hoof prints in hell | sweetwater saints vs mutts[day 2]]

There is something in the air tonight.

The sky is a canvas to the sun and moon; a kaleidoscope of colours singeing and burning each other until they crisp themselves into a thick midnight hue that the stars can only try to shine through. The field of flowers falls into a desert of darkness, the plants becoming nothing less than a maze of soldier silhouettes who stand with their guard up to stand their ground.

Berlin comes back to us—tamed hell etched on his face as he tends to my wounds. He remains silent, as if the night has stolen his voice and given it to the moon to lull us to sleep. I smile at him, heart full as ever, knowing that I am safe in the company of someone who I can fall back on, should I ever fall. It was kindness coming back around; it is a cycle, an echo, and the world is giving back every ounce of love I have put in.

I settle on the ground using my bag as a pillow, staring aimlessly towards the sky waiting for the ominous chime of the anthem. The single cannon that sounded still loops over and over again in my mind—it was the pulling of life's trigger, symbolic in the sense it was over just as quickly as it began. And when I can finally put a face to the sound in my head, my heart drops into the depths of my chest. Myrcella Hudson's dream-lit face is the only angel in the heavens above, a cold reminder that being a savage was much worse than being a saint. The consequences are obvious, now, but I take a moment to keep her in my thoughts.

She has friends, a family, and if I could send a piece of my heart to help them heal, I would. I imagine everyone else who is awake probably looks up to the skies with relief, but I am lost in love.

There is something in the air tonight, and it makes me feel the same grace as Myrcella Hudson, and it makes me let it go too.

Sunrise is nature's call, the beam of the sun gently opening my eyes to a new day. I sit up in an instant, counting the people around me to be sure that no one was a victim of the night, and that even though we feel lonely as ever in this arena, we are lonely together. Berlin waits for us to collect ourselves, before leading the way as we dawn adventure from our footsteps. Linear in fashion, I pray that we are parallel to the courses the other tributes take.

"I don't think I'd taste very nice if this place were to eat me." I say in a matter of fact way. People that ate hearts were monsters through and through. Whilst we do walk the walls and floors of a flowered hell, there are no devils or demons to make it their home.

But when dust hangs in the air and the ground turns from flowers to plains, there is a shift. I can hear my heartbeat in my ear just as loud as the first cannon, but when I place a hand on my chest, it is out of rhythm and out of time. The beat rises into a gallop, before a jet black figure emerges from the horizon, slowly getting bigger, and so, slowly getting closer. Within a blink, I can see the mane flying like a cape of honour in the wind, and within a breath, it has raised itself and tried to take Hisidro down.

Berlin speaks his mind, shouting and swearing in shock and frustration. He finishes by speaking my mind, asking if Hisidro is okay, if he's alright. Zion shouts my name in alert, and I perk up, ready to take the day as it comes. The hooves seemed to have fallen short of doing damage, but danger is slick in motion and quick to respond; a snake dives at us from the grass, its teeth slicing through Berlin's finger to turn it to dinner. I stumble backwards, in trance at the deadly beauty of the snake's shining skin—but I should not lose myself in its sin.

Suddenly, everything slows down. I can hear my heartbeat again, and this time, it is my heartbeat because I can hear the chords of my heartstrings too. One second, Zion is standing strong, he's ready, he's himself, he's—there. It's hard to separate him from the body of the snake in the next second because the snake has snuck around Zion like ribs to a heart. And then, I stare only at Zion: his mouth drying in desperation, his face wincing in pain, his eyes dimming like how the stars did at sunrise just moments ago.

And then—that's it.

That's it. "No, no, no..." I shake my head in disbelief.

The snake—it's—killed him.

My head aches but my heart does more; Zion has died right before my eyes and everything was put into slow motion. It was like the world was forcing me to watch every ounce of his hurt, to feel every second of his pain. Seven is watching in the same way, and they have just seen their hopeful slip so simply into the skin of a snake, a sight that is sure to be the source of several sleepless nights for children who were rooting for their hometown hero.

