this bright flash {wednesdae vs naveen} day 8

I can still hear it. It's beating in my ears, against the inside of my skull, booming over and over and over again until I scream. But even after I scream it still does not go away. The sound. The beating. The crack. Crack, crack, crack. I scream and scream and scream for as long as my lungs can hold out. My throat is rubbed raw, my muscles quaking uncontrollably as I curl up in a ball on the ground. I bring my hand to my face, scratching at the tears that filter down my bloody cheeks. The salt within the tiny droplets stings the blisters that have burst on my hands but I ignore it. It's a pain that is nothing compared to the torture that ensues within me. I can feel something hopping around inside me, squeezing my heart and swinging on my ribs and laying across my stomach. Something inside me is trying hard to consume my soul. But my soul keeps resisting. Fighting against the monster that is all consuming inside of me, just beneath my surface. But why? Why does my soul fight on? There is nothing left. It is fighting a lost battle. But still my soul fights on, for nothing. Because I am lost and there is no way I will ever find my way back.

The boy crumpled on the ground, his green eyes matching mine. Fear and death in them - you could see if you looked. I watched. I watched until the light left his eyes, when his body finally fell still. I watched him squirm on the ground for what seemed like hours and hours. I watched the little Wolfe boy crawl to him, I listened to Curtis' last words - his last requests. I trembled in the dark, wanting to scream but finding no voice, through Bran's story. The one about heroes. About climbing to heaven without looking back. I held in my sobs as silent tears rolled down my cheeks and I rocked myself back and forth looking for comfort in something. Anything. But it wasn't there. Only a fool would try and help a demon. I listened to three cannons fire. I watched three faces flash in the sky. I can name every single one of the dead. I've memorized them by heart. Each name and face is a sketch in my memory. I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. I cried all night. I ached all over, kicked and screamed and swung my weapons through the air for hours. I didn't sleep. I stared at the spot where Curtis' body was raised into the sky on a giant machine. I watched death and it was all my fault. My hands are stained red and my body is scarred for life. I am dirty and cannot be cleansed.

Now I lay crumpled on the ground, clutching my knees to my chest, waiting for them to come for me. I watch them, walking in line, coming from behind the curtain of darkness to make their second appearance throughout this drama I am acting out for the world. But I know they aren't here to help me this time. They aren't here to save me from my inner demons and fears. This time they are here to become my inner demons and fears. They are here because I have committed a crime that cannot go unpunished. The queen has murdered an innocent peasant and now her court is angered. I watch them walk towards me, striding with such confidence and beauty and brilliance that I can't believe I was ever a part of that. I was walking with the best of them and now I'm a ball of blood and tears on the ground. The figures surround me and even though it is too dark to see each face, too dark to look into their eyes, I know who each one is. I feel a shiver run down my spine, even though I know what is coming. The voices start up in my head, a melody of all the best voices in the world put together. But they don't sing lullabies - they sing of death and horror and things I cannot bare.

"How could you? You killed an innocent person, Naveen. I thought I knew you ..."

I slam my hands over my ears but the voices continue. Mercury, Codrus, Keagan, Gwynn, Hestia, Xana, Riordan. A missing space for Theseus. I still hear his voice though. "I'm not bringing you to heaven Navy. Only good little girls come to heaven." They all sing taunts in my ears, words that say they hate me, every single one of them. They all hate me. I hate me. "Your dead to us. Don't come home to us. We don't want you. You are dirty." I know.

They turn to walk away, all of them disappearing before my eyes. Leaving me alone, never to return again. I want to beg but I know I deserve this. This is my fault. So I finish their song for them. This is the final act and this is my end. I shouldn't have been awarded the main role but somehow I managed to grab hold of it. And now I regret trying. I start to hum, the song from my terrible story. I dreamed a dream in time gone by. When hope was high and life worth living. I let my hands stroke the ground. So cold and hard and completely unforgiving. When was that time that I had dream? How long ago was it that I hoped to live again? Now what do I have to fight for? Everyone hates me. I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving. But love has died. I have died. I have murdered and blood has washed over me until I could find no air to breath. And now Theseus has promised me that I could not go to heaven. Not anymore. God does not want me. And I cannot blame him. Then I was young and unafraid. And dreams were made and used and wasted. So small and beautiful. I remember in the lotus field where the girl in the dress was nothing but pure innocence. The girl who pretended to fly when she was sad. The girl who could fly away from it all because she was an angel in disguise. Why did I taint that little girl red? Hoe could I? She had dreams and I let them die. So many of them ... Gone. There was no ransom to be paid. No song unsung, no wine untasted. Can I remember those days? Can I save that little girl? Can't she live again - reborn through the lotus flowers that bloom so wild and free?

