#th:zeus

TW: murder

Kaelen was just sitting down for breakfast when his cell phone started to ring. Setting down the plate of eggs and toast, he picked up the phone without bothering to check caller ID. He honestly found it useless considering people always said who was calling once you answered, anyway. This time, however, there was just silence at the other end. Before Kaelen could go to hang up, however, he heard a sudden crashing sound.

He pulled the phone away from his ear to make out the contact name. Zeus Gaither. He really only had it for figuring out when they could meet in the training center, and a personal call of any kind was never made. Personal was something they actively tried to avoid once a few too many things started to fall in line and create an idea that Kaelen had never been able to shake. Now, as he listened to heavy breathing on the other end, he suddenly wished he’d asked far more questions.

“Zeus, are you there?”

He got a grunt on response. Checking the screen again, the locator for the contact just said the Capitol. The Games had ended weeks ago, what was he still doing around here? His musing was cut short when there came another crash, then a few grunting and thudding sounds, as if someone was fighting. Kaelen tried to call Zeus’s name again, but he got no response, just some more grunting and hitting sounds.

And then a gunshot.

It rang out so loud that Kaelen’s head pulled away from the phone a little. A body could be heard hitting the floor, footsteps echoed on hardwood, and then there was nothing. “Zeus? Zeus?” Kaelen tried again and again but there was no response. He didn’t need to ask questions, or make possible inferences or anything. He knew the moment he heard the gun go off that it wasn’t Zeus’s. He wouldn’t have needed a gun to kill someone.

👪 for what my muse would say to your muse’s child about them.

Kaelen let out a quiet, almost inaudible sigh as he sat down on a bench that was facing the Tribute Tower, now renovated and used for apartments with a fixed rate rent for low-income families in the Capitol. They were the people of the Capitol no one seemed to know existed until the rebellion, when they all came out of the shadows and drowned out the glitter and sequins in blue blood. The Capitol was still the richest part of Panem, the center of governance, but it was far more accessible. Schools went on trips there, people had vacations there (the word ‘vacation’ had to be re-added to the dictionary after the rebellion), and it was just as much a center of history as it was a center of the country. The dome where the arena was always set up had been turned into a huge open space museum, the exhibitions ever-changing to reflect the various Games and tributes of the past. The fallen tributes were remembered again, and Victors were invited to make speeches, if they’d like. 

The remaining victors, that is. The numbers had nearly halved for the living victors by the end of the rebellion, and the fallen half had taken Zeus with them. It was how he wanted to go, the only way he would’ve been okay dying if not by old age. His eyes glowed red until they closed for the final time, and Kaelen watched them fade. He’d made a final promise to Zeus before he died, a promise he now held in his lap as he pointed toward the Tower.

“Your dad used to stay there sometimes,” he told the five year old boy, who immediately started to clap and gesture excitedly toward it. He had the same blue eyes as his father. “He helped out a lot of people.”

“Was he tall?” the boy inquired, to which Kaelen let out a quiet laugh. He was one of the shortest kids in his kindergarten class and all he worried about was being tall like Kaelen and his other cousins one day. 

“He was. And very strong. Dad beat me in a lot of fights.”

“Kae! Fighting is bad!”

He tried not to let his smile slip through too much, but it was difficult. “It can be, yes. But your dad was very good at it. He was also very smart. So you need to study for that spelling test when we get home so you can be smart like him.”

“Orange! O-R-A-N-G-E. Orange! I’m ready.” He squirmed a little, looking toward the high tower with an expression of renewed awe. “Did Mommy live there?”

“No, but she lived in the Capitol.” She’d fallen, too, a few months before Zeus had. Not before she broke into classified files and found a way to get as many copies out to Capitol citizens and the Districts as possible. “She was brave, like your Dad.”

“Will I be?”