scarlet blue [star squad day 3]

here stands a man
at the bottom of a hole he's made
still sweating from the rush
his body tense

"CLEMENTINA!"

She can hear her — Emberly can hear Clementina crying out in pain. Although she has been shoved overboard and she's gasping for air as she is just barely able to force her head above the surface as the ocean threatens to swallow her, she fights as hard as she can, swinging and paddling her limbs against the current as she swims toward the ladder to the yacht. The sword in her hand weighs her down as if it is a stone, but she knows that if she lets go, Clementina is done for. She cannot fight off Careers with her fists.

"Clem! Clem, I'm coming!" she calls frantically. There's salt water washed in her mouth, sanding the walls of her throat and it stings to speak, but she does anyway. For once, Emberly doesn't let pain stop her.

"Clem! Clem, I'm coming!" Emberly giggled. Only she ever called her sister Clem; everyone else opted for her common nickname, Ment. A twelve-year-old Emberly is drenched in summer sunlight, strawberry blonde hair ignited like a little flame as it catches the light, streaming behind her like a sunset river.

"Hurry up!" her twin calls back. Clementa Lowe stands with her arms folded across her chest on the doorstep of the farmhouse. "Or I'm gonna eat ALL the pancakes and bacon, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

"Hey! No fair! I was milking the cows —"

"It ain't about being fair!" Ment laughs.

The snapping of Clementina's bones rips through the air, a crackling sound as thunderous and piercing as the lightning of a hurricane. When her body breaks, Emberly feels herself break, too, like someone has taken a giant hammer and brought it down on her, shattering her skeleton like glass. Split spine, cracked fingers, crushed spirit, Emberly climbs still.

By the time Emberly reaches her, Lux Pelotte and Hero Marvray are gone.

his hands, they shake
oh this, this a man, boy
here stands a man
with a bullet in his clenched right hand

It's just Clem on the yacht — or what remains of her — and Emberly and Raquel, and Ree is slowly climbing back up the boat. Emberly is running toward her body, the sides of her vision all a blur and the silence hanging eerily in the air and the roaring waves crashing against the boat screaming in her head.

Tears spring into Emberly's eyes — she hasn't cried in days, but this time, the tears aren't unwanted.

(She is not ashamed of crying in front of people she does not know; she is not ashamed of mourning her friend, no matter who her company is.)

Only this time, her tears fall before Ree and Raquel and all of Panem, too. But there is no weakness in tears; there is no weakness in the sheer agony that burns through Emberly's body like acid in her blood, slowly breaking into her veins.

Emberly darts toward her fallen friend and falls to knees by her side. There's a slapping sound when her knees make contact with Clementina's blood pooling all over the once pristine white deck of the yacht. She reaches for her, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, the shallow beat of her heart like the slightest flutter of wings. She's still alive, Emberly thinks, hope sparking in her heart. I can save her, I can save you, Tina.

"Clem, Clem hold on," Emberly begs. "I'm going to get you bandages, I'm gonna patch you up. You'll be fine, you'll be fine . . ." Tears leak out of her eyes still; deep down she knows the truth. With Clementina's chest crushed in like this, all the blood pouring out of her in a scarlet sea — she likely had only a few moments of life left in her.

don't push him, son
for he's got the power to crush this land
oh hear, hear him cry, boy
don't you ever leave me alone

Emberly counts her breaths — one, two . . . and then it catches. Clementina outstretches her hand with the little strength she has left, inching her hand towards Emberly's. She takes her hand, closes her fingers around hers, and trembles with a shiver when she realizes that ice has taken over Clem's fingertips. Clementina is growing colder, but Emberly is still burning with life; her hand envelopes Tina's with warmth and chases the cold away. It is not enough.

"Clem! You're not supposed to die — not like this!" Emberly cries desperately, and more tears come, falling more forcefully this time down her cheeks. She tastes salt in her mouth again, but this time it isn't sea water.

We were supposed to make it together.

In a perfect Hunger Games, it would be her, Clementina, Ree, and Raquel who would be the last ones standing. And after that . . . they would do what they have to. She knows it isn't realistic, but she had never thought that Clementina would go like this. So violently.

my war is over
be my shelter from the storm
my war is over
i am a sad boy

Clementina says nothing; only stares into Emberly's eyes with that soft, sea-blue gaze. Emberly remembers how the stars would reflect in Clementina's eyes as they watched the anthem from the deck, how they were filled with sadness when Basil Isley's face appeared in the sky. She isn't sure what she sees in them now — the clouds of the sky, regret, sadness . . . and something more that she can't decipher.

Beaten bloody out of spite by a pair of ruthless Careers — it is a cruelty that Emberly cannot grasp with such a soft mind. She isn't supposed to go like this.