I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living. So different now from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

I feel a sting run across my arm and turn to see another boy. So many of them it seems lately. they come to hunt and to kill. But the tigers come at night with their voices soft as thunder. What happens when I kill this one? What happens to me then? I have lost everything already, why should I care what happens now? Because that's who you are, Naveen. You have to care. You don't like to hurt because you know what it is like to be hurt and tossed aside and unloved by someone. He took my childhood in his stride. But he was gone when autumn came. My father taught me how to be hurt. He taught me pain and fear - and taught me exactly what love was not. I remember. I knew I didn't want to be like him. Ever. And now I love because my father never could.

But still I lost.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

The sword swiped through the air before I even knew what I was doing or who I was aiming for. I guess that is who I am now. A killer at heart, a demon bred from hell and created for nothing more than to hunt and kill and steal the blood, flesh, and souls from the living. What am I if not that? A frightened little girl who just wants to go home. That is what you are. My blade hits something that isn't flesh or blood or a soul and I wonder for a moment if the little voice in my head is right. Maybe I'm not so bad - maybe I am just a frightened little girl who wants with every fiber in her body just to go home. And then I hear the boy scream and stumble and hop around madly, trying hard to keep his balance, and I know that that can't be true. I am a demon come to the surface to carry out one duty and one duty alone. No. You just want to go home. You fight because you want home. My hit makes the boy fall to his back, groaning in pain. I think I should walk away. Just go curl up and die in a hole so that the Earth will swallow me and make me a flower so I can be something beautiful and innocent. I can be that little girl again. I can give her back her lost dreams.

I keep my sword at my side and step back. Maybe if I stand still enough he won't see me. Maybe I can blend in with the dark if I try. He struggles to find composure and I nearly find myself dropping my weapon to help him to his feet. And then I remind myself that I am a demon - The Beast - and I do not help those in need. I tear them down. So I stand and wait. If I'm going to kill him, he is going to have to come to me. He staggers to his feet, foot, leaning on a spear to keep balanced. He killed someone yesterday. He had to have. The bandages on his wounds are bloody and he is obviously still trying to get used to not having a foot or a hand. Poor boy. Poor little boy. Poor little dying boy. Does he understand I was sent here to kill him? When he finally gets to his feet, he starts to talk. And I remember the boy from yesterday. Curtis. Curtis Grant of District 7. The boy with the green eyes just like mine. I killed him. My whip cracked hard enough against his head to split it right down the middle. I feel tears in my eyes again - and then they roll down my cheeks. And I have to swipe them away with my arm.

"I was right, the vox populi overwhelm... But here I stand, wounded, crippled, burning... But alive!"


His blade meets my skin as I stare into the distance, trying to figure his words, and I step back again, clutching at the open wound. I want to scream but my throat has been rubbed completely raw and I can't produce any sound. Do you remember the mercy you showed Curtis? You can do it again. It's okay. I promise. But the promise sounds hollow and weak and wretched. It doesn't sound real. So I swing next to the boy, hitting the ground next to him.

Leave. Please leave. I can't do this again. Not again ...

It's simple. I die and you live and the world goes on and no one cares about me being dead because I'm just a worthless little girl with no real contribution to society and the work that goes on in District 6. Kill me now and no one will remember me. And I'm okay with that. Who knew that dying would get me what I've wanted my whole life? But you aren't dead yet, child. You have to keep fighting. You have to try. I shake my head. No. Little voice in my head, I don't. I could just quit. I have nothing to fight for anymore. Who would want me when I got back? My mom? She stopped wanting me after dad left. She stopped caring when I was little and then I was forced to take her job as mom. She took my childhood from me and lied to me for 14 years and let me walk away. She probably doesn't even know I've been missing for two years. My friends? At Tempus? They probably just watched me murder an innocent boy on live television. They watched me let Theseus die. They watched me leave him behind, one of our own. They won't want me around. My bloody hands and betraying soul - I don't blame them for not forgiving me. My father? Ha, which one? Either way neither of them want me around. My real one left before I was born. I was the reason he left my mom. And my other father, the one that decided to be in my life, never really loved me. He hated me for years and years and I spent those years and years as a little girl trying to make him love me. I just wanted to be loved like my brothers. But he couldn't even offer me that. He wouldn't even read a 6 year old girl a book at night or tell her that he loved her every once in awhile. Any chance that man gave me to get his attention I would take - no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it made me cry, no matter how badly I wished it would stop.

And my brothers? My sweet little brothers. I left them without saying goobye. So I suppose if they didn't come say goobye before I came here to die then I guess I deserve it. But - somewhere deep down - there is that little flutter of hope that hopes they miss me. Just a little. But I'm not sure they will. I left them a long time ago in a place that was already a sort of hell for them. And they didn't even know why I left, I just did it. The queen left her little princes to die all alone with a beast. I still feel the tiny fingers curling around my one. I swallow back everything that makes me want to cry and try to shake away the memory - the one I wanted so badly to keep hold of. This memory is coming back to haunt me. I hear something behind me. and turn away - ignoring the boy behind me.

