Dark Circles [TLB v. WG]

Last night I had lain beneath a starless sky, looking into the darkness as reflections of strangers cascaded across galaxies, and I wondered whether I would make it through the night to see another day. The anxious feeling of the possibility of betrayal had eaten at my mind, festering like a pomegranate seed until the fruit had turned rotten with negativity, and sleep was nothing more than a laughable falsity. The dark circles under my eyes throb from a night of restlessness, because when I had looked into the sky, it wasn’t my face there. When I had looked into the sky, it dawned on me that I was not yet dead.

For that, I should be grateful. But I am not.

Even when Meghan’s face flashed momentarily before blinking out like a dying star – (I had wanted to look away, I didn't want to see her, see what I'd done, see what I'd become, see the sheer terror light up her face as she accepted her fate) – I still watched the night sky, waiting for Belle’s face to be illuminated and haunt me like it had each night since her death.

But her face did not show. The absence only reminded me of how alone I truly was.

Beneath my shirt is a heartbeat that is not mine. A stolen organ that was never mine for the stealing. Within my own chest I carry the thudding rhythm of a dead girl, and whilst I keep telling myself to ignore its monotonous beat – void of life, void of warmth – each step is a reminder of the sin that beats its drum to the syncopation of heavy footsteps. Buried within the valves and ventricles lay untold stories of love and death, success and failure, never to find their way to the surface of a bleeding arena, for the shedding of blood would be the only tangible essence of the humanity of each child.

That is a sad truth to have to face.

I wish to know her story – who her family was, what made her smile when her world came crashing to the ground, what her parents were like, why she volunteered. There is a need for knowledge and truth – human traits to sustain the guilty conscience. But it is a thirst that cannot be quenched. A need that cannot be filled.

(I’m so sorry.)

The silence had woken me from the shallow banks of slumber where I had spent the hours prior to daybreak trapped, following countless failed attempts to succumb to nightfall. There were neither birds to harmonise with nor neighbours passing by to converse with. Everything was still. I had not moved until my allies began to stir, and I am grateful for the spur of energy when we commenced our journey once more.

I hold Finn’s hand as we walk. The thought of the televised display of weakness causes me to cringe inwardly, but I am grateful for his warmth, his support. It is a reminder that I am still alive, and he was still alive, and that bad people deserve to live just as much as good people do.

It is Cha who leads us through the dark, her torch a dim beacon of light cast into the pressing unknown. She walks with shortening strides as an infinite number of invisible constellations rain down on her shoulders, fallen stars swimming inside her mind. Cha was the closest thing to a mother I would ever have again, if I’d ever had a mother to begin with.

Ahead of me the light stops moving; where it had once bobbed cautiously through the air, there is only stillness. The inevitable pause thereafter allows me a moment to let my eyes adjust to a sight that is entirely familiar and foreign all at the same time.

It is the Cornucopia.

But it is not the Cornucopia.

It is empty.

Picked clean.

There are no bodies.

There are no items.

There is no blood.

It is calm.

It is peaceful.

The serenity of the moment encapsulates me for a few moments, my mind boggling at the impossibility that less than 24 hours ago, I was here and I had killed. It almost seems that we may be able to spend the day scavenging for more items, remaining safe, uncorrupted, moral compasses still intact. Staying hidden and undetected from prospective tributes and mutations alike. (I’d seen what both did to tributes too dim-witted to notice the dangers until it was too late.)

But life would never be so forgiving to me.

All it takes is a moment of carelessness, an instance of weakness, a second of solitude, for the world you knew to turn itself upside down.

There are three of them, and that is all I know. That is all that matters, for when they begin running and attacking and hammering and swinging, they are a threat that would not take me down as easily Belle had been. There is a throbbing in my head that utters kill, kill with a stolen heart in my chest pulsating kill, kill and as I let go of Finn’s hand (it has gone cold and clammy and my own is already trembling with fear and anticipation) the light fades, and darkness is my only friend once more.

I scream.

I do not know who can hear my screams for all around me is scraping sounds and droplets of blood splashing to the ground and the darkness is disorientating in a way that makes me question whether I had ever screamed to begin with.

I run.

I cannot see, yet I run, aware of the consequences, unsure which reality I would prefer to be faced with today. Death, or murder.

In the dark, they cannot see the tears that roll from my eyes as I swing.

But I know where they fall.

My spear breaks skin – I can feel the shudder that runs through the handle as it connects – but there is no way of telling whose skin has been pierced at my own hand. Pausing to pull the spear close to me, I carefully touch the end of the blade, where the faintest trace of tarnished blood has taken shelter. The sticky liquid feels warm, and despite the horrors I’ve already endured, it makes me want more.

Destabilisation floods through my veins with the impact of such thoughts, coupled with the pain of attacks that send violent tremors through my already shaking body. There is nothing to hold on to as I fall, being pulled under layers of thick grass and dirt that bite into the wounds that have reopened from yesterday. (My legs are still moving, still running, I’m not falling, still alive.) Finn and Cha are alive, too, and I know this for the absence of a canon’s boom is a sound of liberating silence that I do not attempt to fill. Not yet. I know they are alive when I hear Cha’s growls tumbling awkwardly from her sewn tongue, and despite the fact that I am no longer an innocent, that I should be brave and wicked, it is terrifying to hear her internal screams, for they remind me of a home I once knew, falling apart at the seams. I know they are alive when I feel the rush of Finn’s spear like a gust of wintry wind miss my ear by millimetres; the motion calms my racing heart.

They’re okay.

(But are you?)

I wouldn’t leave them.

I couldn’t leave them.

Whether it was due to the fear of being alone, or the need for closeness and friendship in an arena void of all warmth, it did not matter why I stayed.

(Admittedly, deep down, I already love Finn and Cha too much to leave, for if we were separated if anything happened to them, it is a certainty that the tears streaming from my face would only become permanent scars of misery.)

Crusader.

He said he’d be here, and even though returning home is a reality more cruel than surviving past the arena, he said he’d protect me and he isn’t here. We are submerged in darkness; being saved is no longer a possibility, so with each hit that lands shallowly upon my body, another cry escapes my throat and I hate myself a little more.

Through the sobs is a heart that whispers kill, kill.

Through the sobs, I swing once more.

(I swing because I need to kill.)