six feet under . isobrooke | jb

our love is six feet under
i can't help but wonder
if our grave was watered by the rain
would roses bloom?

We are two different stark dualities. She is light and I am darkness; I am black and she is white. Despite that, we'd stay up on the beach and braid flowers into each other's hair and sharing secrets. And on those late nights we had sleepovers that I would think of my mother and the fire, and how I'd never know my father or Scout or Nat, she would brush a strand of my hair away and ask me not to be sad.

"It doesn't work that way," I'd say. If I could wish away my sadness, I would; if I could let Brooke take it away, I would have. But despair sticks to me like thick black ink, wraps around my wrists and ankles in steel chains — no sea could ever wash it away.

My mother died when I was thirteen, burned away in a fire she could not escape from. I once thought that fire was the most dangerous element, that it was destructively unstoppable and consumed everything it crosses paths with. And while it is dangerous, its power is matched by water. That was proved when I was swept away by the sea and held beneath the surface in the endless inky abyss by the clutches of the riotous tide. Fire destroys but water is slow agony and then, once it has itself wrapped around your neck and has drank all the air out of the lungs, it strikes a final blow. Fire is quicker, fire is a flash of heat and then before you know it you are ash.

When you stare Death in the eyes once, you never stop catching his gaze every now and then. The eyes of death are a foreboding, furious amber, not the coal black that artists have drawn in paintings for years. Most people's eyes have something to say that goes beyond words, but Death is not a person; his eyes do not speak. They are simply a pair of soundless, faceless omens drilled into his skull.

"My name is Brooke Destin, and I volunteer as tribute." Those words were a sledgehammer against my glass world. One swing and cracks jolted across my insides and crumbled piece by piece into a dark abyss I'll never be able to reach. My vision flooded, first with black and then with images — Brooke braiding roses into my braid, teaching me how to dance beneath the sunlight on the beachfront, building a sandcastle on the white shore, holding hands as we walked to school.

A crystalline tear streaked down my face, but Brooke wasn't there with me anymore to kiss it away from the cheek and tell me that it's okay. I don't know if she'll ever be able to do that again.

I wait for her in the Justice Building. The Peacekeepers nearly stoped me, perhaps to ask me questions, but I said, "I'm Isobel Krigel," and they moved out of my way. Leon's surname certainly comes with its privileges.

Pushing open the doors with a frantic force, I enter the Justice Building with my heart hammering in my chest and my pulse beating against my throat. Brooke is within, a shock of red hair and freckles in the dimly lit room. As soon as I see her, my heart skips over a beat rather than relaxing; not even Brooke's presence in these moments could chase away the pain slowly pooling within my hollow chest or the panic of losing another person jolting through every fiber of me in a cold rush. Nothing can stop what has begun to unfold.

The moment I see her, I throw my arms around her body and hold her there, soaking in her warmth for what is likely the last time. "Brooke . . ! — What have you done?" I let her out of my embrace but I don't let her hands go, fearing that if I do she'll just fall away and never return.

could roses bloom, again?
retrace my lips, erase your touch
it's all too much for me
blow away like smoke in air