It's the little girl again. And the two little boys. From the snake pit. The stand together, their backs to me, running around, playing tag. I can hear them. Giggling. And every so often, I can see the flash of a smile amongst the group. I take a step towards them and ready myself to call out to them, but my lips catch against the restraints I have placed upon them. No, please, just this once I need to speak. I bring the tip of my sword to my lips. But I can't let the blade glide across the stitches. I can't let my secrets slip away. I-I can't ... I pull the blade away from my face, lowering it so that the tip presses against the ground. I keep watching. I feel tears running down my face again. Why must I cry at every little thing? Why am I so insane? They all turn when one of them (oh, little Naveen) points me out - standing, watching. They are smiling, there eyes all gleaming with joy. They run towards me, arms extended, their giggles changed into little chants. I drop my sword, open my arms and crouch awaiting their arrival in my arms. Is this why I fight? Do I fight for the past? Do I fight to bring that back?

But just before they reach me, my head is knocked forward, stinging with pain. I clutch at the cut in teh back of my head and raise my head, but they have gone. No more princes and princess to hold in my arms. I blink but they still aren't there. I pull my hand away from my head and find it filled with blood. I stare into the dark red pool of liquid on my palm. What kid would reach to take this hand? I pick up my sword, whirl around, and glare at the boy. Fucking bastard.

Wait, what kid is the bastard here? Oh yeah, that's me, not him.

I clutch my sword tight in my bloody hand, tight enough to make my knuckles turn white. Do you, little boy, remember that day in the snake pit when you laughed as you killed me? Do you remember that? Well, I didn't find it funny. Here is my revenge, boy. Hope you enjoy it as much as you enjoyed killing little, baby, innocent me.

My body is tingling. The blood from the cut in the back of my head is dripping down my back and down my spine. My arms are bleeding and dripping blood all over my tattered and torn flesh and I think the blood has finally started to consume me. I pull my sword from the boys back and although I thought it might be fun at the time, it sure is not fun now. The blade glistens with blood and I feel any food left in my stomach threaten to reappear. I feel every muscle in my body start to shake again, as I stare at the blood on the blade. How could somone stand this? How could anyone want to see so much blood?

Yeah, idk WIP xD

OTHER#1
OTHER#2
SPEECH
BEAST

You say you have seen it all. Everything in the entire world. You have known love, pain, jealousy, fear, happiness. You have endured all sorts of weather. Wind, rain, snow, hail, sun, heat, cold. You have met all sorts of people, with all sorts of stories and shaken so many hands you have lost count. You say you know everything there is to know. But I know that cannot be true. Because you are still standing and not buried in the ground or burnt to ash. My eyes fall across the boy again. I know his name, but I prefer that I didn't. Knowing his name makes it so much harder. A million voices scream in my brain as I dodge his attack and he stumbles through his swing, groaning from the effort. I'm fighting a boy with a missing foot and hand. Is that just as bad as if I were attacking the poor little boy from 8? Voices begin to scream in my head at the thought of attacking that cripple boy. I killed that boy's friend, split his skull and took his things, and then watched until the spasms were over and the body of the boy from 7 lay still on the ground and the boy from 8 cried and wailed for the boy to come back. My stomach twists and I feel fingers clench around my heart making it hard to breathe. This hell I'm living in, this place where children come to die, I wasn't meant to be here.

I look down at my blade which continues to glisten with the liquid that seeps from the flesh of the boy from nine. He thinks himself invincible and yet a little bastard girl from six can cut him with a sword that is nearly too heavy for her to wield. But that could just be the demon inside me doing all the work. The queen does not kill anyone. The blades of her servants and knights do that. I'm just a puppet in this place, my limbs flying wherever the strings pull, my thoughts a scattered mess, my memories nothing more than taunts from a past life - a life worth living. I feel tears start to form in my eyes and I wonder how on Earth a little wooden puppet can even manage to cry. Do I feel anything anymore? Am I so insane that I have completely lost it? Has this place and these strings tethered to my joints completely taken away my identity? Is that little girl in the lotus field gone forever? Will I forever be tethered to invisible strings and strung up as a toy for the entire world to see? Tears pour down my cheeks and down my chin and I know that I can't live like this anymore. I can't live knowing that these strings will always remain with me. I am not a queen. I am just a tired peasant. Like everyone else in this world I live in.

