torn apart] b

There are so many voices in my head, swirling around, poking and prodding with such enthusiasm. I feel each and every one, an electrical pulse, a shock to the very membranes. They whisper within my cortex, shiver down my spine, numb my veins, dye my blood into a multitude of sickly greens, make my words incomprehensible, and forbid me from moving forward in life. Think not of goodbyes, stay here, feet standing above the treetops, downwards are the forests of seven. Goodbye - this is the life that wishes to keep me tethered to the ground. "Stay." I hear the whispering, gentle, it's voice tingles through the darkness and clings onto my limbs. "I'm out of sight, dear, but know that I'm right here, and I will always be."

The night sky calls out, it's gentle music - I hear it too, through the hairs that line my neck and arms, it is here as well. There are so many voices piercing through my skin, bewildering and confusing. I am completely lost among the clouds. Stars cover my wounds in yellow tear drops, crying for the pain that appears at every turn. Thorns and thistles, pines and pinecones prick my feet, like sandpaper in the workshops; muffled storms drown out my cries, I'm falling through the sky. A world that is entirely mine for the taking, tethered and locked down for every bite I can take into it. Land is mine, the world can bow down and cry to me, and I will tell them that I am here for them. Invisible footsteps are people too, there are people that others can't see, they live among us, hold our hands and kiss us. Here to protect us and to take care of us. I have learned this from experience.

Darkness etches over the ground in a series of waves, there are some shades that are darker than others, but it is important to know that it is impossible to see the ground. Higher hills are lighter shades of grey and can be made out against the lighting calls of the sky, yet what walks amongst the grass is unforeseeable. Much like the future. I can only make out trees and mountains from above, and I wonder if anyone else is trudging around much like I am, above the world and unrelenting, searching for a purpose and a person. "We are here." "Trust me, we're around." "Keep looking." "Way cold, come on man." "And you call that a search, you missed South-West buddy." "Do you even know where you're going." "Hey guys, look he's absolutely useless." "I know right, look at him, too frail to even pick up a cloud." A series of different laughs, some shrill, some deep. "Hey! Right below you! Can you see me? Thought not." "Pathetic isn't it, just absolutely pathetic." "Wonder what he's even doing up there in the middle of the day." "Better sure you know where you're stepping, you might fall." "Falling from the tree tops? Here? Man, he'd be more pathetic than we thought." "More? How's that even possible?" "Right?

They surround me, I can feel them circling below like savages around a flame. The paleness of my skin is alight in a moon wash, and yet a flame I am not. Radiant and beautiful, warm and tender - these are not qualities that lie beneath my skin - each piercing tone should already know this. And yet, they do not. They do not. They meander about, children playing Ring Around The Rosey, this is all child's play, further mocking, further penetrating my ears and consuming my soul, I wish they would let go already. I would like to go - find - I would like to find home among these mountains, love among the trees. I want to sleep, not be attached limb by limb to the tree tops, please find me a way to get home, because it is not pleasant here, it is not safe - nothing is safe anymore in seven. Nothing is ever safe.

Step, step. Each little tiny shuffle and leap above the trees is dangerous, they are rickety, the small bits at the top are thin and unsupportive, there's a reason most lumberjacks use equipment and yet for me, being safe seems to be unwarranted. It's just a boy foolishly climbing above tree tops, what even is he doing there, it's absolutely foolish, is it not safe, he is pathetic, I am pathetic. Why am I here?

"Wake up Matty, I am here." Her sultry voice pierces through the darkness, she is there in every sense, I can feel her - the fire within every bit of her, it is a welcome change to everything that's been surrounding me lately - so much pain, so much misery. The teasing pursues, they are pushing and pulling with their very words trying the make my fall, I can hear them, their words sway and have so much power over me that I am full of misery, they persist, constantly and unforgiving. They are children and yet their words are harsher than ever before, do they know what death even looks like? Have they looked the monster in the face and told him of their dastardly deeds? There is enough bloodshed each year to last a life time and yet to proceed with their constant malicious cacophonies. Harassing with subtle movements and brutally engineering my falling.

