blown fuse [Safina x Tide Day 3]

blown fuse - I

I don't know how far we've gotten from the three girls when we come to a stop. Everything felt a bit hazy and surreal. Time felt both as if it was standing still and it was moving at a lightning pace. I had just willed myself to move forward and away from the enemies and their danger, from the walls splattered with young blood, from the body of the girl from home.

How strange it was to feel the way I was feeling. I had been starting to get used to the beast growing inside of me, barring its teeth and clawing to be set fully free. While it purred I felt elated, invincible to the dangers here. I was the killer, I was the predator hunting my prey. Until the blood being shed was a fellow hunter and not the hunted. Grief had pulled the beast back into its kennel deep within me and left my fragile heart unguarded.

The tears break the dam that had been holding them back and start to cascade down my cheeks. Grief for Sera, so young and yet so driven not to give up the fight for her life. I hadn't realized just how much comfort she had been out here. That gentle reminder of home, of District Three and the people hoping I'll come back to them.

I think of them too. Of Dina, of Tevin, of Riyaad, of Sadiya. Mother. Father. Emon. All forced to watch me lose grip on myself more and more with each passing day, each swing of the blunt. I wonder if they can see the chains I'm trying to keep around that wicked beast, or if they can't see anything past its bared fangs. Do they see their sister, their daughter, when they see me? Or is all that's left the mutt that I've become?

Suddenly I'm laughing through the tears. I'm losing my goddamn mind.

I turn to look at Tide, all that's left to me in this hellish world. I can see my pain reflected back at me in his eyes, the grief and exhaustion connecting us in the battle of life and death. I remember that I'm not the only one who's lost someone in this maze. How grateful I am to Sera for bringing us together.

"Sera's gone," I say to Tide. Not to inform the boy who saw the same thing I saw. Just to say it out loud, try and let the words break through the barrier that makes it all seem so unreal. "She's gone. Fuck." I wipe my eyes. "What are we gonna do without her, Tide?"

There is no beast in the dark of the night. Tonight there is only a sad little kitten stuck in the desert, squeaking its tiny mews in hopes that someone will come and rescue it.