I step away from the boy who still finds himself struggling to stand. I find the satchel I took from Curtis on the ground a ways away from where I stand and dump all the contents onto the ground, letting the tears flow as freely as it pleases them, gasping for air as sobs rake through my body. Why do I cry even after I have chosen my fate? I watch as my life in this hell seems to pour out from the tiny brown bag, the items inside bringing their stories with them. My eyes land on the wretched weapon that has hurt me so much. It swings at demons that aren't there, it kills little two small and innocent creatures, it breaks the ribs of angels that are really nothing more than ugly birds, it hits an illusion of someone who was once my friend and then turns into a girl whom I never really knew, it aims for monkeys and hits a stone cold enemy, and then it cracks a skull and kills a boy named Curtis Grant who I never even talked to. The tails on the weapon are still wet with blood as my fingers clench around them and I throw the weapon as far as the muscles in my arm will allow. My hands fall against the length of rope next, obtained when I fell into a gaping pit full of snakes. The rope that saved me from my three biggest fears - which I now realize were only more delusions that my mind concocted for me. I swallow hard and set the rope aside, knowing full well I will have to use it. Then I clutch at the one silver laurel I have left in my possession. Mason. I won't be able to see the light of Peridot Myler's eyes disappear. I place the laurel in the soft dirt and let the shark-tooth necklace drop into it's center. Then I cover it all with dirt - so that one day maybe a new boy will blossom from the ashes. Then I find Guy's bracelet and bury it right next to where a new Mason is already taking root. I lost them once, but I know they can come back if they try. I know, someday, even if I can't see it, they will be here, towering flowers above the Earth - mighty kings reborn.

I set the chalk aside with the rope, as the blood on my hands stains the compact white dust a filthy wet red. I pick a tiny brown pouch from the dirt and pull away the string that holds it shut. Inside the rose petals sit - dried down since I plucked them from a rose back at the Capitol, but still rose petals all the same. I set the pouch down, then let both my hands find the handle of the sword and move it until it sits before me. Dirt has stuck and clumped to the blade where blood had been sitting, but the pointy tip still gleams silver. I grasp the middle of the blade in my hand and blood almost explodes from where I am clutching it in my palms. I point the tip of the sword at my face, my hands shaking so badly that I am afraid I may just miss my target. A kiss requires lips - without a kiss from death, how can I expect to die? One by one the stitches on my lips slice in half as I draw the tip across the thin thread. I reach the edge of my mouth and let the blade fall back to the ground. I clench my teeth, trying to hold everything back. I have a story to tell, but I'd rather not tell it. It's a special story best told to exclusive ears with a taste for sorrow and insanity. I pull the thread from my lips and let my thumb glide along the tiny holes where thread used to sit - where secrets used to be held. I close my eyes for just a moment as tears slip down my cheeks once more and then let my hand glide away from my lips and back to the tiny pouch filled with nine, dried rose petals.

I let a shuddering breath out through my lips and then pull one petal out and hold in front of my face. I place the petal lightly on my lips before letting it float to the ground and away from my grasp. One rose petal for each of those I have to say sorry to. One for each that I love and will miss. I touch each rose petal to my lips, where tears and dust and blood have all accumulated into one giant mess. I count them all in my head, letting their memory float around for just a moment before I let go of a single petal and let it drift to the ground, choosing whichever course on the wind that it pleases. Mercury, Keagan, Hestia, Xana, Codrus, Riordan, Gwynn - each one of them sets on the ground as nothing more than a petal. Each of them holding a bit of my love with them. Forever. I place the two remaining petals in my hand, their delicateness mimicking the smiling boys that are held among my few good memories. I place both petals between my fingertips and kiss them both before letting the drift away from me together, just as I had left them before. Together. I close my eyes as more tears begin to flow and I clutch at my throat as it swells shut before my body bends in a silent agony and I cry with my forehead pressed to the ground. No matter how hard you try to hold it back, it will always - always - hurt to let go.

When I finally get a hold of myself, my eyes land on the tiny patch of red cloth that remains caught in one of the folds of the satchel. My fingers clasp at the patch, a tiny little bit of home that somehow made it's way into this hell with me on the not so tiny wings of a boy who showed his true colors and became a king in my eyes the instant his named was called in front of all of Panem. Theseus Rhodium. I may have only seen him with a crown on the day that he died, but I know now that he had been wearing a crown every since I met him, I just had been too ignorant to see it shimmering a top his head. I bring the cloth to my lips and remember the kiss I gave him goodbye and the uncontrollable sobbing starts all over again. Will you grab my hand when I jump for heaven Theseus? Will you pull me up or let me fall? I keep the tiny piece of cloth clutched tightly in my hand, picking up the chalk and rope and sword before crawling back to where the boy leans against his spear. I stand, staring into his eyes, and let myself drop to my knees. I grasp the now wet chalk between my fingers and draw a line around my neck, leaving a mixture of half blood and half chalk in a sort of choker around my throat. I throw the chalk aside and pick up the sword, slicing the the rope into pieces. When I'm finished I arrange the pieces to make letters that eventually turn into words at my knees. Let me be free - amongst the stars I roam. I sigh and pick up the sword once more and draw my blade across the boys leg until blood begins to drip and then yank his useless sword from his hand and replace it mine. I guide the edge of the blade to the chalk line on my neck, feeling the steel dig a bit into my flesh.

I look at the words I have written in rope on the ground once more before I close my eyes. I hold tight to the the red cloth in my hand and let the words that first left my lips when I entered this arena, end my visit in this hell, and begin my journey to heaven.

"Make me a bird so I can fly far, far away."

One.

