ships in the NIGHT {Ink}.

These wounds won't seem to heal.
This pain is just too real.
There's just too much that time cannot erase.
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They came for her at night.

I don't know if they thought it was best that way because we'd give less of a struggle, or if they just wanted to terrify us and find us at our absolute weakest. Either way, my first impression of them was not a positive one. I was lost in my sticky onyx nightmares, which was nothing new- Imi would surely awaken me from it soon. But then she didn't and dripping black creatures made of darkness and cruelty reached clawed fingers forward, rough whispers escaping their lips, and I screamed. And then I was awake and they weren't nightmares anymore- the Keepers in our room were real, and they were reaching. But not for me. Never for me, because I'm a good girl who follows the Capitol's laws.

I screamed the instant before one of their hands made contact with my sister's bony shoulders, shaking her awake. Her eyes had burst open and instantly locked with mine across the room, seeing my look of absolute horror through the heavy darkness that separated us. But little can keep me from my twin when I really want her- not darkness or fallen clothes or shouting Peacekeepers. I screamed and I cried as they held me back, trying to fight them and get away and save my twin even though I was just a little girl in wrinkled pajamas and they were trained Keepers. I struggled anyway and it's a miracle that they didn't take me with my sister. And Imi fought, too, because she's a fighter when she needs to be. And Ripred, she needed to be. She couldn't leave us. I couldn't lose another sibling. Not after Luke tore my world apart.

But they didn't care about any of that. They took her away anyway, and left me sobbing on my bed as I listened to my parents' silence (how could they just stand there and watch her be taken away to the place where people change?). They took her to the Detention Center where she would be punished for who knew what, and they didn't even tell us when she was coming back. If she was coming back. I did not try to go back to sleep. I knew that there would only be nightmares awaiting me. On a normal night, that would be okay.

But I could not face them without my twin.

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On the days when plastic smiles and false comfort in the world of glitter and popularity is not enough to satisfy the monster within me that always hungers for more, I take a walk. I feed it with all the tumbling emotions within me when their forced out sorrows aren't enough- I call them my friends, but their companionship is nothing I would ever want in situations like the one I am in now. True, I belong to the world of gossip and false smiles, but it's not reality. It is simply structured of ice and lies, and can only support people who are not weighed down by things as absolutely revolting as feelings. No, that world isn't designed to kindle a frozen heart or heal a shattered being such as myself. It's purpose is to slowly numb us, ice crackling as it sinks into our skin and slips as icy cold liquid into our bloodstream, frosting over our heart until we become so cold that we lack the ability to feel anything at all.

I'm not like them, though. I must be deficient in some way, because I actually long for warmth in the icy world of midnight. While I do not deny the fact that I am most certainly ungallant, I do like to think that perhaps there is more to me than the frozen wax figure that popularity has molded me into. Though, even if one were to rip away the mask that I have formed for myself, they would only find that anything else within me that is worth anything are based on others. It is true that I hold love deep within me, cradled in smoke in mirrors so that few may see it and even fewer may reach it. But what is it worth if it isn't even self created, but placed there by my brother's radiant smiles and my sister's five year old fingers? Is it fair of me to hold onto something that isn't even mine? And yet here I am, depending on it to push me forward and fiercely guarding it with my life despite the fact that the bright colors are fading and the warmth of it is slowly dying as time wears me down into something uniform and far too much like hundreds of other broken hearted people in Panem.

My footsteps crunch against the delicate frost that still clings to the frozen ground even in the late afternoon as the sun dips down below the horizon, outlining the constantly moving oil rigs that have turned black against a brilliant hues of orange and scarlet. The reflection of the beautiful image trembles in my irises as I watch it for a moment, caramel skin bathed in something warm that refuses to sink into me, as if I have become so cold that I repel even the slightest trace of something that could melt me into something beautiful and free. Hazel disks travel downward to stare at my ankles, hidden underneath worn cobalt jeans. I drag the same chains that my sister does now, though mine are invisible and I lost the key to them long ago. I can hope that my twin will be freed from her imprisonment soon, but the knowledge that I will still be trapped while she wanders free hangs heavy over me as I trudge onward, chasing unachievable dreams because there is nothing else for me to do in my state of total sorrow.

Imi, I need you. My eyes are wide open but I'm still trapped in this nightmare, and you have to wake me up now so it can be over. Please, Imi, wake me up. I don't know how much longer I can fight it without you.

At some point, I steer myself away from the street and into the woods, wanting to leave the meaningless faces behind and dive into something more. The bare trees hold something for me in their reaching branches; something precious is cradled in creaking brown fingers, and it comforts me somewhat. I reach out and gently press a hand against the rough bark of a nearby tree, steadying myself and cherishing a single moment of stillness while life continues and the world spins on and on and on. Something disturbs the silence, though, and my bowed head slowly lifts as the sound of laughter gradually finds me in a moment when I should be unreachable. Something sparks to life within me and mechanical movements become natural as I drift over to a clearing, watching a boy pressing his hand against his horse's head. My eyes widen at the sight of such a warm connection and Imi's face drifts into my mind. I can almost see our tiny hands reaching for each other in a time of sorrow, needing sanity and finding it within one another. But now she is gone and so far away that even if she was here, it wouldn't matter. We grew apart a long time ago.

I step into the clearing cautiously, the dying grasses crunching underneath my light step. I approach him as quietly as possible, not sure what I want from him but knowing that I might find out if I just keep moving. A few yards away from him, I pause, reach up to brush my inky locks behind an ear and forcing a smile onto my face though every inch of me screams sorrow. "Excuse me? I hope I'm not disturbing you... if you'd like me to leave, just ask. I was just wondering..." I desperately search for some sort of reason to approach him, stumbling over my words before finding something. "...what is the name of your horse?"


((OOC: I'll do the rest of the coding later, I promise.))