"Useless, he's absolutely useless. Can't even hold a saw properly, I heard." "Yeh, I heard that too - heard he was the reason why old Joe lost his finger in the grinder, didn't shut it off when he was told." "Wow, terrible. Can't believe they would even let a freak like that work in the factories." "Maybe the Capitol wants to raise their death cap." "Would be the only reason why such a useless shit would be in there." "He even talks to himself, how pathetic is that." "It's scary, Mark brought his daughter in the other week, said she had nightmares for three days straight that the kid was going to come and take her." "He freak her out that much." "Said she looked a lot like his girlfriend, told this to a little twelve year old, how messed is that?" "Completely." "Then pointed to his girlfriend, which was the mill behind him." "He threatened the kid?" "Or so she says - trying to kill a little twelve year old, as if we don't have enough of that with the quell this year."

My legs sway and trip, I fall over myself and through the sky; kiss the stars as they tumble past, and they whisper their apologies to me. Sorry you had to die like this, it's alright. It's all good. It was meant to be this way anyways. The lights pass by quickly and soon it is the long trees that greet me with brushes of concern, attempts to rescue my blistered body with stiff arms - they don't succeed. But the attempt is appreciated, it is among the pines that I begin to feel the heat. Body twisting every which way, it is impossible to control where I'm going and where I'm going to land. Dizzy, that's the way I'm feeling. There is no way to tell which way is up, and which is down, I am merely an entity blissfully falling to inevitable doom - this is the way I carry myself. Spinning ever so crazy, I greet the stars, and then greet mother earth, who is covered in darkness in an endless cycle. Goodbye sky, hello earth, goodbye sky, hello earth, earth sky, hello goodbye.

"Stay." They world shakes through me, calls out in ignorance. I am falling and cannot stay - there is no way to stop myself from this doom. I wish I could, but unfortunately, I cannot.

"Goodbye."

-

Light is so sensitive to the eye the first time you awake from a long nap, it burns through my iris and causes more pain. My body shivers as if cold, though winter has yet to come and I wonder why it groans so fervently. Each muscle is so tightened up beyond any measure of a doubt that I worry that with every bit of stretching, they will never become unwound again - they will remain tight and unmoving. Paralyzed in fear and agony, the world is in a state of endless confusion. Where am I? Who am I? How'd I get here? Why am I here? What is this pounding in my head? All questions that are equally important and yet just as confusing as the next - there is no way to tell as to where I landed. I know though - I am Mathias Gammeth from District Seven, I know my past and present - but not my future. That is still unknown to me.

My eyes are frozen shut, I don't want any light in, it only furthers the headache that I have received, an endless drum cycle again, again, again. It pounces like a hunting lioness against her pray, playing with my senses. Head feeling ten times bigger and reeling, it is without a doubt that it sustained some sort of injury, fatal or not is the question. But my head had always been playing tricks on me from the start, always seeing ghosts in corners without them actually existing, it was a never ending game. Was I here for real? Or was the pain merely an illusion to punish me for my misdeeds. I can still feel the bleeding from my dreams, hastily across my arms, scratching and itching. Feeling singed as if flame had touched my sullen arms, and yet I was not close to fire. Coldness surrounds me, I can feel the grimy wall slip against my back, though I am afraid that it could be blood - but I know better. It would not be this slippery. The feeling of rain against tile is not unfamiliar, there have been many days that the alleyways of District Seven have been my best friends, but I know better than to trust them fully.

There is a slight ringing in my ears, a friendly reminder that I am awake, and yet I can hear nothing else but the staccato drumming in my head. They produce a symphony of injury and I sit alone, wallowing in my own pain, refusing to look at the injuries I've sustained.