Whenever I got upset about something mom would always tell me to just start counting - start at one and count and count and count until you can't remember what you were even upset about. When I was little and I got scared or upset, I used to imagine I was flying away to that safe place in the clouds. But today, nothing is working for me. Singing, counting, flying - it doesn't matter. I'm terrified. I keep my eyes shut tight, for fear that when I open them I will be faced with something I don't want to see. My father, that evil Theseus, my dead family or friends, a horrific being who calls herhimself death - I don't want to see it. So I keep my eyes closed, thinking how easy it would be to just die like this. I could paint any picture I want on the black canvas of my eyelids. I can paint the colors of a sunset across the black and dot the sky with stars that are twinkling above it waiting patiently for the giant star to set over the horizon so that they can help their great king moon appear amongst them. I can paint an ocean that pounds against a rocky shoreline, a little boat sailing in the distance, the silhouette of the captain waving at me from the bow. I can paint a flower and then another and another until the canvas is no longer black but colored with every hue of red, green, and blue imaginable, the petals all folding shut for the night, their leaves already beginning to glisten with dew drops. I could live in a perfect world for the rest of my life. I paint myself and reach out for a flower but my hand only smears the colors together, turning what was once beautiful into a mess of ugly brown. I breath in through my nose, but the flowers don't bring to me an overwhelming fragrance, the sea does not smell of salt. I only smell wet paint. I can look at the endless field of flowers and the sea with it's ship, and the sun setting out of view, but I can't feel a thing. No touching, no hearing, no tasting. The painting me looks down at her hand smeared with brown and then back to the flowers she could not grab. Even in my mind I ruin everything I touch.

"This is quite beautiful. Most imaginations aren't quite as successful."

I startle at the sound of a voice near me, my eyes flying open instinctively. I stare up into the sky, stars sparkling in a sky that has not quite darkened yet. I blink again and swallow, my head whirling as I push myself into a sitting position. I rub my head until the pain dulls to nothing but a slight ache. I blink my eyes open again and gasp at the sight of a rolling ocean with with a tiny ship sailing away. I watch as the waves crash against the rocks on shore and wave back at the tiny figure who waves from the boat. I listen to the pounding of the waves, and rise to my feet so that I can spread my arms to feel the wind blowing through my hair and the smell of sea salt wafting to my nose. My body is but a piece of driftwood in the open sea. Seeking nowhere, following the waves where ever they may take me. I look down, my bare feet squishing in mud. I whirl around where billions of flowers stretch as far as the eyes can see into a sunset that turns the skies pink and orange and yellow. I breathe in the air, a mixture of salt and flowers, and smile. I pluck a flower from a nearby bush, breaking it's stem like it is nothing more than a toothpick, and rub it's soft, red petals between my fingers. I bring it to my nose letting the strong smell register in my brain. I press my finger against the stem until the thorn breaks my skin and blood begins to drip down my finger. Roses are red. And my blood is too. Maybe right here, I can grow anew? I smile again despite the prick in my finger. Sadly, every dream ends at some point. Eventually we wake up.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

I turn to the voice that had startled me before. A woman, probably as old as my mother is now, stands there, watching me intently. For all I know, I guess she could be my mom. But I'm not sure I would've wanted to dream up my mother. She married the man that ruined my childhood and lied to me for years about who my real father was. A dream with her in it might turn out to be some sick and twisted nightmare. She gives me a smile. She bends and picks out her own flower, a blue one that looks to me to be some kind of prairie flower. Then she nods at me. "More or less." Her face brightens with a smile, so I smile back. Then I turn back to the flowers and the sea and the sunset. Uncontrollable nightmares turned straight to unfathomed dreams? Since when did I get what I have always wanted? I stare at the rose in my hands and watch the blood on my fingertip trickle down into the creases in my palm. Roses remind me of home. Blood reminds me of hell. It seems I can't escape my past no matter what kind of dream I am in. I rub my neck when I feel it begin to shoot with pain. Such a strange dream - I bleed, people talk to me, and I created the landscape. Unless ...

"I-I'm dead?"

All I do is blink and the landscape completely changes. I'm standing in the middle of a nearly empty street. Even though I haven't been to this place in years, I know exactly where I am - Home. Not Tempus, but my first ever home in one of the cramped apartments in District 6. I stand right below a streetlight, which is flickering and making a buzzing noise as it tries hard to keep giving light to the street below. The wind whistles through the streets and I shudder, clutching at my arms in search of heat. I squint my eyes against the dark searching for clues as to why I am here, but my search only turns up a few drug dealers lurking in the alleyways. But not just any old drug dealers - ones I know. Ones that I knew from when I was little. I turn and find myself running straight into a hooded figure in black. I jump back, startled, but the stranger keeps walking, seemingly oblivious to my presence. But that isn't the only thing that startles me. His name is Jackobi Isthmus - or as I used to call him "One-Eye" - and he was one of the nicest guys I had ever met when I was younger. But I also remember finding his body a bloody mess in a back alley, and then later attending his funeral.


