Robin Sayer - D7 - Fin

Raven was your best friend, you grew up with him, and while he might have been older, you always thought of yourself as the person who make sure that Raven’s head didn’t get too high in the clouds.

But you knew that is where you wanted to grow up.

In the clouds, with the people that only understood you because you were eloquent.

You could talk for days about how much the world bothered you and people would stand there and listen.

Raven always said you were the straightforward one. The one that could tell people that the world was ending and they would believe it.

However, you didn’t understand yourself because you didn’t think like others did. You felt like you were too critical of the people around you.

You took simple gestures of kindness and threw them into peoples faces because thought that they were trying to get something out of you when they weren’t.

You didn’t trust anyone. Anyone but Raven.

He was your rock while growing up.

---

And while you tried so hard to keep yourself well put together, you knew that there was so much more you could have done with your life.

You told people you lived in the trees, and for all intents and purposes, you did.

Your father built a treehouse in the landscape of the forest that sat behind your house, and while the world might have been crumbling around, it didn’t while you were in that treehouse.

You did everything in there, because that was your safe space. The place where you felt like you could attack the world and it wouldn’t retaliate.

The place where you shared any and all of your secrets, because the wood could not talk to other people. And most of the time you were alone, so who would speak the words that came out of your mouth?

It was a place that you decorated just the way you wanted. Your parents did alright for themselves, and while you knew the existence of crayons and colored pencils, you preferred to use items in the forest to color the walls of your haven.

You asked Raven to help you find berries and bugs that oozed different colors when you squeezed them. You took those colors and put them on the walls, and while it might have been disrespectful to the bugs that you harmed in the process, you knew that they probably didn’t feel anything.

Just like you.

---

You didn’t come out of your safe place often, because people scared you more than anything, but Raven had a talent of breaking you out of your shell.

When you went places, you stood behind him while he discussed whatever he wanted too with the people he hung around.

It didn’t happen often, but the words that came out of his mouth sounded more refined than in the past.

Like he was starting to become the more eloquent one.

Sure, he was a year older than you, but that didn’t mean that he was a year wiser.

But that also didn’t mean that you were any wiser than him.

When they would stop speaking to Raven, they would start speaking to you, and you did your best to answer their questions, but most of the time you would stop speaking after the first sentence that would come out of your mouth.

Usually Raven finished your thoughts, and while there was so much more that could have been said, you left it at that, because that meant you could retreat into your own little world again, and again, and again.

And Raven never stopped you from doing that. If anything, he encouraged it, because living in Panem was a hell that he would never wish on anyone.

---

But then he left you.

It was reaping day and the boy whose name was called screamed out from the gallows, and Raven came in to save the day.

You watched as he left your side to take his spot on the center stage. They congratulated him, telling him that he was doing something that people should be proud of doing.

And you told yourself that this was going to be the last time that you would ever see him.

And you were right.

You watched him closely, as he fell in love with the boy from ten. You asked yourself what love meant to you, and it took days to come up with an answer.

Love did not exist in a world like this.

However, you did think that hope existed in a world like this.

You watched him make it to the top eight, and as he fought the girl from ten, you realized that Raven might have a chance to return you. That miracles can happen in a place like Panem.

After each bloody fight, you prayed to whatever ripred was out there to bring Raven home to you, and then you watched as the girl from twelve killed Raven Sayer right before your eyes.

And you shut out the world around you because that was the only thing you knew you were good at.

You pretended that the outside world didn’t exist.

---

And a year later, you wondered if anything was ever going to get easier.

You missed him, so much. But life had to move on, and while you had tons of time to be sad, you realized that you had to do something with your life.

Your parents asked you why you lived in your treehouse rather than in the house they built from the ground up, and you told them because it reminded you of the past.

The time you spent with Raven and how much he changed you for the better.

You didn’t spend all of your time in there. No. You walked around the forest and tried to live off of what you could find in there.

You closed yourself off to the outside world simply because you were still trying to find yourself.

You taught yourself how to tell which plants were poisonous and which ones would give you enough to live till the next day. You became one with the forest, and you didn’t let anyone tell you differently.

You hoped one day you could meet Raven again, wherever he may be.