When {memories} [BURN] // Damien Newton standalone

So when I'm lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel that love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

Everything's a blur.

My legs are almost moving on their own and yet I can't feel anything, why do I not feel anything? It's as if I don't feel the warm sun beating on the back of my head, it's as if I can't feel my legs burning or the salty sweat running down my face and soaking up my shirt. That's because I am nothing, I'm nothing of worth. I don't know if I'm even alive, after all dead men don't need to feel. No, that's Ari; Ari's the dead one. I mentally kick myself. I promised not to think of him, why am I thinking of him? Nothing. I'm just nothing because I don't feel, nothing can't feel nothing.

Why can't I see? Everything's a blur, and nothing makes sense. That's because I'm nothing, that or I'm dead, after all dead men don't need to see. But how can I be dead? I'm the only brother. I'm not the dead one. He is. Anyway if I was dead I would be seeing black. Right? But then again how would I know, there's no way I'd know. I'm not the dead brother, that's his thing. I mentally kick myself again. There's no dead brother, only me and me alone.

I come to a sudden halt and find myself laying on a hard surface. A coffin? After all why would a coffin need padding? Dead men don't need comfort. But I'm not the dead one, I'm the big one. No, this has to be the ground. I may not be able to tell because of the damp blurriness in my eyes but it has to be, I know it is. And I feel grass, there was no grass around when he died? I mentally kick myself a third time. Maybe if I do this enough I'd get to fifteen. Fifteen, he'd be fifteen now.

The aching in my legs hits me like a slow tractor. I was running, I was just running. My robotic movements seem to lack all life, it's as if I'm telling myself what to do. Now you need to wipe your tears from your eyes Damien. Tears. That's what that wet blurriness in my eyes was, just nothing but salty tears. The yellow grass waves lightly in the breeze around my kneeling body. Telling me to get the hell up. Screw the grass, just stupid grass anyway, what do they know? What does anyone know?

Why did he leave me to be the living one? It should have been reversed.

My shaky hands wipe my face again and again.

I need to get a grip.

Move on.

It's been a year.

Everyone's forgotten about him already.

But who cares about everyone?

But surely it's what he wanted, he volunteered.

But it's not what I wanted.

But I'm a selfish bastard.

I slowly lift myself up and begin strolling along. I need to get away, get away from this stupid waving grass to where I'm wanted.

...


The tribute graveyard is always the same, eerily silent. When I make my slow progress past all the grave stones from the first games it's as if the ghosts or spirits of the past tributes of district eleven are watching me, judging me. I let him go, I let him go. I can see their disapproving looks burning into me, as if I'm the one that almost skull capped him and allowed his brains to spill into the grass. It wasn't me, it the blonde bastard, the alcoholic.

The blonde kid, it was him.

Years ago I probably would've laughed at how tragic that guy was. A sad tragedy. But that tragedy sliced my brother's forehead open, he-

Kick, kick.

Too many times, stop thinking about him, no mentioning him.

The long stretch of grave stones before me is eternal. The dead kids lay there, lined up like tiny, fleshy bottles. Toys, that's all they were, that's all they'll ever be it seems. A toy, a young toy it seems. It takes an everlasting eternity to reach it but I finally reach it, the gravestone for the Sixty-sixth Hunger Games. Ari.

The numbing feeling is almost instantaneous, I find myself collapse on my knees and my arms drop to my side and I almost fall head first into the gravestone. No, I can't dash my head against a gravestone, I'm supposed to be the living one. I bite my lip as hard as I can. "Why did you leave me to be the living one eh? You should've been the living one." The oldest brother shouldn't outlive the youngest. The parents shouldn't outlive the youngest son, that's twisted, that's backwards, that's wrong. "Why'd you do that you little prick?" My words are chocked, they barely manage to slide out of my throat.

He left everything dark and backwards.

Sure there's less mouths to feed, sure I don't starve as much, sure the money we manage to rake in enough to support us but it doesn't matter. Why did my brother have to be sacrificed for it? It's not worth it. There's guitar music playing, there's no one running around the house and there's no one to look forward to hanging out with any more. We're surviving now, but we're not living.

"I ain't the living one yer see, I'm just the surviving one."

I wipe my eyes once again.

"Well I guess you don't want to be bothered by my tears any more, must be painful to see your folks all depressed; you'd probably just roll your eyes and tell us to get over it," I let out a dry chuckle, "I'll try little brother, I'll try and leave you in peace more from now on."

I get up staggeringly and walk away.

...

I dumped the large bundles of firewood on the ground. Night has long fallen but I still have the energy as if it's still mid day. His few possessions are already all piled behind me, it didn't take me long to collect the stuff, just the firewood. He would want me to let go, that's what he'd want me to do. I set the bundle alight.

The spark is almost instantaneous and the fire blazes like a greedy beast. As if it can sense that I'm about to feed it. I grab the first thing in the small pile, his old pair of shoes that he'd wear to play outside. Into the fire it goes. I throw it and the greedy blaze snatches it like a hot baby and immediately begins consuming it. Memories, all of these are pieces of memories but I must feed them to the flame, he doesn't deserve to see us all brooding over him; we need to move on. Besides, who needs stupid old items?

I grab another pair of shoes, his 'smart' shoes despite the fact they were stained with mud and looked more brown than black; that to goes to feed the hungry flames. What am I doing? It's as if I'm trying to erase his memory. But I could never do that, his memory would die when the last of our family died, that's when it would truly die. "I WON'T FORGET YOU ARI!"

I'm ignoring my mental kicking, like some sort of built-in mechanism whenever I began getting upset over him. This must happen. I ignore the solitary tear streaming down my left eye and grab an old T-shirt of his and feed it to the hungry flames. I can't forget, I can't forget, I'll never forget because he was a part of me. I bite my lip and and grab another pair of old jeans and throw them into the fire. But the blazing beast isn't satisfied and it never will be until I feel it the whole pile. I pick up a jacket (his favourite jacket but he never seemed to wear it) he'd wear it and then leave it on the floor then mum would shout at him to pick it up. But when he was gone he still left it on the floor and she still yelled at him to pick it up despite him being gone.

When she realized she broke down into sobs.

It seems an eternity, each object taking longer than the last but I'm down to the last object. His guitar. The flames lick at it greedily, reaching out with their hot and fiery tendrils and I slowly stretch my arms out to allow the guitar to take it. And closer, and closer, and closer. The fire roars as the objects burn and smoke. But what is that roaring sound, as if someone's howling in pain. Surely it's just the objects burning, the flames screaming for their due, just give the guitar and I can walk away.

But as the fiery arms edge closer to the guitar I realize I'm be wrong. It's the sound of old, good memories burning. I pull the guitar away and hug it close to my chest.

Oh.

And then I collapse onto my knees and break down into hard sobs.