walk no further {leviathans}

Simon Karnes

One second. I'm nostalgic, feeling the ache of losing my family, my home, my friends, Esmeralda - I feel it all as Rowan takes her final breathes and falls silent. So many hover around her - enemies I should kill (huntkillslaughterkillkillkill) - but I don't. I only stand, my own pain and distress masking the effects the monster inside had on me.

Two seconds. I step away; the crowd is too much. All of their reassurances falling on ears that can no longer hear. So many words of comfort ... tears ... blood, so much blood. It's simple enough. I want to run away again. I want to get out of this situation, away from these people, away from the death, despair, and fear, and out of this place. Out - I just want out!

Three seconds. I told the Gamemakers in my private training session that 3 seconds without paying attention and you die. A few hours into all of the chaos and I've already failed to follow my own rules.

I wake up some time later with piles of supplies around me and a pain so intense shooting through my entire body that I simply scream. I try to escape it, let my body twist and twirl and writhe on the ground as the pain sears through my body but to no avail.

I feel like I'm on fire. Like I'm standing too close as my mother opens the oven, the hot air rushing at me all at once. It hurts but I don't move away fast enough. And by the time I think I might move away the hot air turns to warm air. It's soothing, followed by the smell of cinnamon and apples, making that one moment of burning pain worth it.

That's when the back of my eyelids turn red and everything simply stops hurting.

---

I hear laughter. Giggling actually. Light-hearted and care-free. Reminds me of a time when I would run after my little sister's through the orchard pretending to be a vicious monster. They would screech and giggle with huge smiles on their faces. In truth, they were laughing at me; I was terrible at pretending to be a monster. My face was too chubby, my hair too long, and I was much too short to look threatening in any sense. ("You look more like a marshmallow than a monster, Simon!") I was only a little upset. But my pride was never permanently scarred. I was just so happy being the older brother for once.

The laughter grows louder and louder as if it were growing closer and closer, running towards me and not away from. But as the sound grew louder in my head I began to hear something else. The giggle slowly and surely morphed into a screech - "Rowan!" - a single name. And suddenly, a booming noise jolts me out of unconsciousness, abruptly cutting off the screech.

The pain is still intense, but I don't scream this time. My muscles are tense, my head is pounding, and my ears are ringing. But I'm breathing. My vision is blurry but I see a face above me. Soft features, long hair. One of my allies - probably? I prop myself up on my elbows, groaning and mumbling words that don't sound like real words to my still ringing ears. It takes a minute for my eyes to focus, but when they finally do, I wish they hadn't.

I have 10 fingers, 5 on each hand; that is very normal. But I only count 5 toes. Five. And that is so wrong. I force myself into a sitting position, my spine protesting. My chest tightens as my vision grows clearer and clearer. My foot is gone. I'm not dreaming or hallucinating. This isn't some nightmare I'm going to wake up from. My foot is gone.

I look around frantically as if I might find it lying around somewhere, as if I were a doll that could simply have her limbs sewn back on and still be okay. But I am not a doll. I am a breakable object that can't be pieced back together so easily when it is broken.

Besides, I can't see my foot anywhere. There is only a sloppy, bloody thing at the end of my leg; scraps of bone and skin dangle around burnt flesh. I can see blood beading at the surface of my skin where the burns reach up above my knee.

"I just--- just need---" I stammer. My mouth is too dry for words, my tongue too lifeless, my throat to tight. I just need to ... what do I do?

My hand is shaking when I scramble through the supplies around me in search of something useful. I quickly unlatch a medkit with my one good hand, rifling through the supplies until I find a roll of bandages. With my mind in shock, I simply lean forward and start to wrap the bandages around the bloody nub of my leg in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood.

The white bandage seems bloodied within an instant. I'm pretty sure I should puke. But my stomach is too empty. Maybe I should scream? Or cry? Say something? I open my mouth to say thank you but the words that come out don't make any sense. Just some well-mannered mumbling in Kiena's direction and then again in Stella's direction as I let her take the needle and thread from my now quaking hands.

I can't even tell when she begins to stitch; pain is pain.

I look around me, blinking at the supplies scattered near me. Everything is still attached to parachutes. All bright and shiny and new, straight from the Capitol. Straight from the same sick minds that put the landmine beneath my --- well, my used to be a foot? The wave of nausea roars again and keel over and gag. Nothing comes up.

When I catch my breath and shift to push myself back up into a sitting position my hand falls on a hard metal object. It takes me a moment to realize it is a leg. For a split second I think it is my own, the one I though had been blown to smithereens. I feel a split second of joy; this is all just a nightmare. But that moment passes as quickly as the nausea.

The leg is mostly metal and looks to match my outfit and the landscape around me. Again, probably all just an aesthetic countermeasure by the Gamemakers. I swallow hard and swing the heavy leg over to where my foot should be. I try to shove it over the nub of my leg only to screech and pain and pull it away.

I laugh so that I don't start to cry.

"Help," I say, my voice cracking. It takes every last bit of my energy and dignity to ask. I can't even look either of them in the eyes. "Please, help."