Cross my {d r o w n i n g} heart [Stare]

Sitting in the dark, it hits me suddenly that I never did get to finish that cigarette before the wave hit. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a glass shard in my eye (I'm sorry, we can't save your eye.') I'd survived falling into a red flood, beaten and battered by the red flood diluted with the debris broken from the structures of years of building district four. Smash my ribs, pierce my eye, leave me half-drowned and half-dead. The doorstep of limbo was an agonising place, never visited again. Hell on earth come true, I can't even count the moment leading up to Evander saving me from teetering over the wrong edge.

I suppose I should be praising whatever ripred is out there that I'm here and not in the damp debris slowly drowning in sea water. Limbo smelled of salt and blood, it tasted like iron stained between my teeth. This hospital room smells like a mountain of steriliser poured over soap. There's practically no taste, better than what was out there. It I was to switch on the light I'd be met with whitewashed walls and a blank floor with the exception of a few possessions scattered around it. Shoes sitting in the corner. Oscillations of silence fill this ward, there are no screams of agony like the ward opposite.

I sigh. Beaten but not broken, I laid in their little beds before the doctor's callous words split my skull.

'I'm sorry, we can't save your eye.'

Callous words shot despair into my skin. I never had thick skin where my life and family was involved. It didn't take more than a second for me to realise what that meant. Newt one eye. If I had any tears left I would've broken down right then and there, instead I stared at the floor and let my bed sheets devour me, everything seeming pointless.

Missing my left eye will fuck everything up. Throwing knives were like an extension of me, every knife I threw hitting the targets in that big red bullseye nine times out of ten. Pride swelling through me, it was always the one thing I could do right despite being the useless twin. Thud. But with a missing eye I won't hear the thud of the knife against the bullseye any more. Black despair turns into red hot rage with a pinch of frustration and my fist hits the wall of my room. "FUCK!" I spit out agony from the sudden sharp jolt of pain from striking a hard wall, I recoil.

Punching stuff won't fix anything, not now anyway. I can't get that eye that the unlucky glass shard took from me. Punching the wall won't let me finish that final cigarette stolen from me by the giant wave. A tsunami they called it. Stupid joke of a name.

The quiet found of my footsteps lightly clatter. I've always paced up and down when I've needed to think about something and I'm thinking about everything. Thrown on the doorstep of limbo, I know if it wasn't for Evander I would've teetered across to the wrong side. At the time I wanted to go there though, at the time I was practically begging for it all to stop. I pause, stopping and clutching my ribs and I silently curse.

'You've broken some of your ribs.' The callous doctor's words were stinging, left to hang so me and my mother could mull it over. Of course it was only her that came, none of them could bother.

She broke the silence, exchanging heartfelt dialogue with the callous doctor and I only caught a word or two.

'How many?'

'Two.'

Back and forth, back and forth, I drifted and teetered, veering from the chems.

'What about his eye? What can we do about my sons's eye?'

The doctor stopped and looks at me, as if finally remembering I was there. 'I'm sorry, we can't save your eye.' Everything a blur, I wanted to everything to blur with my own tears but I was met with the heavily made-up floor instead.

The sorry didn't even sound the least bit heartfelt.

At least the breaks are mending, although my torso is wrapped with bandaes, District Six made it a rather painless process I suppose. My eye though, that's a different story. I suppose not everything can ever go right in limbo. Knuckles raw, I sigh, putting my head in my hands while still pacing. Counting empty steps with every movement so I know not to go into the wall.

Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a glass shard in my eye, but take my cigarettes and I think I might cry. No smoking in the hospital, no alcohol in sight, the closest thing to relaxation I've gotten are the chems they give me and even those are closely controlled and rationed. I guess the rest still have to go to the Capitol after all. Stop, pause and think. Raising a shaking hand I go to touch where my eye should be but instead I'm met with freshly changed bandages.

Drowning men haunted my dreams ever since I stumbled from sea salt and limbo, I've been running from sleep for ages now. They took me off their drugs, I haven't felt the high induced sleep for weeks now. Slipping into my shoes, I walk away from the room of despair and mockery without looking back. The hospital nightwear will have to do, they stripped my sea-soaked clothes from me when I got here, memories of limbo left with them.

The nurses don't care all that much what we do in this unit. Once you're taken off the drugs they don't check up on you that much, they have more dire people to worry about. Already forgotten, I had to be on the edge of death and on the doorstep of limbo for someone to care. Screaming my name, screaming for mercy, screaming for someone to end it all. I try to push the horrible thoughts away, bury them with the bones and drown them to lie and swim with the souls of the dead.

It's not working.

I'm half expecting another wave to hit, or for Nevah's mockery from earlier this morning to hit me again ('what are you going to do with one eye? Now you're even more useless') or my father's disapproving face to appear shaking his head. Could never do anything right, the useless twin through and through and now I'm too afraid to even sleep. I never could quite understand why I was treated so differently by my father, I suppose now he has all the reason in the world to see his one-eyed son as useless. No, there's none of that, just the quiet and I expected such a moment to be fantastic. I was never quite given the gift of silence. Now, the gift seems rather poisoned.

Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a glass shard in my eye, but take my drink away and I might cry.

My footsteps fail to break the sound of silence. Down the hall I know there are people groaning and screaming in agony, broken but not quite shattered. Right now I think I'd prefer that to this silence were despair and fester and grow ('I'm sorry, we can't save your eye.') shattered shards of hope to cut my flesh, the callous doctor's words can't quite break the silence either. Despair's never felt so tangible.

I reach two large double doors and I sigh, I know this is the exit. Outside I know there's a checkpoint marked by peacekeepers. I can't go past there but I know there are benches sitting right outside. I move, pushing open the smooth door to reach the outside.

The night's sky is bright, the stars weep down their light for me. No, no one would ever weep for me. Probably for the people who teetered over the wrong side of limbo. I'm too numb and wrapped up in my self to weep for them. Unusually, it's less cold than I remembered it, despite the night, the semblance of warming up is there. In the distance the tsunami relief tens stand up proudly. Clenching my jaw I spot the bench less the a meter away and without thinking I allow myself to collapse onto it with the force of all the mockery injured and all the despair caused by the crack on the stronghold I tried to perch myself on. I stop, and pause, unusually, I don't even take a second to scan my surroundings, anyone could be watching, anyone would see me. Instead, I let my head hang, my vision burned onto the cold ground.

I don't care if someone's looking any more.

'I'm sorry, we can't save your eye.'

I crossed my heart, I hoped to die, the tsunami stuck a glass shard in my eye, but my worth was taken away so now I need to cry.