ondulations /beck+av 88th VT

There's no one else here.

Makes sense, the wind cuts to the quick here in a way that it can't back in Nine. We don't have wide open spaces like this, just buildings stacked on buildings we made to shield us from the dark and the cold. I stand with my back against the wind and hunch my shoulders slightly but it does nothing to stop my limbs from going numb.

I slip my feet out of my boots and stand in the surf. My feet sink a little bit into the sand and salt water, so damn cold, pools around my heels. I look up, all I see is grey. It's grey where the sky meets the water, grey where the water blankets the ground. There's an endlessness to it. A metaphor for eternity lies somewhere in that but I'm not a poet; I can't make it.

All those times Areto would talk about her ocean, I could never really picture it. She always spoke about it like it was alive but I never really got that. Now I sort of understand– It could swallow me whole if it wished and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Water rushes up suddenly in agreement and covers my ankles, wetting the hem of my pants. Wind pushes my hair into my eyes, my nose fills with salt and the mild scent of rotting fish. The ocean reminds me of how Areto was, wild and strong, unyielding.

But District Four feels like a shell, it doesn't feel like her at all, as if she took all the colour with her.

I can imagine her still, spear strapped to her back, her hands on her hips and that determined gaze trained on me.

I don't know what I was thinking, maybe I thought that the train would pull up and she'd be on the platform, waiting for me, curls framing her face.

But she wasn't. There was just the camera crew that'd gone on ahead to film my arrival and a couple district officials. No victors to speak of- not for the kid who killed Areto.

Hmm.

I tip my head back, letting the wind run over me. I can barely feel anything anymore, it's so cold. The wind tears at me and it hurts to keep my eyes open but there's a density in me, a stubbornness nestled down deep in the back of my throat. It's hard to breathe past it, hard to breathe past the wind.

My phone buzzes in my pocket again, I ignore it. It can't be anyone but Gloria. I was supposed to be touring the cannery this morning but I saw the ocean between the buildings from the train platform and I knew I had to go. So I started running.

And my shoulder's been feeling heavy all day, as if Areto's chin is still resting on it.

I leave my boots where they are and start moving down the beach, further from the District Centre. A footprint forms with every step, giving me away, but then the ocean washes it away for me seconds later.

Further out, waves roll up and then back down, their crests white. I wonder if the water is always this rough. The intensity makes me think of the day at the lake when the monster came out of the water and Blade died, when Waverly killed her.

Sometimes I forget that they're gone.

I stop walking.

An oyster shell, inside shining opaline sits in my path. It's been broken, the jagged edges pointed straight up. I reach down and pick it up, thumb running slowly over the broken parts. My hand is so numb that I don't notice the cut until my blood is coating the sharpest edge.

I drop the shell again.

It's my own fault.