"Nothing lasts in the Arena." Yes, she and Ree decided that days ago beneath the stars and before a dying campfire, but it seems like it has been forever. When those words were said, Emberly realizes that she did not truly understand. She had lost McCarthy — he had been a friend. But Clementina . . . she was Emberly's shoulder to lean on, the person who she had decided to follow through the Games. Three kills in three days — Emberly had begun to believe that Clementina Ogden was an invincible girl. And now, staring into the face of Death as its shadow comes down on her trusted friend, she understands, truly, that nothing lasts very long at all. Not even invincible girls made of steel; girls like Clementina have lives as delicate as girls with paper bones like Emberly. They are just smalls flame that can be blown out by even a soft ocean breeze.

"You always made me feel safe, Clem," Emberly tells her as she slowly lifts her body into her arms. Blood smears all over her arms, but she does not pay any mind. "I was so scared when I came to the Training Center. But you . . . you were always comforting, even when I thought I was going to die."

here stands a man
at the bottom of a hole he's made
still sweating from the rush
his body tense

She sobs over McCarthy Balmain's killer; but she could never bring herself to blame Clementina. It was the Hunger Games, and she had killed out of necessity. Clementina was never cruel to her victims, not like Lux Pelotte.

Emberly promised herself long ago that if she must kill, she would at least feel remorse. Somehow that is better than taking a life and brushing off the weight of what has been done like it is nothing. She remembers the cold eyes of cruel tributes — Chester Meisenzahl, Lux Pelotte. People who could spill blood without a second thought; but Clementina wasn't like that.

No, she was not a killer, but rather a guardian angel, Emberly decides. She had killed to save Ree, she killed Rhetoric to save Emberly, and Jacob to save Raquel. Clementina never killed for herself.

Emberly looks down at Clementina, whose broken body lies limp in her arms. Her hand is still laced within hers, and Emberly holds on so tightly, hoping that if she does, Clementina won't go.

his hands they shake
oh this, this is a man, boy
here stands a man
with a bullet in his clenched right hand

"I —" she realizes she cannot beg Clementina to stay when her breathing is getting shallower and shallower and she's losing all the blood in her body. It isn't fair to her. Clementina cannot choose if she stays or goes, no matter how much Emberly wishes she could. "It's okay if you leave, Tina. It's okay . . ." She lies. It is not okay — it's not okay that Clementina has to die with a crushed in chest and a slashed open body. She must feel everything, every cut, every wound. It isn't fair, it isn't fair.

("It ain't about being fair!")

"Rest now," Emberly tells her softly. It was what her mother used to say before bed when Emberly had a bad day at school. "Rest now. It'll be better in the morning." And it would be better, but Clementina will never see the morning come.

So instead, she says, "It won't hurt anymore, soon."

("I watched him die.")

And now, she watches Clementina die, too.

She feels her pulse in her wrist slowly decline, watches the light slowly fade from Clementina's eyes —

but don't push him son
for he's got the power to crush this land
oh hear, hear him cry, boy
don't you ever leave me

BOOM! Canon fire follows, an awful, deafening sound that Emberly is all too familiar with. The sound drowns out Emberly's sobs that rack her lungs, forcing her body to quake. Deep down, Emberly knows what has happened — she knows in her mind, but her heart is screaming so loud it drowns out her thoughts. She feels the truth; it weights down on her, crashes upon her like bricks falling from the sky. It cruelly stabs into her chest, a steel spear, and twists and twists into her center, splaying her veins and arteries around the ruin of her heart.

And once again, Emberly Lowe finds herself covered in her friend's blood.

The part of her that denies the sight before her eyes is stronger than the part of her that knows Clementina is dead. She heard the canon fire, felt the life fade from her body, but now that she's gone, Emberly doesn't want to accept it. She can't.

"TINA!" she screams so loud that her own voice tears through her throat so roughly it hurts. "TINA!" She tried to prepare herself — she tried to let go.

my war is over
be my shelter from the storm
my war is over
i am a sad boy

In the distance, thunder rumbles and swallows Emberly's sobs. She looks up, her tear-stained cheeks catching the now gray-tinged sunlight, and sees a mass of gray and black clouds swirling in the sky and unfolding towards them. The waves have become rougher; they no longer lap against the ship, but rather crash against it.

She doesn't need to be from District Four to know that a storm is coming.

"Emberly we need to fucking go!" Ree says. He seems to have been trying to get her attention for some time, she had been too preoccupied.

She struggles for words through the tears, but eventually musters the strength to speak with trembling lips.

"Just —" she breathes, frantically, in and out in and out in out in out. "Just take the steering wheel, Ree! I'm not leaving her side."

She can't. She can't leave her now, not after Clementina had done so much to save her.

don't you ever leave me alone
be my shelter from the storm
my war is over
i am a sad boy

some ancient call, that i've answered before
it lives in my walls, and it's under the floor
if this was meant for me
why does it hurt so much?

Filler.

fear of the water
so hold my body, hold my breath
see your face when i black out, i'm never coming back
fear of the water