the end has risen [Olivia/Simon]

Simon Karnes

"Really, Simon?"

I don't have the strength; my mind is filled with defiance but my body is slowly giving up. She takes my bag and all I can manage to do is sneer at her through the pain for a split second before slipping back into a grimace, clutching uselessly at the hole in my leg. I growl at her, bang the back of my head against the solid ground. Get up, Simon, get the fuck up and finish her off! I look up at her, flipping through the book - her fucking book--- "Hey!"

Seeing her hands curled around the book, her eyes dancing quickly over the pages, it makes something inside me snap. Of course I had already snapped when the rage swelled within me, but something else was snapping this time. My voice cracks when I speak again.

"Wait," I sputter, the desperation in my voice no doubt so obvious to her. I'm still angry, still fighting, still breathing and wishing that I could strangle her. But---but she has her book. "Please, give it back."

I hold back tears; I swallow the lump on my throat.

Slowly a story is torn to pieces as the paper tears from the binding.

"How precious is this book to you?"

As precious as seeing the sun rise every morning. As precious as the innocent smile of a child. As precious as the laughter of a swaddled baby. As precious as the old woman who sits in her rocking chair across the street. As precious as love letter or a well-versed poem. As precious as every breath you take. As precious as every heartbeat. As precious as a mother's love, a father's love, a sister's love, and a brother's love. As precious as your best friends. As precious as the smile of the love of your life. As precious as the engagement ring in my pocket and as precious as the woman who I wish was wearing it.

"More precious than my life." I whisper, letting my head fall back to the ground. I stare up at the ceiling, tears swelling in my eyes, a pounding heat in my temples reminding me that I'm still nothing more than an angry, lovesick, dying boy. "Please," I growl.

"Please."

Simon Karnes

She bends down next to me and the tears in my eyes don’t stop me from glowering at her. With the book cradled under her arm, the only real thing I have left of Esmeralda being torn, tattered, and stolen away from me… I only have the strength to glower. This bitch can suffer. But I’m desperate now; I can’t let myself lose the one thing I have left of the girl I love. I would be more afraid than I already am.

An apology? For fuck’s sake was this the schoolyard? I had not a single regret crossing my mind about throwing my knives at her ally. And if I still had them in hand, I wouldn’t hesitate to jam one into her eye and leave her for dead. I wanted to go home. I wanted to survive this, to get out, to let myself be happy. I wasn’t the least bit sorry for wanting to go home or fearing death. Maybe that made me weak, but sure as hell not sorry.

But she flips open the book again and I’m begging - “Wait!” - for her to stop ripping the pages. Each tear was like a slash to my poor, broken heart. I couldn’t let it happen another time or I was certain I would break down into a mess of sobbing.

“I can’t apologize for wanting to live,” I say firmly, looking from her to the book and back. “I won’t.”

Screams and clamor echo through the train car. I lift my chin to my chest so that I can glance at my allies - so strong, so finally free of carrying me around - who are already cutting down the girl. Blood is everywhere.

I glare at the girl kneeling near me as she shifts to move the book away from me, stretching over me to keep it just out of reach. I lurch forward as she begins to pull away, clamping my teeth down on her hand until I taste blood in my mouth. She yanks away.

“You’ve failed,” I murmur, letting my head fall back to the ground. “Your ally is being torn apart as you sit here and watch me die.”

“Some defender you are.”

Simon Karnes

Her anger and disgust is evident enough to satisfy me; I consider lunging forward and biting her ankle in the hopes it will induce the same reaction. Instead I get my book back. The book drops immediately on my chest, a breath of air leaving my lungs abruptly just before she lifts my arm and lets it fall over the book protectively. I clutch it so tight to my chest I almost can’t breath.

And it is just as I realize I’ve gotten her it back that the anger and rage seems to recede. Just as it always did. One minute I’m blinded by hatred and anger. And the in a single instant it all just ebbs away, back into the dark recesses of my mind. It lurks there until it feels the need to pounce on the nearest object. To tear to bits and to kill. Those are my only instincts when the rage explodes in my brain.

But just as soon as the blindness dissipates and consciousness returns I am crippled. I break. Over and over again I have broken. The day I hit a boy at school and couldn’t stop hitting over and over again until his face was nothing more than a pulp and I stayed curled up in bed and cried for days. The day I awoke with the body of my sister beneath me, hole after hole after hole scattered across her body where I had jabbed the knife into her skin, I was never the same.

I was so broken I didn’t even think I could cry anymore.

This was the last time the monster inside me would ever get a chance to use me again.

The moment I die is the moment I will finally be free.

“I’m sorry,” I whimper at her, gasping for air as everything I had been fearing is finally drawing nearer. Every curse word, every insult, every deflection of reality was now hidden away and dying with the part of me I hated. Now it was just me. Just a dying asshole of a boy.

“I’m sorry. I---I’m scared. Just a scared dying asshole.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and blink away blood and tears from my eyes. “Thank you.” My heart beats shallowly against the book.

“But you know,” I start, letting a smile dance across my face as a few tears slip from the corners of my eyes. “That’s just why I read them. To escape. To get out of Panem.”

“At least then there's a chance at happily ever after, right?”