"Confused?"

I hear a voice call through the wind and turn to stare at the woman I had met earlier in my magical dream land. She's smiling, and I wonder if she really is my mother - at least during the time she was happy. But only for a moment before I start to ask questions. "What's going on? Where exactly am I? Who are -" She cuts me off with a wave of her hand and a simple smile. "So full of questions. Different, I suppose. But you still haven't asked the right one." She turns on her heals, away from me and starts walking down the street, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jeans. I feel my face scrunch up and run to catch up to her as she picks a brisk pace to walk to. The air is cold enough that I see my breath in the air, but I try to ignore the chill. My mind swirls with questions but I know if ask they will go unanswered anyways, so I keep my lips sealed. Like the queen of old. I hold my tongue upon my throne and sew my lips to hold my secrets. I follow the woman around a few corners, down the dark alleys, past a few strangers in black hoods, until I come to a place I remember from a time long ago. I stop dead in my tracks and stare at the door - a huge, wooden thing with a shiny metal knob. I step forward blindly, feeling a crunch and crinkle beneath my feet. I move my foot away, looking down upon a tiny paper hat. I bend down, picking up the worn and torn paper, rubbing my fingers over the smooth yet crinkled surface. To some, this is just a piece of paper, but to a little girl it’s an escape to something better. To a magical world where everything is different and she can grasp everything she ever wanted in her hands. To a sad little princess, the paper hat is her crown. And her wings. I sigh and fold up the tiny little hat and slip it into my pocket. Paper that shall turn to gold in time - best to keep that with me.

I watch as the woman walks up the three steps made of stone and turns the knob and let's the door swing open before her before stepping into the dark space inside. I find myself following without question. The climb up the stairs feels foreign - a past action that isn't suitable for someone older than two years old. I stop in the door frame, watching as the light from the moon and nearby street lights pour a faint light across tiny little notches in the wood. I see my name scratched in pen along with my brothers'. Back when measuring my height at every birthday was enough to keep me happy. I step inside, away from the notches, and close the door behind me. It's dark inside. The house smells of rose candles. I hear a clock ticking. I kick off my shoes instinctively - swallowing as I remember the last time I forgot to take my shoes off before I entered the house. I had to kneel on the floor for hours and clean up all the mud I had tracked in, as well as the piles my father had purposely dumped on the floor to make my job harder and longer. I had to clean for almost an entire day without stopping. By the time I went to bed, my knees ached so badly I could barely climb the stairs, and my hands were blistered and rubbed raw from so much scrubbing. The little princess was no more than a little servant to the king on that day.

I turn my head quickly when I hear a thud, and then a groan, in the dark hallway to my right.  Then I watch as someone stumbles into the dining table, knocking over a chair before collapsing into the stair railing and staggering his way up the stairs.  My muscles tense and I feel my whole body quiver instinctively.  A chill runs up my spine and I stand rigid, just inside the door.  After so many years, I still cannot stand in the presence of a demon king.  I look around for the woman as my hands quake and begin to clench into fists, but in the dark she is nowhere to be seen.  I hear the thump of heavy feet above, making their way down a hall.  Past the room with two sleeping little boys, past the tiny closet filled with nothing but clothes, and then stopping at the end of the hall.  Stopping at the door with pink flowers tacked to the outside and cute little drawings of a family holding hands and smiling, framed and hanging in the center.  The definition is plastered across a little girl's door.  I hear a scream and my heart leaps into my throat.  Before I know it, I am dashing across the room to the stairwell, my bare feet making a sort of pitter patter across the tile floor, and a chair skidding across the floor as I catch my knee on it.  I gasp at the jolt of pain and change in my momentum – but only for just a second before I hear another scream from upstairs.  My heart pounds in my chest as I take two steps at a time.  Memories flood back to me – the memory and the feeling of that same scream leaving my throat, unheard by anyone but an evil man.  I reach the top of the steps, my heart racing, and sprint down the hall hearing a muffled scream from behind the flowered door.  I slam my body into the door as I find my hands frantically searching for the knob on the door.  But my fingers seem to lance straight through the metal thing.  I hear my father screech from behind the door and I taste his blood on my tongue as if I were the little girl inside, biting his hand.  I pound my fists against the door again and scratch at the hinges that hold the door up in a frantic attempt to get inside, but I’m not strong enough.  And the pounding of my fists seems to make no noise in the ears of others.  I hear another muffled scream as my father curses again and I start to scream, hoping my brothers or my mother or someone, anyone will hear me, but the hallway remains silent.  Tears start to pour out of my eyes as I realize that all my attempts to get inside are in vain.

