f i r e f l i e s ✺ finn/stella, blitz

The stars were so bright last night. So bright my wondering eyes had not been able to draw themselves away from the boisterous spectacle unfolding outside my bedroom window, despite the calm that littered the streets of the Capitol far below. I’d been told this was an unusual happening by our escort – Tasmain, a name so pungent it still makes me gag at the mere thought of such idiocy. It was rare that the Capitolites would be willing to go a night unnoticed by their peers. Tonight was an exception. The sheer absurdity of the entire situation I’d brought upon myself somehow managed to corrupt the breathtaking exhibition on display, and the shimmering of the constellations dulled slightly in their melancholic response.

Our escort. Because Tasmain was Crusader’s escort as well, not just mine, and admittedly, the idea of friendship didn’t seem so bad when I was greeted with his beaming face each morning, despite his worthless promises: ‘That one person will be you.’ That one person to make it out of the arena alive will be you. But I won’t. It’s not me. I could never live with the fact that if it was me, I would be the only one in a long list of Calloway calamities to escape the fire unscathed. Of course, this statement was as far from the truth as the stars were from my reach.

Perched comfortably in the sky, they beam their bright-eyed grins onto the world below, unaware of the inexorable elation they brought to a small, forgotten girl, waiting to die. A billion years had been spent wandering aimlessly through the nothingness, and a billion more would follow, stars shrouded in an incessant darkness with nothing but the company of an infinite number of stellar neighbours to guide them along the way. There was something beautiful about being lost in an abyss of blackness. A certain sense of awe that despite their plight, they would continue to shine just as brightly, as if tomorrow promised a new fate. Despite the fatigue that pressed down upon my shoulders and made my eyelids beg to be put to rest, I fought the urge for sleep, knowing the night could very well be the last time I would get to enjoy the serenity of life’s simpler, happier moments. Accompanied by the presence of millions of iridescent patterns, my insignificance within the vast, unexplored world faded momentarily, making me feel less alone than I deserved to be.

The appearance of daybreak did not bring with it the warmth from days prior to my awakening this morning. I cannot remember allowing myself the luxury of sleep. Despite my slumber, it was not enough, for all I have felt this morning is a sluggish demeanour about my walk and a familiar, suffocating sadness that screams all shades of black, mixed with an intense desire to sleep. Daytime was much drearier than nightfall, for that is when the stars sleep and there is no beauty to brighten the sombre days. All traces of the endearing warmth from last night seem to have evaporated with the arrival of a sun that threatens to melt the coldness in my heart. Yet perhaps that would not be such a bad thing. After losing hold of everyone you once knew and everything you once were, losing another part of yourself does not fill wide eyes with dread in the same way it may have once done.

After groggily forcing myself out of bed, I find myself in the Training Center once more, choosing to spend my waking hours there above all other availabilities – above the Dining Hall, where eating had become a tedious past-time that I had minimal interest for; above the solitude of my room, for there was only so long a girl could be held between four walls with nothing to fixate her attention before they closed in, bringing with the claustrophobia fresh bouts of unwanted panic. Yet once again, I find myself lost and confused, a stranger to the masonry and uncomfortable atmosphere that settles like a dark cloud over the room.

It dawns on me that I should be learning, making the most of my time before entering the arena so that I am equipped with ways to trap and to torture, to kill and to avenge, for they are not things a fifteen year old girl are typically expected to know. Despite this logic, I cannot help but allow my feet to take me on a journey they decide the path of, oblivious to the hammering of rationality being foregrounded within my mind.

When I find myself at the plants station, I do not protest, choosing to sit by the foliage of a small shrub until the weariness passes and I am able to make a fool of myself once more.

The shallow breathing of a small body close by makes me smile slightly in knowing I am not the only one who stands as a hopeless insomniac. I wonder what his troubles are that keep him awake at night when the rest of the world has fallen victim to sleep – alone, shuddering, terrified of the future, or perhaps the past. Despite not once having seen this boy since arriving, his huddled warmth brings on a kaleidoscopes of memories; memories where two girls would lie in a too-small bed with each other talking about the moon and sharing secrets of the dreamland long after mother had come to kiss them goodnight. Memories of two girls kicking up the tiny piles of leaves that littered their front garden – the most exciting occurrence of her 7th Autumn. Memories of Belle and Stella, water and fire, existing in harmony.

My Belle.

She’d left me.

It is only when the taste of rust fills my mouth that I realise I have been biting on my bottom lip, struggling to keep the tears that have been prickling at my eyes from flowing – for I know if I start, they will come in an uncontrollable stream, a display of emotion that I do not wish to share with the other tributes today. In a feeble attempt to distract myself from the numb pain, I whisper a string of words, their coherence unbeknown to me.

‘This place is terrifying.’

Usually, I would not have bothered with small talk – (especially to a stranger who appeared to be consumed with sleep; who was I to take that away from him?) – choosing to remain a hermit in a fast-paced world I did not belong to. But the moment is too tranquil, almost feeling like a realm I had some small right to be a part of, even if that part was simply a gleaming star in a sky full of cosmic creations. When his face registers signs of life, weighed down by weariness that permanently resides in the heavy bags beneath his eyes, I almost feel guilty for the selfishness of intruding on his small sanctuary.

Almost.

I look into the strange boy’s eyes – a man whose face displays a maturity and oldness that his innocent eyes do not possess – and see the stars within them, illuminating the pools of light grey that blink slowly in acknowledgement.

As I lay with the coolness of polished tiles sending shivers up my spine, the taste of smoke acrid in my parched mouth, the presence of a stranger I do not yet care for keeping outbursts of negativity and anxiety at bay, it almost feels like home, a fine line of possibility and doubt rendering it impossible to distinguish the sensation as a blessing or a curse.