try to { p r e t e n d } // Aetherians

oh (oh) my (my) heart (heart)
no rest tonight
eyes (eyes) wide (wide) shut (shut)
shut out the light

They fix me.

They always do. With their help I’m able to bandage my chest so my the torso is more restricted in its movements. My breathing is shallow, still sending sharp pains through my chest, but there’s nothing that can be done for it. Soap came out of the fight worse than any of us, with blood still oozing from his arm and a ribcage almost as injured as my own. Claude and Lyric are better off but neither of them are untouched. The monsters reached all of us in one way or another, and though we like to claim this time is for healing I wonder if perhaps our more internal wounds will simply fester in the silence that hangs heavy between us.

There are moments when I think that I can’t use words to describe all the things ebbing and flowing between our corpses broken souls. I know it’s strange, because this kind of friendship is suppose to be the best in the purest, but in this Arena it terrifies me like nothing else. The leap is so far, the drop so endless, and I know that should I take another step toward them I’ll fall farther than I’ll ever be able to recover from. I keep promising myself that someday before I die I’ll do it anyway, but sometimes I wonder if I’m lying and will remain on this bitter edge until I meet my end, dying before I can tell them - as they have already told me - that they have become my world.

They don’t deserve that. I know they don’t. They were built for bigger, brighter things, for they are souls crafted from the essence of the stars, even if they think they are made up of nothing but unworthy darkness. In truth it is I who am filled to the brim with twisted thoughts and feelings I can’t even begin to understand, and even though they claim I am a hero I know I’m something much more rotten at my core. I can just hear them back at home, their whispers spreading like wildfires. That girl is broken. She is more animal than human. The greatest mercy would be to have her put down.

And yet, I drink in their light and accept their friendship with a greed I wish I didn’t possess. There is little I can give them in return, but I’m sure I’ll spend what’s left of my days (a clock that is always ticking backwards) trying to deserve what I’ve taken.

Despite the pain in my chest I drag myself to the center of the circle we’ve made and light a fire. It’s warm out and so dry that my lips are chapped and cracking, but we need the flames to cook our raw meat and perhaps to warm our frozen hearts. While I work, stacking the wood in the way I’ve seen in previous Games, I hum quietly. The vibrations ache in my chest but the tune keeps my mind off of other things, and by the time the song has finished I’m leaning back on my heels and watching the flames licking over the firewood.

I glance around at them. We’re tired and ripping at the seams, but I refuse to let us break. I reach for the sarcasm and dry humor that somehow managed to stick even when all sense of morality fled my soul. “Would it kill you guys to smile a little? We’re not dead yet.”