S H A T T E R E D wings of {Hope} // End of Ari Newton

ari newton

We carry on, carry on
Follow us, we are all one
Battles fought, the deed is done
But silver hum runs dark and strong

I volunteer.

Those two words seem to draw bitter chuckles from my breath.

They left me, tossed me away like a rag doll but not before hacking and slicing at me with their shiny katana's and carving me up like a piece of meat for slaughter. I was so distracted by the sound of Claire's screaming of pain and her life literally burning away like it was but a scrap piece of paper. I did that. I was so stupid, if I had just paid attention, if I had taken that opportunity to escape, to run, to be with Anni for yet another day I may not be laying here today with crimson smiles carved across my body. Like a chicken I have been slaughtered once released from my cage.

They left soon after that, all abandoned me and left me for the rats and the scorching hot sun, they left me at the mercy of my own wounds to bleed out. Willis' blow was so clean, so quick that I barely knew what happened until I had found I'd hit the dirt for the last time. It was then that all the pain exploded through my head and sliced through my brain and dominated my mind and all I wanted to do was sob but my eyes refused to shed tears. I was just that weak. After putting me through the painful process they left me, with no one but the stench of Claire's charred corpse to keep me company.

"Looks like it's just me and you. I say dryly, as I painfully twist my neck to look at the charred corpse that my impeccable accuracy created and left there. My breathing is rapid, much more rapid that usual despite the strength in my body feeling drained. I don't want to die. But it seems I will, with the sun glaring down at my barely moveable body in mockery and the wounds across my body smile back at the sun in response. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. Even breathing seems to send the black flames of pain searing throughout my body and me breathing like an over-worked horse doesn't seem to be helping me at all in the pain department.

I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die.

Death is everything I pictured it, heart wrenching, scary and just downright painful, but I still remain defiant until the very end. I don't want to die and yet my body seems to be responding differently to my will. The crimson that leaked into my eyes from Willis' blow still remains there and stays stuck to my eyes like red sunglasses because I don't even have the strength to even wipe it from my eyes. All I can do is lay here, staring at the sun that only seems to mock me further the more I look at it, it's heat only provoking my wounds to torture me to the point where it feels unbearable. Please, I don't want to die, someone, anyone make it stop.

Even as I lay here, rapidly breathing the burning hole in my back only seems to pain me even worse than before as time goes agonizingly slow. Make it stop, make it stop. I'd give anything to make the pain stop right now, my shurikens, my fire, anything but death. Anything but death to make this agonizing pain stop and make all the red clear away and return to normal vision because the painful images of crimson only seems to swim through my vision. But I don't want to see more red, and I certainly don't want to die, something, anything just please make the pain stop. Is the relief too much to ask for? Is the simple privilege of life simply too much to ask for?

I breath in, and out.

Even that seems to draw a hoarse yell from my lips in pure agony as I cough and sputter. The phantom of pain is already starting to tear me apart. I felt pain, I felt so much pain in the arena, it left me fragmented and alienated from my district. I hated that place, District eleven that is but I'd give anything to go back there and live. I thought I was being brave, I thought I was being selfless in volunteering because let's face it, I needed to. I was pretty much the best of the Newton's to try. Damien, yes he's older, yes he's stronger, yes he's more strong willed but then if he failed there would have been nothing. He brought in the little money we had. If he died we surely would have starved. I was the next in line to try and take the throne of victory by it's oh so tempting throat. And I fucking failed.

No, no, no!

I have not failed, not yet, my heart is still beating, blood is still flowing through my veins and although painful air is still being taken in by my lungs. I can still fight. Through more shattered grunts of agony and pain I turn myself around, onto my front where the sun can further mock the hole in my back. "SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!" I cry out in desperation as I already feel tears slide down my face and mix with the red ringing my eyes and fall to the stone ground like a crimson rain drop. Somebody, anybody, Anni, someone. Doesn't somebody understand that I do not want to die? Doesn't somebody understand that I need to win?

"Please." I croak and my pleading is only met with the mocking sound of silence. My weak arms are used to drag me slowly but surely forwards."Please, I can still go on." I say hoarsely, my teeth gritted and my blood stained hair flopping in front of my face and covering the red smile on my forehead so poorly. "I'll find them, I'll kill them all." I croak out again, not even sure what I'm saying any more as a string of words seem to fall from my tongue and out of my mouth. "I can do it, please, somebody, anybody." More tears, more tears seem to fall down my cheeks and hit the floor in the form of crimson raindrops. Why can no one hear me? No one can hear my desperate pleads, no one can hear my desperate cries of attention.

