Withstanding the odds [Sweetwater Saints]

There is only the chill of silence in between the blood.

But when it rains, it pours—we were twenty four storms. Individual in our motives, but collected by a sense of chaos that reigned over us like a royal to a throne. Butchery lies between the seams of hearts sewn solid; behaviour so brutal that it scatters the ashes of bones it has just broken within the blink of an eye. 

When I bleed, I bleed blue. Red is too passionate, too violent, too angry for a girl like me. Blue better reflects my melancholy at the darkness of these ages, it better burns with my bloodline, it better suits my crown.

I follow my heart at times like this. I lead with it, head held high to stop my halo from morphing into devil horns. Love sets a trail in the soil that I follow with grace and patience; no desperation for a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold—I have my own. In the peacefulness after horror, the light in my eyes is the brightest it has ever been. And though I ache with a longing to be a champion for the people who see the horror and succumb to its darkness, I feel the ache a little less knowing that I have made a small, but significant victory today.

Life.

Zion's company is calming. He's the only thing that reminds me of what it was like before, sad as it is, and he's the only thing that reminds me of how it could be in the future. We fight for the same cause, for Seven, for the tales and tongues of our friends and family, for the secrets and snakes of the night. He, too, is a person who deserves the same love that everyone in Seven deserves. We all deserve a cure from the hurt.

But the cannon ringing in the air reminds me the cost of the cause: a body at my feet, blood on my hands and a scream that shatters sanity in my ear. The first one sounds and my heart skips a beat—only for a second—but it skips a beat, and it chimes back heavier than before. "Stop. One died." I say, because one down reduces the victim to a number. There's a flutterby heart in my mouth as I seek silence between the two of us. A moment of solidarity and of remembrance.

We run to the sunflowers. They face the sun, and it's a pretty sight, but they face the sun like they want to go blind. Their petals capture a droplet of the sun's essence; a fierce yellow that burns within them. It is a stark contrast to the desolation in the distance and the wooden mayhem behind. It is soft here, there's no ache for the finer things, there's only love from the earth and to the horizon. I stand in front of one, a tall one, one that sticks out like how the brightest star does in the bleakest of nights. My finger bends to the ground to draw a 1 in the dirt they grow, to honour the first cannon, a grave of sorts, as sorry as it is. I tell myself that there is a first but there will be a last, and that is a lot of lives to remember for whoever stays living.

I have enough love to do it. I know so.

Zion flaunts his rewards from the blood, bathed in glory. It isn't much, it never would be much, but it is enough for him to feel some satisfaction. "Just a few things... I'm sure we can make it work." We all put on a brave face and tried to withstand the test of time, albeit time did test us and tell us what to do, but the effort was enough for me to feel elation; pride in the fact I'd seen the worst and come out the same as before. Lex told me that I would have to hate every inch of the arena, every person who stepped foot in it and in my path—but love has gotten me this far, and love doesn't stop for the world.

I sit down, next to the 1 in the soil and exhale a breath. The pain of my wounds washes away when I think of what could be: bodies piling up like they are the architecture of a corpse cathedral, the final words that come like a final blow to a person's mentality, the monsters that move mercilessly, slaves to the gamesmakers' orders. This isn't the place to feel my own pain, not at all, because the world had already claimed one, and it would not stop there. This is a moment for the first cannon.

Looking up to the sky, I squint and there is silence once again. It is warm this time, and we bask in it together. My eyes close.

This is living, now. This is living for the dying.