I crumble to the floor as sobs rack my body and from inside I can hear the sobbing of another little girl.  I hear another muffled scream from inside and then the sound of a full force blow – the palm of a grown man to the cheek of an innocent child.  I roll on the ground, crying so hard that no noise is coming out of me.  My eyes fall across the woman that brought me here and through my sobbing and gasping I manage to somehow get out some words.  ”Please! Please, you have to make it stop.  Y-you can-‘t ju-just …”  My words are cut off by another scream, and I find myself getting back to my feet to kick and scratch and pound and scream at the door.  ”Why am I fucking here?!  I don’t need to deal with this again!! I’ve already experienced it once before – I know how that little girl back there feels, now please! Just, make it stop!!”  I stare at the woman who brought me here.  I want to be angry but I can’t find the strength in me.  Instead I just stare at her as she stares back, pleading for her to make it stop.  I start to feel hands on my thighs and chest and throat I claw at the invisible palms on my skin.  ”Please, just – Why am I here?  When can I leave?”  She looks at me and then wipes my cheeks with her shirt sleeves before letting me fall into her, my head buried against her shoulder, my arms clutching her to me.  She pets my hair as I continue to cry.  ”Death has it’s ways of reminding you of life.  This night, when your father came to your room drunk and decided to …”  She pauses at the next word so I the thought for her.   ”Rape.”  ”Yes, that.  This night is part of what shaped you into who you are.  I chose to bring you to this night in your past because this is one of the biggest memories in your mind.  Those memories … They have to be relived before you can move on.”  I let out another sob as tears continue to roll down my cheeks in endless streams.  The door behind us opens and I watch as my father stumbles out, going straight through us both as he zips his pants.  The door gapes open and I stare at a little girl with tears streaming down her face.  Princess and queen - One in the same.  Not much of a storybook beginning for either of them.  I pull myself away from the woman and step into my old room.  My heart twists as I approach her and hear her whispering a song.

Twinkle, twinkle little star …
How I wonder what you are …
Up above the world so high …
Like a diamond in the sky ...

I brush a piece of hair out of her face even though she can't see me.  But, it's not just me that she can't see.  She can't see anyone right now.  And no one can see her.  Because when you are flying among the stars, you're just too high up for the eyes to see.

I blink and I’m looking down at a door handle instead of a crying little girl.  I'm standing in the street, a warm summer wind rustling my hair.  The tears on my cheeks have disappeared and when I reach for the doorknob, it meets my palm and the door swings open to reveal a theater.  Boxes line the walls and the dark red seats are all empty except for a few that are occupied in the front row.  And one right next to me, who belongs to the woman from earlier.  "Sit.  We're going to watch a play."  I look around at the intricate ceiling and at the red curtains which are still closed.  The lights begin to dim, and out of pure habit, I brush my hair out of my face and look over my costume.  But today, I am not the actress, I am the audience.  I walk closer to the stage as the lights shine bright onto the red curtains and quickly take a seat when they are pulled open.  I girl walks on stage and stands front and center, but when she speaks I cannot hear her - and from so far away, I can't even see her face.  I squint and force my ears to find the sound, but there is none for them to hear.  "Why can't I hear her?"  I look over my shoulder at the woman behind me, her eyes glowing with something - happiness? passion? sorrow? - but I can't tell what.  Somehow none of my guesses seem quite right.  Her lips are moving slowly, in a whisper that I cannot hear, and for a moment, I think she may not have heard me.  "Who are y-"

"You hold her voice.  You are her soul.  That is where the song comes from."  I blink again and ready myself to ask another question but she points at the stage behind me and I turn around and find the face of the girl on stage to be clear.  And suddenly the time of day and emptiness of the theater seem familiar and I realize what day it is.  The day of a new beginning.  The day of my audition.  The lights shine down on my face and I have to smile because I've always wondered what I looked like on stage.  Confident, beautiful, talented - I'm everything my father told me I could never be.  But still I am silent.  My lips move but no words escape my mouth.  But I remember the song I sang and I know I did speak - I did have a voice then.  "You hold her voice. That is where the song comes from."  And then I stand and begin to sing the song that helped me find my new home.  The song that was nearly perfect to summarize me and my life.  The song that told the story that I knew I could never ever tell any of them.  "I dreamed a dream in time gone by. When hope was high and life worth living."  My voice echoes around the empty space and somehow finds it's way to the girl on stage where her voice returns to her and her lips continue on with the song, her voice stretching to meet my ears.  "I dreamed that love would never die.  I dreamed that God would be forgiving."  I feel tears leap to my eyes again, but this time, it is not anger or fear that brings them there, but happiness.  Such a sad song for such a sorrowful girl - and yet, it began my road to happiness.

