Rinley Maison // District Five // Fin

It was like the wrath of Ripred had sent a fist of fury into your barely boned rib cage. It was as though a great thunder had imploded inside of your chest. All around you there were the shards of your own being splitting at their cellular levels, but they were just background noise. From high up on that hill of sleet grey stairs, your box of wrenches and nuts suddenly became too heavy for your hands. They spilled down the stairs in a waterfall of iron and oil, but you were already past them. Your feet were plummeting against the pavement. Your arms were shoving body after body out of your way while their shouts fell upon deaf ears. You ran all the way from the power plant, because you knew. 

The moment you heard the gun shot, you knew.

Stained with sweat and burnt red from exhaustion, you barreled into the Town Square. While your body was breaking itself for a breath, you were too consumed by the flames of panic to notice. All your anxiety engulfed the world around you, bleeding it into absolute nothingness. You couldn't feel the crowd you pushed your way through with eyes as dim as the dead's. You couldn't hear their whispers of warnings, of how they were telling you turn away while you still could. You didn't stop until you saw him, the only piece of the puzzle in your mind not concealed by the trauma.

And oh, how it broke you. 

You saw the scene in scattered segments, it built second by second into the horror that it was. The smoking gun who's cry had called you from so far away. The Peacekeeper who held it as they faced away from the crowd. Him. Grayson laying in the street, his body crumpled into a ball. Grayson laying in a pool of blood, his hands pressed against his chest. You broke out of the hands trying to hold you back and ran to him. You ignored the Peacekeeper's threats and of the venomous names he called you. You took every one of his baton hits as you held your boyfriend's hands one last time. As you cried when you kissed him into sleep. 

He had been agitated the night before, something was smoldering in the way he spoke with his coworkers. He seemed more lost than usual that night at the tavern. It was like he was speaking in sentences that he wished he could turn into swords. You let him vent to the others though, just assumed he needed to clear his head. Then when the night was over you took his hand and went home. The walk was silent. There really was something eating away at him, but you couldn't reach it.

That night as you laid in bed beside him, he ran his finger along your jaw. He spoke in ways he hardly ever did, usually more timid in terms of intimacy and the relationship. He swore he saw the stars in the seas of your eyes. He gave you his ring that night, the one his Father had given him. With no lack of words he told you how he wanted you to know that no matter what he loved you with every ounce of himself. You should have known, but instead you melted into it. 

The night of his death, you learned how he had killed the factory floor director. After so many years of the viciousness  that other man ruled with, Grayson finally snapped. When the Peacekeepers came for him, he didn't back down. He spit and fought them, but in the end it didn't matter. They dragged him out to the Square and shot him, exactly where you found him. 

Its been a little over a year since then. The apartment is quiet now and often empty. You spend your days as mirror images of one another. You wake up, you put the chain with his ring on it around your neck, you go to work at the power plant, and then you go home. The folks at the tavern say they miss you when they see you in the streets and you smile softly at them. You say that maybe you'll stop by, but you never do. You never thought grief would be something that defined you so much. 

You've come to almost hate it, the looks of pity. The neighborhood loved you and Grayson. Two boys from the richer part of the district who left their families to make a living for themselves. You were both more introverted, but when together you always seemed to be so free. You've loved photography for years, and your lens especially loved to take pictures of people. Wherever you and Grayson went in the neighborhood, the sound of your shutters and his laughter was constant. It's only natural the neighbors would feel bad for you and how they have seen you change.

Now getting beyond your shell is practically impossible. These days you observe the world through your lens, quiet but there. Most of the time you take pictures of buildings now, anything other than people. You didn't open any scriptures since you left your family and the church your mother preached in until after Grayson was killed. Now you open them a lot, try to find your own meaning in them. Usually you're just left missing the laughter. 

Life has gone on though, you haven't ceased to exist. You have good days, ones you'll stop in a park on your way home from work to listen to a running fountain. You have bad days too, ones where eating a certain meal or hearing a certain song for the first time since everything somehow breaks down the barriers you've put up. You think he'd be proud of you. You're proud of yourself. You've managed alright for yourself considering. 

Sometimes when you look in the mirror, it's hard to believe how much you've changed in a year. Your raven hair is long now and you're definitely taller. Your nose is still a button and your still much too skinny, but there's some muscle blooming. Picking up more shifts at the power plant will do that to someone. You don't mind the changes though, it shows that you're still alive. You know every one around you just sees a broken boy, but you know the truth.

You were broken, but you're rebuilding yourself one piece at a time. 

Just, slowly.