//We shall not sleep [though poppies grow]\\Lethe

Lethe Turner

The day her brother died, Lethe decided she never wanted to hear her name spoken aloud again.

She awoke that day with his voice ringing in her ears, the cool, clear way he had called her name upon being saved by another tribute. She’d always loved how he said her name. Never with disdain like some of her family members were apt to do when she was unable to recognize them or lost within herself after the Games. He spoke her name brightly, calmly and kindly, waking her up from her stupor and bringing her into reality. Last night, seeing him cry out her name in his confusing and agony had woken her up again, reminding her that her little brother still lived and still spoke and still thought of her.

Despite the fact she hadn’t left her room in days, Lethe was tidy and well-kept. The Avoxes who attended to her made sure Lethe’s hair was kept constantly brushed and soft, her fingernails round and unchewed and her belly full. It had been a daunting task at first, Lethe was sure, but they’d worked their way to her and as soon as she awoke, she allowed a male Avox reach over and plump her pillow while another set her breakfast in her lap. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours; any time spent out of her room, asleep, in the bathroom was time lost to watching the screen before her. At any moment, Erebus’s breath may stop and she needed to be there to catch it if it did.

The day before she’d barely moved, not even to relieve herself, until her brother had been carried from the fight by another. She was paralyzed, chewing her fingernails bloody, eyes wider than saucers. Every blow upon his body reverberated in hers until she was trembling and rocking back and forth wildly, throwing her blankets from the bed into a crumpled heap upon the floor. Today, she knew, would be no different. Her brother had slept peacefully, she knew, or else the Avoxes whom she had instructed would’ve woken her up. Yet now, the day had come, launching both of them in new horrors.

Today, she’d woken up to see her brother hopping. He had been camped out in this sort of abandoned town for days. While it appeared the safest place, with a roof over his head and all, it, of course, was packed with its own set of terrors. Lethe knew she would never be able to bear the wallowing buildings, creaking sadly in the wind, imagining every noise to be a fleeting death, rushing to wrap its cold fingers around her throat, but her brother seemed to be faring surprisingly well. Just last night, Lethe gratefully watched as a female tribute patched him up nicely and, in her mind’s eye, held a blind girl’s hand. But, Lethe knew the Games. One minute was peaceful, the next hell. Today, Lethe sat on the edge of her seat and her brother was busy relieving himself into the dust.

Pushing her tray aside and rising from the bed, Lethe hastily pulled her worn nightgown over her head and held her hand out for a fresher one while keeping her eyes on the television. Her brother had picked up his walking stick and was hobbling towards the edge of town. All was calm. The little boy she’d seen running around the Arena these past few days, the same little boy whose chin she wiped free of sauce during dinner and the one she’d helped first mount a horse, suddenly seemed taller, more confident. Something inside of Lethe unknotted and she took a deep breath. Turning to the Avox who was smoothing the front of Lethe’s nightgown, she asked peacefully, “could you please--”

“No!”

The hair on the back of Lethe’s neck stood straight up as a chill ran down her spine. She knew that cry. In her rush to reach the television, the Avox who was busy braiding her hair was knocked to the ground, but Lethe had no time to apologize. The static hummed against her palms as she laid them flat against the screen, breath heavy. Her brother had been overcome by the District One girl and his blood had already splattered the ground in a red spray. Lethe pressed her weight against the television, desperately trying to reach him as he retaliated and the girl blocked his attack, dealing another deep gash in his side. Lethe was barely breathing now, her lungs punctured, as she heard the girl scream.

“I thought your sister would teach you fucking something!”

Her stomach tightened and she was suddenly glad she didn’t eat breakfast otherwise it would’ve re-surfaced. The Capitol reporters had come the other day, but Lethe had refused to see them. “Tell them I’m not well,” she deplored an Avox before realizing and writing it down on a note to be delivered. She could not answer their questions, have them question her. How did you help him train? Does he look up to you? Her brother was wallowing in his wounds, his blood watering the grass, that day. Lethe was busy being crumpled up in a ball, tears running down her face. Despite the horrors she’d faced in the Games, it wasn’t until the end that she’d experienced such agony. Hadn’t she taught him? Hadn’t she taught him to evade it? Where had she gone wrong?

The District One girl cut her brother’s beautiful face and Lethe gasped aloud as blood ran down his cheeks. Defend yourself, she wanted to scream, but no words came. Erebus’s attack barely grazed the girl and then her knife entered his back and Lethe’s knees gave out. Sweaty palms shrieking down the screen, Lethe finally found a garbled, quiet, high-pitched voice, “Please, no!”

