a thought is haunting me . octavia strauss

o c t a v i a .

Every smile, every pain
Every memory coming back again
Pulling down, I'm sick of holding on
No more talking, nothing to say

Octavia Strauss threw the glass across the room, watching it shatter, splattering the wall with twenty-year-old whiskey. She screamed, swiping the piles of paper and bottles on her desk. They hit the floor loudly, bottles smashing onto the carpet, liquid staining the ground as she shoved her chair against the wall. The fireplace crackled against the late night, staining her skin with a blaze of fiery colours. Her stomach rolled, loose strands of hair falling around her face. They slipped free from the tight bun that sat on her head, fragments of the cracks appearing beneath her stony exterior.

She rubbed circles over her temples, a deep ache broiling in her mind as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly. The sound of cannon fire echoed in the room, the game announcers reading the list of the dead as they were welcomed by the devil. An alliance of careers was still not enough to protect her from the wrath of her people. It did not matter how much she willed those idiotic teenagers to do better and fight for the pride of their home. She grabbed the lamp from her desk as the face of the district two boy flashed onto the screen. Her eyes blazed as she threw it at her television, watching as the screen cracked, his face frozen in front of her.

Another one was dead, killed by a drug addict from district six. Octavia spat, moving around her desk, and walking to the television. She paused for a brief moment; her dark gaze locked on those eyes. There had been nothing special about him, a mediocre training score followed by this disgraceful end to his life. She wished she could pull his name from her home, tear it apart and bury it so that she could pretend he didn’t exist. It might save her from the looks of anger and disappointment that would await her when she next visited the career training centre. This embarrassment, another in the long string of failures, was a blow, a deafening blow that shook her to her core.

“Killed,” she spat at the dead figure, “by a fucking junkie.” She shoved her fist into his face, feeling the skin beneath her knuckles split as his lost, naïve eyes finally disappeared.

Her arm dropped, a sudden feeling of exhaustion overcoming her as she sank into the carpet of her office. She stared sullenly into the flames wondering how it had come to this. How after almost five years of her reign she had only produced one victor. Time was falling before her, it had come too quickly, the years disappearing beneath her pen as she stained her hands in blood for her district; for her home. She’d believed- she’d told the people of her home that she would do better, that she’d make them proud. It should never have been this hard. This was supposed to be it. This was district two. Her conviction, her beliefs, and the foundation they were built on were crumbling.

Like every other career in this district, she’d swallowed each and every pill shoved down her throat. An eternity of brilliance rested upon their shoulders. They were the light of the Capitol, the ones with a hand in the back pocket, mere moments from being elevated to their ranks. They were trusted to be their peacekeepers, their guiding hand for justice. How long would that last if they kept showing just how weak they were? How long until they were the butt of every joke? Until they were no longer the best and shoved down and pushed into their graves like the lower districts?

A painful prickle set in behind her eyes, Octavia blinked, a bloodied hand creeping to her cheek as tears welled, slipping free. Her mouth dropped, surprise etched onto her face as she felt the wetness, wiping it away in one movement filled with disbelief.

She was crying.

Her chest ached, and she couldn’t remember the last time this had ever happened. This was a sign of weakness, the undoing of her pride and strength in a single moment. She pressed her face into her hands, pleading with her own heart to not betray her as she tried to hold back the tears.

She was standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into the depths of the roaring waves. They were waiting for her, to swallow her and remove any trace of her existence. It promised her it would not be painless. The wind whispered in her ear that if she didn’t jump, she’d be pushed. She knew it, creeping darkness behind her, the mass of anger and rage rising from the people of her district that sought revenge for every blow to their pride and loss of life.

She buried herself in her tears, they fell freely and fast, as if they had been waiting her entire life to break the drought.