red elegy // roommates vs all bark no bite, day 4

As the night deepens, my hunger does too. I start to lose track of time in it, every second drags on longer than it should and I just sit there in this strange eternity, my gaze fixed on the lake as I try to live around it.

But it's as if a void has opened inside me, teeth gnashing against the lining of skin as if it can find the stitches that bind me together and tear them open. There's a monster lurking below the surface.

Keeping watch gives me something to focus on and I need to, focus that is, because some time after the lake gave my goblet back to me its surface began to grow restless again. I didn't notices the little ripples at first, I thought it was just the water meeting the shore, but then as the clouds opened up and more moonlight fell I could see that it was concentrated to one spot.

I watch the water creep up slowly beside me, moving in such deliberate small increments that it could be mistaken for a rising tide but I'm pretty sure lakes don't do that. "Hey," I utter, a note of warning in my tone as it suddenly swells faster, reaching towards Izzy's backpack. "Don't do that."

The lake almost immediately falls back again and I shake my head, the corner of my mouth quirking up despite everything. This is it's second time trying to mess with me and it's actually been good to have the distraction from the hunger.

I didn't really expect this though, this playfulness from a creature that had tried to kill us only hours ago. It'd almost be endearing if it hadn't just about succeeded.

Another hour or so passes and I try not to think anymore. The void deepens, it feels like an iron spike is being slowly nailed into my stomach. I start to think about letting Izzy just kill me, if that's even possible. We don't know yet after all, if I can actually die.

Wouldn't that be kind of funny though if I couldn't? Just be eternally sixteen for the rest of my nightmarish existence, that'd almost be worse than death. It's not like the Capitol hasn't pulled shit like this before. Maybe none of us die, they just turn us all into the walking dead and release us into Panem to wreak havoc, doomed to walk the earth for forever.

I rest my forehead on my knee with a soft thunk.

Fuck if I want that.

I hear a strange sound, like water falling in on itself and look up just in time to be sprayed in the face with a face full of silty lake water. I sit there, water running off my hair and down my face to soak into my shirt as the lake almost... dances in front of me?

"Bet you thought that was fucking hilarious," I say, tone flat, and then I ask, "What are you, twelve?" I shake my head but this time I can't stop a smile from spreading across my face. I don't give the lake the benefit of seeing it though, turning my head instead to look up towards the setting moon. "So fucking dumb," I mutter.

Grey streaks across the sky, clawed fingers bringing a cover of cloud over the lake as the sun rises. I don't know yet, if the sun will hurt me. I don't think it's something that I even want to learn. I stay like that, watching as pink and lavender mix in with the grey.

Behind me, the sand shifts. I glance down at the ground but it's not the lake this time, just Izzy getting ready for the day. I try to remember what that's like, shutting your eyes and letting yourself fall into nothingness like that. It's only been a few nights but I think i might have already forgotten.

I rise too and pass her the goblet that the lake gave back last night. I already boiled it in the fire for her and after one sip I knew that it would do about as much for me as the wine did. All it did was wet my throat but the thirst is still there, trying to claw up and out of my throat.

"What did the lake show you?" she asks.

No good morning or how was your night, Akira? Just asking me to bare my soul as if it's easy. I look at her for a long moment. There's sand in her hair and she's pale still from sleep. I've now spent more time with her in the arena than I ever did on my own.

But I can't tell her the truth because I know how crazy it sounds, I don't even know how to begin explaining the upturned hands. "It told me that you'd betray me," I tell her instead. It's no revelation, I already figured that she would. You'd have to be a fool to trust anyone in here.

That makes her go quiet for some time. I finish packing my bag, and sling it across my back in the meantime. The lake's less still this morning and I look towards it meaningfully before reaching down to pluck my torch, still lit, from the sand. I don't even know if fire's what did it in in the first place but it's the only threat I have.

We talk a little more, back and forth, but to be honest I'm only half listening. As she moved this morning, one of the cuts hidden beneath her bandages opened. Just barely, but it's like I can't hear anything anymore. My mouth moves on autopilot as the scent of her blood permeate the air around us. I feel a claw run down the lining of my stomach, eager, demanding.

I think about unravelling the bandage and digging my teeth into her thigh and quenching my thirst that way. I think of her blood filling my mouth until I'm choking on it, until I've had my fill and I can't even consider more. I stare at the bandage and I feel my mouth move, an automated response falling out.

And I think about turning her neck until it won't turn anymore.

"...there's a problem we need to solve," I say, looking up from the bandage to look her in the eye. She's gazing back at me, guarded on every level. It's almost laughable that she asks me to trust her with eyes like those. I've known people like her before and after the first knife in my back, I realized that I didn't want to anymore.

"I'm getting really fucking hungry Izzy."

