As they closed in on the grounds, people were starting to crowd around them and Kolton was suddenly feeling claustrophobic. Silver's voice brought him back for the moment, mentioning looking after her family really brought Kolton to a hard stop. Yes, it was true. It was something they'd asked each other every year, more so her than he did to her because she already took care of his family more than he ever could. Something was caught in Kol's throat, then, preventing him from saying anything. Instead, he chose to simply nod and stare back at her. The pit in his stomach began to churn as she squeezed his hand and said her farewells before wandering off to line up with the rest of the young women of twelve. It wasn't long before she fell in with the rest of the crowd and disappeared. Moments passed and Kolton finally decided to do the same.
Kolton fell in line and followed the procedure as was expected of them. Kol held his hand out with his index finger extended and looked off into the crowd, both at all the potential tributes as well as the peacekeepers standing guard at every corner and entrance. Needles, or anything of the sort, had never been something Kolton was fond of. At least on his own skin. He grit his teeth as the peacekeeper quickly pricked his finger, squeezed and placed his finger down into the booklet laying flat on the table. Once the man in white waved him off, Kol took off towards the lines of young men to find his brother before he had to get in line. It was no use, though. The younger boys Geordon's age group were all huddled together, and Geordon being a bit smaller for his size wasn't exactly going to help in his search for him.
Kol bit his lip and shook his head, wandering towards the back to take his place among the guys in his own class. Some looked nervous, others were sweating bullets and looked downright scared out of their wits. Kolton remained quite calm, himself, but couldn't seem to shake the uptight feeling in his chest. Something was wrong, or at least something was
going to go wrong, and he knew it. His eyes wandered off to the right where the girls stood every year, peaking over to where Silver should be, but he couldn't see her. Many of the girls stood in small groups, looking quite like a huddle of penguins.
It wasn't much longer before Kol noticed a Peacekeeper staring him down with a raised eyebrow and a challenging expression on his face. The man raised his baton and pointed it towards the front, to which Kolton quickly took the warning and faced forward. The peacekeeper didn't look familiar at all.
'Must be one of the jackasses off the trucks that came this morning,' he thought to himself. A lone peacekeeper wandered up the platform to the double doors on stage, pushing one open where four people came out, three of which took the three seats to the right of the stage and the last took point in front of the microphone.
This was it.
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Rightful Heir
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