{hope}less realities {Canvas one-shot}

Tears stain the brim of my eyes as I walk out of the justice building. My heart shatters into millions of pieces each time it beats behind my chest. Walking seems almost impossible, yet somehow my feet manage to keep my moving. Each breath draws in a new pain. One I’ve only felt once before, but here it is standing in my way blocking everything out of my sight. My body aches, and I just want to lay down on the ground and die. First Lily volunteered in the last games, and now her twin sister, Paige volunteered for this one. They had a choice. They chose to go into the games. I don’t know if I can forgive them for what they’ve done. It’s ruining my life. Each second builds hate and anger and it’s eating away the inside of my body. Tearing my entire life into pieces with every passing breath.

I want to give up on her because the odds of her returning home are the same as Lily returning from the dead. It’s not going to happen no matter how many times I try to tell myself it’s going to. Everything falls apart before it can heal, and in this very moment nothing is worth healing. No amount of paintings can change what is done. No amount of tears could bring her home. Yet I strive to see her again because she wouldn’t want me just giving up.

A weight presses down upon my fragile shoulders pushing me closer and closer to the ground. All I want is for this to go away. I want to wake up in my own bed and all of this just be a sick nightmare, yet each time my eyes open reality flashes before my eyes. I’m stuck behind a world where nobody cares. They don’t care that I’m lost in the world as it travels on around me without anyone stopping to check on me. They just keep going. Step by step. Day by day, and all I can do is live in the seconds. Each breath reminds me that I have survived many breaths before. I didn’t think it was possible when she died last year. I thought the entire world had ended, but I found a way to keep going. And Paige does this. I want to hate her. I want to scream that she’s none of my family. That she doesn’t deserve the last name of Hope because she’s destroying the family little by little.

Each step draws me further and further away from the district square as tears slowly stream down my face dripping from my nose on the ground in front of me. Many families are in mourning right now knowing that they may not see their brother, sister, cousin, daughter, son again. But it’s not like watching one of them volunteer in the place of a complete stranger. No, it’ll never fill the void left behind by two simple words. And so many questions run through my mind, yet I don’t have the answer for them. It leaves me stumbling around like a drunk man. Why, Paige? Why? It’s a question I’ll never get an answer to. She said she wanted to prove she’s brave.

Why would anyone volunteer for the stupid games? Why would they throw their life away for the life of a complete stranger? Paige and Lily both had a choice. They chose to go into the games, but none of them chose to die. Nobody chooses to die in the horrible arena, yet it seems like that when someone runs forward to the death. Paige could’ve survived another year. She could’ve lived. She may still live, but in the back of my mind her cannon has already sound leaving her body stiff on the ground as the hovercraft lifts her into the air. I watched the career kill Lily. I watched the knife embed itself in her eye. I watched as her cannon sound, and as the two careers left her dead body behind. I watched as she took her last breath, and now Paige is turning into her. The same thing over and over.

Why? Why?

The district square is behind me, and I’m running as fast I can away from the crowd. I want nothing to do. Nothing to see. Nothing anymore. Why should I live? Why should I try to keep going when I have no reason to? But she’s not even dead yet. I don’t even know if the train has taken her to the Capitol. Does it really matter though? Does it matter that many people in the district are celebrating the safety of their family for one more year? No. It’ll never matter. Not when the world comes crashing down.

Violent sobs fly from my lips as I keep moving as fast as I can. Each breath shakes throughout my body, and my head leans forward the further away I get from the district square. Look what you’re doing to me Paige. Look what you’re doing. Crashing to my knees, I throw my hands out in front of me trying to catch myself. Pain ricochettes throughout my entire body the moment I land on the ground. Yet it doesn’t block out the never ending pain growing inside of me. It can’t match the pain of a broken heart. I slowly curl myself into a ball. Tears swim from the corners of my eyes down my cheeks and onto the ground forming a lake beneath me. In this spot, I rock back and forth sobbing at the top of my lungs.

But nobody cares. Nobody will save me.

They never have.

Never will.