opposite [ways]//we're in a [maze] {tether day 7}

I was having second thoughts.

Not about anything in particular, but about everything. I couldn't stop rethinking everything for no reason at all, just repeating every scenario with what ifs and what could have beens and how much longer can Is and I couldn't stop. We killed again, putting us one step closer to that unrealistic ending. But I was already ending and I think I had been for quite some time. Being Reaped was the last thing I ever expected to happen to me. Turning seventeen in the middle of the Hunger Games had not been a part of my plans. Hell, having fun had not been a part of my plans. I was going to go throughout my life following whatever orders my mother barked out, occasionally sneaking a bite of chocolate, once in a while walking with my full foot instead of on my toes. My life was going to be decidedly boring, but then I was Reaped. And now I was clearly the farthest thing from boring, and I had felt actually alive for a few days for the first time in my painful existence. But was it worth it?

Was any of this fucking worth it?

That's another thing. I never cursed. Not a single time. Not even in my head. And now I was an unfiltered mess of swearing and premarital intercourse. If I was to go back home - which I wasn't under any circumstances achieving that - my mother would have nothing to do with me. I had found peace in that thought early on with the comfort of Tyler's warmth and kind heart, with Rowdy's chivalry and Daria's silence. I had managed to make a life after the Games seem not as miserable as the life before, but if I were to make it out alive... the people who I had molded into my pillows, my blankets, my safety nets wouldn't be there. And it wouldn't be like I could walk down the road and see them.

They'd be dead.

Rowdy already was, and I had seen (well, heard, since I can't really see anything at the moment) how hard that had been for her. Hell, she left us in the middle of the night, and I had no idea if she was even alive anymore to begin with. But I needed her to be. I needed her to come back to me and love me and be there for me and all my stress-fueled oddities.

But I needed Tyler more.


I wasn't sure if I could even manage to find sleep in this wretched place without his arms wrapped around me, without the sun's rays filling up my skin every time I as much as breathed in my direction. I had tried my best not to think about my attachments to these people for all this time, and I even managed to postpone it after Rowdy's death, but Chatter... Chatter's pain was too much for me. Heather Olivia Tenley was not a strong person. I knew that coming into the Games, I knew I was weak and a goner and had no chance at survival, and here I was. A full week in. Somehow blood still coursed through my veins. Somehow nothing had seared my flesh or crippled me. Somehow I was completely fine beside my burnt breast and the otherwise tenderness and soreness of my other boob. Every time I stood I was dizzy, but I put that off on lack of food. If it was anything else that would've come two weeks before.

That should've come while I was in the training center.

Luckily for me my thoughts refused to dwell on anything right now, and I was soon crying. I curled up in a ball, cradling Spreadsheets and the severed head, the bird's timid pecks to its eye socket echoing through my spinal column. Everything was too inconsistent and not inconsistent enough and I was too old but was I really old at all and now I was cold and shivering and my tears stuck to my cheeks and I wept. Spreadsheets couldn't even honk, her solemn throaty creaks coming out sparsely as she began to nuzzle her face into mine, a wing stroking my cheek and removing a tear stain from its formation.

"Tyler...." I called out, my voice cracking and my body sweating, shivering, and I was breaking promises I wanted to keep but that wasn't of any concern right then I just needed Tyler and I needed us to live and I needed him after this but that couldn't happen it couldn't happen it couldn't fucking happen and I didn't know what I was going to do about it I didn't know how I could do anything about it I just didn't know. I didn't fucking know. My body shook and the tears streamed quicker, a river from a stream, the dam had broken and I was a tangle of thoughts and a tidal wave of emotions that I couldn't begin to process. They swelled up inside me and the only way I could avoid them was to cry and I couldn't stop avoiding.

I was lost and I knew exactly where I was.