His attack failed and the girl’s knife blazed through the air and Lethe cried out as the rain fell around her and all she could see was the harsh rise of huge yellow skull, not Razor, not his knife, until it had entered her eye and she was sure she was dead, and that elephant skull, leering at her without eyes would be the last thing she’d see, but the cannon that roared was not for her.

Her baby brother’s body hit the ground.

Lethe’s room was silent. Time had stopped. Nothing moved. No one made a sound. Then, Lethe heard it. An animal cry. Shrill, high, loud. It wasn’t until a few moments of it that she realized that it was her own cry. Someone approached from behind and Lethe lashed out instinctively with another scream. They would not take her brother. She could still breath life back into him, couldn’t she? Others came, but Lethe beat them all away until they all fled her room, every last one of them. She launched herself back at the television, desperately trying to force her way through it, but now it had turned black. That was no good. Lethe was crazed, animal, beating her fist desperately against the screen, trying, trying to reach her brother, until her fists were bleeding and her hands were bruised and purple. Surely broken, but she didn’t care. She stood and kicked and fell back onto her back, screaming. Her brother, her good, sweet, baby brother.

Dead.

The word pierced her and she pressed her palms against her ears, trying to stop it. “No, no, no,” she moaned, then cried and then roared. “No! No! No!” She wanted to wrap her hands around the District One girl’s neck. She wanted to make her scream and cry. She wanted to see the bruises blossom under her fingertips. She had taught her brother something, hadn’t she? She hadn’t failed her brother. “No, no, no!” Lethe stood and stumbled on weak legs across her room, still holding her ears. “No, no.” When she squeezed her eyes shut all she could see was the way the dust rose when her brother fell, the way the blood had dripped, syrupy, down her legs, the way his eyes had looked, wide at first, then broken, then dead.

“NO!”

She threw the breakfast tray on her bed at the wall where the plates crashed and the food splattered onto the floor. She knocked her nightstand over, shattering the lamp and the glass of water that had held her glass eye that night before. She yanked at her hair and let tufts drift to the ground. She scratched her cheeks, drawing blood in long streaks down her face. She screamed until she could scream no more and instead filled the empty space by beating the television some more until her hands, surely parts broken or else bruised by now, could take it no longer.

Nothing was working. Her brother was still dead.

“No,” she heard herself sob as she stumbled backwards against the door and slid to the ground, bloody face in bloody hands. Her baby brother. She squeezed her eyes tighter, trying to erase the image of his blood-stained body, instead trying to imagine those clear, green eyes, that white-toothed grin, those smooth cheeks and his voice, the way he said her name.

Lethe, Lethe, Lethe.

“No!”

It echoed all around her. He’d cried out for her. He’d needed her and she’d failed him. Lethe, Lethe, Lethe. His voice filled her room, drowning her, overtaking her, and Lethe gasped for air on the floor, tears running down her cheeks, as her brother cried and cried her name. “No, no, no,” she whispered now, “please make it stop.” Lethe, Lethe, Lethe.

“No, no, no,” Lethe tried to stop him, but even her own voice sounded like his. Her body was a husk. He pounded away at her. Lethe, are you in there?

“Mom…” Lethe was suddenly inspired. For the first time since her own Games, Lethe needed her mother. She stumbled hastily towards the phone. Her fingers were bloated and gooey with snot and tears, making it hard to dial the phone, but she finally got her home number. She jammed the receiver in her ear and waited. Ring...Ring...Ring...and then a dead tone. Lethe frowned and dialed again. The rings came again before the dead tone. Lethe tried twice more, but no one picked up. Her breath caught in her throat as she desperately cried into the receiver, “Mother?” hoping it would understand and give her what she wanted. “Mother?” she whispered into the rings. “Mother? Please. I need my mother.” A monotonous ring answered back and Lethe began to hyperventilate. “I need my mother. I need my mother.” Her voice was slurred, high-pitched. “I need my mother. I need my mother. Please, give me my mother!” She screamed right back at Erebus as he begged for her. Lethe, Lethe, Lethe. She fell into bed, the phone in her lap. “I need my mother!”

The phone dropped from her fingers and Erebus’s voice swelled even louder as Lethe sobbed. She was completely and utterly alone, folding into a fetal position, her dead brother’s voice pleading back at her.

Lethe. Lethe. Lethe.

The phone gave a long, dead cry from the bed.