Why?

Bloody grazes and scrapes stain my fingers and chip away at my fingernails. Despite the blood flowing from my wounds like miniature rivers and stain my skin with crimson. I must keep going, please, I don't want to die. Despite the constant flow of red spilling in my eyes and blinding me with a rivers of swimming crimson I still blindly continue to howl at the sky. The pain in my thigh is never ending but the blow Willis left on my forehead is one thousand times worse than that. I just want it to all stop.

Some could look at me and judge, after all I volunteered for this right? I said those two words that saved Quintens life but in effect seemed to end mine. I switched places with him. But I thought I could win, no, I know I can win. Those two words seem to bounce around my skull and embed themselves in my brain even as I continue howling in pain and desperation and claw myself forwards across the stone ground. I volunteer. I saved a life by speaking those two words, the life of a kid I didn't even know because I felt that I needed to. Tears continue to stream down my face as those two words continue bouncing around my head rapidly and uncontrollably.

My death may lead to less mouths to feed for my family. But what does that mean for me? It means I get to be a rotting corpse in the ground. I can join my enemy (was she even my enemy) Claire Patridge here in the ground, I can rot in the ground next to Iago Izar-McClaine and Matilde Watson. I can have my own personalized gravestone that mum, or dad, or Damien customized and that will be me forever. My whole life summed up in a few words engraved on a gravestone. It's not fucking fair. I volunteered for this, I brought this upon myself.

But those unpleasant thoughts of my future seem to force me to claw at the ground even more and blindly try to pull myself forwards. I don't want this, I don't want to die. I'd rather feel this pain ten times worse, I'd rather feel more and more pain forever than stop feeling. I'd rather feel this never ending pain and see this never ending crimson than leave Anni Dorst alone, my one friend, my only true friend. I don't want to leave her, I don't want to die and leave things feeling so ... unfinished. Why should I care, she ran away. But it was only logical right? It wouldn't have made any sense to fight those three off while I could do nothing, as much as I hate to admit it she wasn't the best of fighters. All the misses!

But she was still useful to have around, and not just in terms of helping me survive while I bled into the sand. But she's not here to help me as I bleed life onto the rock. She was helpful, I needed her and she needed me, at least that's what I thought right? The thought of dying here, dying here in this broken place with no Anni to even comfort me only makes me claw myself forwards even harder despite my crusty fingers and my fingernails chipping off slowly. Please, Anni. But there's no Anni here, there is only Claire. My thoughts are scrambled and fragmented but I will claw away as hard as I can.

I take a look at the guitar pick that hangs so proudly around my neck, stained with blood -I can't even tell if it's mine or someone else's, most probably the former- and just there. It was comforting to have when I was alone because it reminded me of what I was missing. My guitar, my need for music, my house, my mother listening to the songs I played. I was missing them all and this damn pick, it kept me sane and connected. But it was also a mockery, it also mocked me in the sense that it was a constant reminder of my confidence, my inability to say what I needed to say through the simple art of speech.Only music. Music, music, music. How I would long to get my hands on the sleek wood my guitar and just begin using this pick to strum away at the strings and allow the sound to flow and the magic to happen, how everything would just come out when I had my hands on the guitar which I found on the street.

I grip the pick on a string tightly around my neck and press it onto my chest as hard as possible. And then I howl. "ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! I howl for the dawning realization that Anni will never hold me again as she mends my wounds, that I will never fight by her side again. I howl the dawning realization that I will never see mum, or dad, or Damien again. I howl for the drawing realization that I will never have my first kiss, or ever have a girlfriend, or ever be somebody.

I can no longer claw hopelessly at the ground, I have no more strength to continue fighting, like the fire that once proudly coated the steel disks my will to fight has sputtered and died, just like my life will. "Anni," I groan, despite the fact that this is probably just the blood loss talking I just begin to hopelessly speak into the air despite the fact that there's just me and Claire here, us two corpses. "A-an-ni," I don't even know what I want to say despite the fact I'm here and she's long gone. "An-"

And then as I see the red turn to black all I feel is the overwhelming feeling of despair hit me because I know I'm the next course for death.

And as the black turns to white all I feel is pain.

~End of Ari Newton~

Hand to the heart, lips to the horn
We can stand, we can say we can be reborn
Hand on my breast I'll keep you warm
Hail