"Freak!" The sound rings through my memories, where was I before I came to be here? On my way to work - probably. That was the only relevant choice. What time was it? I shift to check my watch, my body disagreeing in it's entirety, not wanting to move, my eyes not wanting to open. I need to know where and when I am, I need to know. Commanding my body with every bit of instinct that I can, telling it to obey to my commands, I force my eyes open to the dangers of the world with a howl. Searing, I feel as if my body is now on fire - where am I, where? The wall in front of my is dark and cobblestoned, this alleyway could be the same as any, yet at least I know I was right in my assumptions. There are no distinguishing features. A rain barrel sits to my right, and again to my left under drain pipes, but this is common wherever one goes - they are a great water production system. Especially with all the rain in seven. My neck is stiff as can be, even the slight movement makes it swell up, I can only imagine the amount of grimacing that crosses my face as I do this. Looking up, I can see a large overhead, narrow jump space between the two buildings above, a story or two high. A significant fall. The building across is missing a cobblestone from it's edge, it's on the ground in front of me, chipped and broken.

Did I jump?

I don't remember ever attempting suicide, but the signs are surely there. That a boy, me, tried to jump and fell. Yet it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right at all. The tell-tale signs are there, my body is atrocious, covered in bruises, limp and unmoving, my head is pounding, bound to be a concussion - there is nothing to say that I didn't jump besides the grumbling in my gut that says that I was pushed. My left foot is cold, I can see my sneaker has fallen off and sits a few feet from my corpse, and yet I can't be bothered to reach over and grab it. What's the point, after all? I'm just going to sit here and die anyways, this is my place to die. A barren alleyway, with no sort of recognition towards the person he might have been at one point in time. Like a blank slate, everything I have known and been will be over in an instant. How dreadful is that. But also how accurate is that?

A loner boy in a loner hallway, bleeding out to his death. It seems so appropriate for my life as a whole. Had I not, in fact, been nothing at all in his life. Nothing but a loser and a freak with no one but his best friend to sooth him.

"Stay."

She was in my dream, she had slipped into my unconsciousness and stuck there, unmoving and trying to get me here. She called out and warned me of the death I was headed quickly for. Maybe if I had just listened to her calling out, I would have tread more carefully, not listened to the words the boys were calling out, the carnal pulling of feral boys. The meandering losers pushing me off my tower, and yet I had rather chosen to fall back into despair and choose grief over everything else. Had that not always been the way? Fall back into being a loser and a nothing. This was the way of life apparently. Yet she tried so hard to call me back, tried so had to save me and yet where was she now?

"Edrys!" I groan out with all my might and yet my throat feels saltine, lack of any sort of liquid, parched. I am dying of thirst and from the wounds I have sustained, useless and tragically broken. "Edrys!" She had to be out there somewhere, she was in my dreams. My lifeline was a beacon to her, and yet maybe I wasn't actually strong enough any more to call her over. Just a pure weakling, dancing on the edge of life and death - she no longer needed me anymore, I was useless. She could remain beautiful as she was without me, I would dwindle in her mind, my only legacy being the small heartache that I caused her for those brief minutes after I died. Then she moved on. Treading lightly in the winter snows, making sure to leave no footprints behind her so she would not be found.

She was a ghost to any one else besides me, because she liked it that way. I always used to wonder that if one day, I died, she would disappear from the world as a whole, and I guess the world would find out now. Perhaps my parents would try to find her for the funeral? But it was doubtful, they always hated her and everything she did for me. Counterproductive, and harsh is what they always said. They were so disapproving of our friendship, but little did they know, it was her that kept me alive all this time. Left me clinging on to the very prospect of living any longer. And now that I am dying, she's nowhere to be seen, no one is to be seen, not my mom or dad, or her. It's funny how in my very final moments, jumping from a rooftop, I am alone with no angel to guard over me.

Just the desperation of my situation, and my will to live are within me.

"Edrys!"