Part of me hopes that she'll take the hint, turn tail and run but she only stares back at me and makes a stupid joke. I grin, too wide, let's pretend it's funny, let's show off these teeth. Let's remind her that every second that goes by I feel more animal than boy.

She takes the hint, turning on her heel to lead me away from the lake, to go in search of food for me and for a moment I just stand there.

I guess I thought that would be enough to make her leave me.

Then my left foot is in a pool of water. I look down to see smoky tendrils wrapped around my ankle, seeping water into my sock as the sand around my foot collapses in on itself and I slowly start to sink. I wiggle my foot free pretty easily, the lake's grasp too loose, and take off after Izzy.

We reach a wider dirt path and something about it feels familiar, like we've been here before. I turn my head, nose catching the scent of iron on the air. "Cathedral's that way," I say, pointing down the path.

I wonder if Erwin's body is still there, rotting upon the altar.

We see the towers of the cathedral first, reaching up from the trees to the heavens. I've never understood that about churches, why all their towers end in iron points. I thought the devils were meant to be beneath the ground.

There's two people waiting for us and I step forwards with Izzy, who doesn't stop long enough to give either of them a chance.

"I'd say sorry, but I'm really not."

Then her sword goes right through the boy.

The heavy scent of iron blooms from him, like the moment when you peel an orange and it's skin cries beneath the cut of your nail, making the room smell of it.

I shut my eyes for a moment as the intoxicating smell washes over me. A shiver runs down my spine and thirst that's been clawing at my throat for three days digs deeper into my flesh, cutting ribbons through me until I'm numb with the pain of it. My mouth opens, and this low, unrecognizable sound comes out.

And maybe I'm not even myself anymore.

The girl who was with him stares at the both of us, horrified, talking about how her kid would have to watch this.

good. I want to say, for how little that matters to me. I'm a child too, I'm just a fucking kid too.

"And he'll watch you die next if you don't get out of my way," I tell her, the threat flowing from my lips so naturally, as if I've done this every single day of my life.

"Go… I- I'll kill them on my own…"

Somehow that kid's still talking but it doesn't matter now. I breathe in for the first time in days and when I do, I'm breathing him in, and my body is no longer mine.

"Run.

The girl turns and runs. My body moves in tandem, lurching forward as the boy falls backwards, blood running down his shirt from the hole in his chest. As he topples to the earth, I go with him, straddling his waist, I catch us on my elbow and gather him up in my arms almost tenderly before he can fully fall back.

I don't ask for permission, there's nothing he could say or do to stop me at this point. And I've been here before, outside myself as I let whatever happens, happen, again and again. Cold after, empty after, except this time I'm the one doing the emptying. I bend over him, cradling him close as my mouth goes to the wound in his chest and I sink my teeth into his flesh to pin myself to him there.

His blood fills my mouth, pooling under my tongue and I have never tasted anything so rich, there is nothing to compare it to. Every drink, every drug, nothing is like this. It flows down my throat, golden as if it wants to become part of me, spreading through my body, lighting up all the pieces of it that I thought were dead. I feel the exact moment blood starts moving through my system again, the exact moment that my heart begins to pump. I throw my head back, drawing in a deep breath.

Air flows through me, into my lungs, inflating them for the first time in days. Warmth moves beneath my skin, pooling in my palms, my lips, everywhere. My arms lock around his chest, keeping him there and I drink heavily, knowing by his taste that he was already dead before I started. Knowing that I'd be dead still without him.

My nails dig into his back, into the wound, as if I can make it bigger, make it give me more and I hear him groan in pain, my mouth vibrating against his chest with the sound. I look up, and it's difficult to focus on him. My eyes keep getting drawn back to the blood, that's now spattered on his neck, his cheek, he's looking at me, he's looking at me. It makes my heart flutter and I remember what beauty is.

The boy opens his mouth and I don't know how he has the will to speak. "Yo-You're pr-proving a p-p-point" he says, not dropping his gaze once, "N-Nine is full of m-monsters."

I grab his chin and pull him in closer, painting his face with his own blood and press my lips angrily against his, biting at his lower lip but not hard enough to draw blood. This is what I know better, a body under mine, lips against skin, being held and holding on so tightly, like I'll never let go.

But his blood pools warm between us, he's dying, and I will let go because that's what I've always done, how I've survived until now.

I pull back to look at him, at the mess I've made of this stranger. He's barely seeing anymore, barely holding on from the bloodloss. I cup his cheek, movement tender again, hand shaking against his skin and his heat and his life. "You don't have to tell me that," I tell him. I was raised by one in a house full of mirrors, I know a monster when I see one.

And I don't mean to let him but I think he sees the hurt there.

"G-Guess we're of the same breed then," he says.

I need him to shut up before he becomes a person to me.

I kiss him again, this time harder, this time biting clean through his lip. I ignore the way his body bucks below mine as I drink.

And I let the monster win.