[shrimp] :: don't you put me on the back burner

I EFFED UP. HAHA. I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THIS SOMEHOW. WOW. YAY.

LANI IS A BURRITO. AND EATS SOUP. AND DROPS HER SPOON. THAT'S ALL.

The blush that blooms across my face sets an uneasy unfurling in my stomach. It feels as if all of my insides are liquefying suddenly. I don’t know what to do with this discomfort. There’s not a single person in my life that I’ve been so uncomfortable to meet. I shouldn’t even be scared of him. He made me soup. He hasn’t tried to strangle me. He didn’t drown me. These are all promising things. (’The outside world is a dangerous place, my star. I couldn’t bear to lose you. You’ve got to be safe. Always.’)

I can’t deny father’s words. The world out here is more treacherous than I could have imagined. It’s so different from the safety of the estate I grew up on. There, the world was quiet and enclosed and entirely at peace. Out here, though… It never stops. At home, I could never move enough. There was never enough for me to do. I could have done all activities presented to me and be done all of them within three hours flat without a single idea about what to do next with my life. Here in the Capitol, I hardly know where to turn. I don’t know where to go. Everything is so strange and so new. I found myself spinning and spinning and spinning until the dizziness had traveled from my toes up my legs and spiked through my spine into my head. The mixture of hunger and exhaustion and dehydration was enough to make me faint, but the confusion and dizziness sent me overboard.

The fuzzy feeling in my head doesn’t feel nearly as nauseating now. What little soup I ate helped to abate the pain pounding through my system. I blink slowly as the boy- man- hmm. I can’t keep referring to him as such. My eyes narrow slowly as I stare up at him, just barely catching his words. He made me soup. Sir Soup. Now and evermore, he will be such to me. I let my eyes open a normal amount again, nodding quickly at his asking of my condition. Really, I do feel better than even just a few moments ago. For a moment, I pause, lips popping open again in an attempt to say something. He continues, however, and I shut my mouth, nodding mutely again and turning my head to the side so he can check my temperature. Cold metal touched my skin, gently at first and then pressing just a little more. I sigh, letting my eyes fall to my hands and focusing on his voice coming down at me.

"So what happened? You said you were being followed before you fainted right in the middle of the street. I don't have to watch for guys with guns and trench coats do I?"

What? I can’t help the gut reaction to his words, head whipping up to stare at him. Being followed? I fainted? Ripred. My hands practically claw the comforter off of me, making room for me to stand and pace away from him. I shake my head slowly as his words wash over my skull again and again. Followed… Followed? It’s so frustrating not being able to remember myself. I feel as if I’m a stranger in my own skin and I hate it. I shake my head a little more adamantly before turning to Sir Soup again. He looks bemused at himself, but I can’t shake the feeling that… he’s right? I don’t remember.

“I don’t-“ I cough at the raspiness in my throat, doubling over for a moment as my air is cut off. My eyes slam shut and I hold my breath in the dark. A clanging just down the alleyway. Exhausted. Been feeling itchy all night. Can’t stand feeling so alone but really, really not alone. Just want to rest. Please. No more cat and mouse. Just let it stop. My eyes fly open again as I snap upright, wide-eyed and unblinking. This time as I try to speak, I make sure to stay quiet. I never can be too cautious, not when I’m being followed. “-remember…”

The more he says, the clearer it becomes. Each blink sends me spiraling back there. I don’t want to go, not when the terror that had been coursing so quickly through my veins spikes with each flutter of my lids. Everything my vision goes dark for a fraction of a second, it comes back to me like shuttered sunlight. The world flickers in slow motion, my head going fuzzy from the sensation. Then, all at once, there’s no more gap. There’s no more murky depths to my knowledge, just the dark realization that there is something very wrong and that I have to move. I raise a hand to my head, rubbing at my temple as I try to ward off the panic that is starting to rattle through my bones.

There’s been a familiar face in the crowd all day. Never did it pass into my line of vision purposely. It’s only when I turn around to take in the streets that I’ll see a face sinking into shops or disappearing behind corners. It’s only when I see it that it stops seeing me. At first I thought it was simply my imagination, but the longer I walked and the farther I went and the more I saw of it, the more my heart pounded beneath my ribs, the more I wanted to run, the more I felt myself spiraling into delirium. It isn’t until dark that the fear sets in fully.

On the run, there’s no place I can go for safety overnight. I slip down crowded streets and into alleyways and through the urban sprawl set out before me, but I never shake the feeling of being followed, being known, being seen. No matter how quickly I turn the corners, I can always hear footsteps. I can practically feel myself coming apart at the seams. Two days of that panic stretched on before I found myself turning a corner and sprinting. My legs feel like toothpicks and my arms like snapped wings. I can’t move fast enough, never fast enough, never far. It’s always just behind me. Another corner, an open street, a boy, help, I’m being followed-

I open my eyes slowly, hand dropping to rub at my wrist for a moment as I glance around me. The rain is splotched with drops of water now, the soft pitter-patter of rain tempering my anxiety just enough to think. I cannot stay here. There’s no doubt in my mind now that this boy is genuine, has tried to help me, but I cannot stay. He shouldn’t have to, as he said, watch for men with guns and trench coats. Whatever guns are. Sir Soup isn’t involved in this. He should have never taken me in, should have never helped me, should have never even met-

This is my fault. If he gets dragged into this, it’s on me. I don’t doubt my father’s ability to find me. I’m his precious little girl. He’d do anything to get me back. Nothing would hold him back, not even Sir Soup. He wouldn’t care about the aftermath he leaves. The longer I’m away from home, the more I understand it all. He cares so much that he kills. Not a day went by that I wasn’t wasting away. I can’t go back there and I can’t take the boy down with me. Turning away from him, I look about at the room I’m in, quietly determining how exactly I can get out. It’s only seconds after I lay my eyes on the door that I realize I can’t wait. I have no time if they’re out there looking for me. That means Sir Soup doesn’t either.

My bare feet don’t exactly have the best traction on the hardwood the moment I take off, but they’ll have to do. It’s going to be freezing outside. At least I still have my jeans on and the dark purple knit that I’ve been wearing to ward out what cold I could. In this rain, however, I’ll be soaked. I practically fly down the stairs, jumping every few stairs to skip the next ones. My ankle twinges a little at a messy landing and I stumble into the wall, but with a push I’m off again. The pounding in my chest is like a stopwatch marking my time. Faster, faster, faster When I finally reach the ground floor, I don’t hesitate in throwing myself through the front doors and continuing to run. It’s colder than I thought and I feel myself become a little bit more sluggish with the addition of the elements. I can’t afford to slow down.