arachne ramos {district four} done

The morning's air burns my lips. It's frigid and unforgiving, unwelcoming as I force one foot in front of the other. The whole of my head is alight with tiny fists pounding the inside of my skull and I can barely see five feet in front of me thanks to the winter's pale light. And I promise myself that that is the last Sunday I spend partying but it's a lie. I enjoy the high too much to mind the punishment. 

And it's nice to have a life after six years of nothing but repetition. Not a toe out of line as I trained and practiced and trained and practiced. Maybe i was good at what I did, but it never occurred to me that one day I'd have to think of a life without it. There's a certain shame that burns across my brow when I return home. Because the odds were never in my favor, and every year I was skipped over in favor of a female who died within the harsh confines of an arena littered with new obstacles. (I'm supposed to think that, if I was chosen, I would have emerged victorious. But honestly I don't know. I don't.) 

I work with them now. The children who were once like me. The one whose names are still waiting within a crystal ball, waiting for their shot at glory because every single career knows that they can win and that if it was them they'd bring honor to the district with ease. Everyone knows that if it were them, it'd be an easy win. Yet only one has emerged victorious. But I guess we have to think like that to willingly throw ourselves at the throats of twenty-three others. 

I've thought of that a lot since my birthday.  I watch them everyday. Some as young as twelve, some only a year younger than I. They work towards a goal they'll most likely never achieve and I cannot help but wonder if it was worth it. Were those six years spent wisely when now I'm floating, lost in a world I was not prepared for?

A thick woolen coat falls off my shoulders upon arrival. Exposing slender, pale shoulder dotted with the sun's dark kisses.  I am not strong, the muscles that line the skin on my arms is faint. A mere toning compared to the bulging masses attempting to escape skin that I see littering the gym's cushioned flooring. I was never strong. Not when I trained every day for hours on end, nor when I gathered with the others those fateful reaping days and awaited my name to fly across the masses. "Arachne Ramos." 

I am named after a woman who challenged the gods. I take after her likeness well; hubris runs thick through my veins. If it could replace the blood there, it already has. I am a prideful woman because I have reason to be. The Arachne in the legends wove thread into masterpiece. I turn men into putty within my palms. My words are silk in the loom, falling into place and painting vibrant hues that are almost never truth. 

I know just what to say to bring them to their knees and I feel nothing for it. No, I never intended to survive in the Arena with my strength, I'm not a strong woman and I never will be. But my tongue is the sharpest weapon I posses. 

Nonetheless, the days crawl past and I haven't a single reason to function anymore. Instead I watch, I help those who work to achieve a goal that has long since surpassed me. And on days that I cannot be bothered to show up for petty bills I do not need, I lay on the beach and feel the sun's fingers upon my cheeks. I spend my days without purpose. 

His name is Angel because that is what he is. Baby fat still clings to his frame, only seven years into life he is the most beautiful boy I have ever met. His hair is a dark auburn and his eyes are filled with a thousand shadows. Demons that the boy keeps at bay. Because he is not well. There is something off kilter about my little brother but I can never seem to place a finger upon it. Perhaps it's his whisperings to those who are not there, or his tormented tone when he cannot sleep at night because haunting screams keep him awake. 

But I love that boy more than I love myself and so I sit up those long nights. I run manicured nails through his scalp and I tell him that it will all be okay and he looks up at me with shining eyes and tells me that I keep his demons at bay and that he loves me. My lips will find their way to his forehead then because he makes me feel something that I've never once felt before. A kind of bubbly warmness in my gut when ever other second I am consumed by biting cold. 

Mother was never in the picture and so she does not get a say on his future. And perhaps father expects me to fall in line with his wishes because that is what I have always done. Expects me to take him to training on his twelfth birthday and work him as hard as I did myself. But the boy is far too frail. He'd be eaten alive and no matter how many times I tell father such, he shakes his head and insists that I am overreacting. That perhaps the boy is a bit eccentric but that does not make him useless. (I never said he was, father.) 

And so we'll leave together, me and Angel. One day we'll lock a worn wooden door behind us and father will be out of the picture and have no say in our future. 

And I will protect the only thing I think I've ever loved.

i never let you down}
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