But when a hero falls, an angel rises. The boom of a cannon syncopates with Zion's last heartbeat and I can feel his spirit leaving his body, leaving our world to go back to his own. He will surely watch over his siblings, just like he said he would watch over me.

An angel, but a guardian angel: a hero in life and death.

My soul becomes blurred by the tears in my eyes, and though it's hard to see, I know that the Hunger Games stop for nothing. This could happen again, as easily as it did to Zion: it could take Berlin, it could take Hisidro, and it could take me.

Frozen, I am forced to burn. I look at Zion's body and no—I can't let it happen again. I shouldn't and I won't watch the world take the people I love as if it has no care, and as if there are no consequences.

I close my eyes tightly. 

There is something in the air and I do not like it.

I breathe in; poison from the arms of the sky. I do not succumb to the venom of violence, only feel the acid in my veins so that I know what to lock out of my heart when the floodgates open.

Right now, my heart is at a standstill. It is beating as always, but it does so to a solemn beat. A silent symphony: it is a tribute to a tribute, an anthem for the fallen that isn't constructed by the genius minds of Capitol workers, but rather from the hearts and hands of the human. The people who have felt this pain countless times before: the emptiness that comes even when you are certain your heart is full.

Zion's body lies frail on the floor. Light seems to fall short of his eyes, and the spectrum that once lived within him slithers out of him as easily as life itself did. The peacefulness of his body produces a glass bottle stuffed with flowers that rolls from the scene. It lands at my feet, and I stare down to it with wide eyes. It's pretty, pretty colours and pretty petals, and it reminds me that life goes around and comes around—and even in death, there will be life.

In the glass, I see a reflection of the monster that knocked Zion down. Berlin steps in to spear the beast, and the hit is a final blow which is an all too familiar sight. There are no cannons that sound for the death of the snake, nothing but silence and awe; it was revenge for taking a friend so coldly and cruelly, and there are no graves for creatures, for things that act so heartlessly. I look at the dead creature and just stare—an eye for an eye is how we played the game, but if we keep playing like that then we will only look, and never see.

Going blind and never having to witness such blood again sounds like one of the softest consequences of this arena. To never have to feel your heartstrings being tugged and stretched so much that they will never go back to normal, to never have to watch the only connection to home you had fall and rise like a chest during a final breath; to some, it would probably be paradise to never have to witness such scenes. But I am a princess, a champion for the people who need a champion—this has been their everyday for years. I cannot turn a blind eye, I have to prove that love will make it alright.

And it will: my heart may be hardened but I can still feel the love.

Hisidro's voice is a flare, signalling safety just seconds away. I don't want to believe him, but he's right, and we can't help Zion anymore. There's nothing I or anyone could do, but before I follow behind Hisidro and flee for the plains in the distance, I bend to pick up the flowers in the bottle. I admire them, and I'm sure that Zion saw something beautiful in them, and so I will honour that beauty and do my best to keep them alive. It will be a reminder of him, of his spirit and the type of person he was. The little, symbolic things that, perhaps didn't mean much to anyone, but meant the most to him.

I take the spear from my bag and carve a 2 in the ground, the grass making it barely visible but it doesn't matter because I know it is there. For sanity and for sadness; it is the second grave in two days. Seven is watching every move I make now, and I am determined to keep their hopes alive in their hearts, by showing them that it is still very much alive in mine.

"I'm on my way," I shout to Hisidro, my voice dry, overcome with emotion. "We won't go far, Berlin, I promise." I say, watching as the stallion charges towards me with a hoof in the air. I stumble backwards to the ground, missing the force of the shoe by an inch, before crawling backwards and scurrying in the same direction as Hisidro.

Over my shoulder is Zion's body, and I so wish it was possible to give him a proper send off, just like they do to important people who have died. But the horses in these parts do not honour the dead like we know, and if I try to pull him from the devastation, Seven might have no heart to root with, and no heart to root for.

I mouth an apology from a distance. My hands pull the camera from my bag and I snap a picture of the sky in this moment. There was something in the air today and I don't know what it was, what it is, but I want to capture it.

And perhaps I will catch a glimpse of Zion in the clouds, too, and even if it is only a glimpse—I breathe out—that would be enough.