The song ends, as does the audition, and everything shifts quickly and the suddenly the theater is filled with people and the stage reveals children dressed in elegant costumes and speaking with ferocity and beaming while taking bows after it's all over.  And I start to cry again because I will never get to have that again.  I let myself give it all up.  And then the theater is empty again and Mercury is pacing across the stage late at night, and then another shift brings Theseus on stage late at night, staring at the piano keys, and then another shift and I watch every single one of us stumble on stage, drunk but happier than any other person in the world.  Performance after performance flashes before my eyes and each time, I find myself crying.  And then everything freezes as I sit on stage, a pad of paper on my lap, looking over my shoulder before beginning to scribble words onto the paper.  The night before the Reaping - I'm writing a goodbye letter.  I never thought the letters would be seen.  I just had to write them to feel like I was telling someone of my past life.  Their are five letters total.  I wrote before each Games, telling myself that I was writing them just in case I was Reaped.  But in reality, I was writing them to let myself be heard.  I wrote them because somehow my screams that were never heard when I was little could finally be heard by every angel when I wrote them down.

I bring my hands to my eyes to wipe away the tears, and when I bring my hands away, I'm sitting on a speed train.  I hear a sniffling in front of me and I know that it's me, just after the Reaping.  My hands clasped together in my lap, my eyes and cheeks red, my eyes filled with tears, and my eyes staring out the window at a home I knew I would never see again.  "If I'm going to have to relive these Games I will quit.  I can't live that again."  I turn to the woman again who sits beside me.  She blinks at me and nods. "Don't worry.  We're getting off here." The train begins to slow, but no one else but me and the woman seems to notice. She stands and makes her way towards the door. I scramble to my feet and follow her as she steps outside into a world that is made of almost nothing but sparkles. I shield my eyes against the light that reflects off of everything - the trees, the grass, the water, the dirt, the sand - all of it. I find myself in awe and I twirl around to make sure I'm not missing anything. It's all so beautiful. How can I possibly deserve to come here? My feet are bare against the ground, sinking into the sparkling silver sand beneath me. I looked down to my feet, but find I cannot see them, as I am dressed a long white gown, like the kind that a bride might wear to a wedding. It's beautiful. But why am I wearing it? Sparkling hummingbirds swirl around my head and magical dust floats into the air as my feet brush through blooming flowers that scatter the ground. I laugh and realize how nice it is to laugh. And smile. Or feel ... happy.

I turn at the sound of a giggle and find my little self standing just a small distance away, dressed in the same dress I saw her in when we were both in the Arena. I smile at her and she giggles again before running away from me, laughing all the while, her hair falling loose from the bow in her hair. I scoop up a handful of my dress and stumble after her, feeling like nothing more than a little girl again, running from nothing and running to find everything. Then I was young and unafraid. And dreams were made and used and wasted. I watch her disappear behind a tree, and as I slowly peak around, expecting to see a little girl, I find instead two large stone statues staring at each other - reaching for each other, but not touching. Two souls trapped in stone - so close and yet so far away from one another. I reach out to stroke his cheek, the memory of his cold, stone body beneath me as I slept fresh in my mind. A tear falls from my cheek and onto his face as the stone scrapes against my knuckles. I'm so sorry Theseus. I killed you. I killed the king and tossed him aside like you were nothing more than a bit of trash. I take a breath and step away from him to stand in front of the other statue. She reaches for his hand, her lips sewed shut, the hand at her side holding a tiny cloth, her eyes just dead things. I let my finger trace the curls of her hair and brush over her brow, and then across her cheeks where a tear sits. And I'm sorry for you, too. My knees give way under my weight and I turn into a weeping heap on the ground between the two. My heart aches as memories flood to me in a tidal wave of so much mixed emotions. Love, pain, sorrow, fear, jealousy, hatred, happiness - it's too much to bear. Why can't I just forget? Why can't it all just disappear? Suddenly, I hear a crumbling noise and look up to find the stone figures have shifted. They stand, staring not at each other but at the sky, their hands touching, wings sprouting from their backs, and floating stone halos replacing there stone laurels. I get to my feet and take a step back. We are no longer a king and queen stuck in the positions a hell put us in, but we are a god and goddess - concrete angels looking to fly away to heaven, just as I have always dreamed.

"So, what do you think?"

I turn to face the woman again, wiping away my tears. I turn to the winged stones behind me and then back to her. "I was always told I couldn't fly." She nods at me. "I know.
Little me appears at my side and I offer my hand, but instead she shakes her head at me and walks over to hold the woman's hand instead. They look at me with smiles and point behind me. I turn to see a door. Blank. "What's in there? I turn back to them both, and the woman shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know. No one does. And once you go in, you can't come back." I blink at her, trying to find the answers in her face, but nothing appears. And I sigh. "But ... I'm supposed to go in anyways." She nods at me once more, her eyes gleaming the same color as my little self's. For so long I feared the unknown. For so long, I ran from the unexplained. But now, I know it is what will save me. I begin to walk towards the door, it's knob gleaming at me, waiting patiently for me to twist it in my grasp and step inside. It's cold to the touch and just as I begin to turn it, I find I have just one more question.

"Will I see you again?"

She smiles. They both do.

"Naveen ... I'm your future."

And as the words set in, I know there is only one thing to say.

"Thank you. I'll see you both soon."

And with that, I twist the knob and step into the unknown, not even taking a moment to look back.

And as one story ends, another begins. ~