it straight from Eva’s hands. With a single click, the screen went black, with Blaise’s reflection staring back at him.
“What are you doing!?” Claus asked.
“Both of you, out. Now.”
“But you can’t just turn it off! They’ll be announcing the Victor and-”
“I don’t care,” Blaise hissed. “Leave me alone!”
Tick.
Claus and Eva grabbed their jackets, keys, and left.
Tock.
The phone began to ring.
Tick.
Blaise couldn’t bring himself to pick up. Or continue with the Games, knowing that those two other kids would never have given a shit that his brother had just died. Why would he root for either of them? They weren’t Coda. He would never see his brother again.
Tock.
There was only one thing left to do and that was to throw himself into his studies.
Tick.
Blaise picked up his chair and sat down at his desk. He opened up a textbook, pulled out some paper, and began to scrawl down notes. The phone continued to ring, finally overpowering that clock, until the person on the other end simply gave up.
Tock.
No comments:
Post a Comment