.:fault lines // destiny vs. klaus

Destiny, oh Destiny. I trusted you, and I'm sorry. But that look in your eyes - you are gone. I'm afraid that I saw it as a plea for mercy. I thought it was the right thing to let you go. Only, Destiny, my dear, I was wrong. I never should have let myself swing at you the way I did. Because the pain I saw on your face as you blocked my blow more more pain than I ever could have dealt with a good, sturdy hit. And I'm sorry for that, for making the wrong choices, for this. For the fact that I'm going to keep swinging because now you are swinging back. Destiny. My friend, my ally, my sister. Like Pen, you were some kind of stability in my shattered, fallen down life. You, like the rest of us, were a warrior because you had to be, not because you wanted to. And now, like you, I am doing what I have to and not at all what I want to.

It was never supposed to be this way, Destiny. We were never supposed to have met. We should have grown up never knowing that the other one existed. Lived our lives in innocence. Grown old with somebody. The name Klaus should never have meant anything to you, just as Destiny should only mean happiness in my mind. But of course, things never seem to happen how they're supposed to. Penelope, she was supposed to go home. Fitz was supposed to die saving the girl he loved. Me, I was supposed to be the first tribute to fall, forgotten instantly. But this is not how it worked out, and suddenly we live in a world where everyone is bloodthirsty or insane or both. They all fight for the title, Destiny, and I watch them, every night wondering how much longer I have left. At first, it was seconds I wished for, then minutes and hours. Now I'm beginning to think that perhaps I can hold on days. Being alive in two days time could only mean one thing. Victory, Destiny. But that victory means that you die. For this destiny, this fate, I am sorry.

I was not afraid of you when you lost your mind. At first I thought you were like the rest of us, still clinging on and spinning out of control. About to right yourself against the odds because we are all much stronger than we thought we were. But then I looked right into your eyes, your mind, your soul. Like my sister, Marina, you were broken beyond repair. I tried anyway, because I have always been one for trying to calm troubled water, stich things back together and hold everybody close. That is why, Destiny, I am worried for my family. I can't be there to hold them together anymore, and maybe by doing what I am doing I am tearing them apart. It's a risk I have to take, because while I'm fighting and killing - yes, murder, Destiny, I too am a murderer (but you knew that, right?) - I am still sane. It makes no sense, but none of this makes sense. Not to you, not to me. Not to any of us.Sometimes, Destiny, I wonder if I am the only one in this arena still sane. And then I realise that only the insane believe entirely in their own stability and I wonder if my eyes look exactly like yours. Do you believe you are sane, Destiny, my dear?

I can end all this for you, Destiny. Just let me. Lay down your weapon and I can end the pain and the heartbreak and the suffering. I can give you what you want the most, if only you will stop fighting against my sword. Please, Destiny. It's for the best. Surely you know that you are broken, now? That whatever you still had while Pandora lived is long gone and lost. I tried to help you find it again, Destiny, I did. I promise you I did. I tried, but like so many other things I try at, I failed. So just let me do this for you. I swear I never wanted to hurt you. Right now, though, my dear, sweet Destiny, you have already been hurt and broken and splintered and lost. So lost, and so alone. A sea of mistrust and promises that never quite fell through. And that is why, my darling, I'm doing this.Not for myself, although it probably seems that way to those who watch me attempt to take down my ally. But for you. I'm not going to pretend this has always been about you. I just want to say that this has never, never been about me. Because I'm the boy who smiled when he was reaped because it meant his brother would never have to face the arena. Well, I was that boy. I'm not entirely sure if I am him anymore.

I think of all the places we have been together. A train, although I did not see you. An opening ceremony, although I did not meet you. A party, where I saw you. You danced that night, and you were beautiful. You are not beautiful anymore. I'm sorry I had to say that. But it's true. It is as though the breathtaking arena has sucked all of the beauty from inside of you to take for its own.Now, you just look like a shell. Bloodstains and splintered hope and gashes and those eyes. I have described them already as inanimate, but they are so much more less than that. Your eyes remind me of stars that have burned out. Another reason, Destiny, that it had to be this way. Maybe you will take me down before I can reach you. And in that case, I will die knowing I always, always did the best I could with what I had. Right now I have a sword in my hand and a chance to give you exactly what you want - need - if only you will accept it. "Destiny! Please, let me. Let me, and you will see Pan again. He's waiting for you." I don't know if I'm lying or not, Destiny, but I do know one thing for sure. You deserve better than this, and better is all I'm trying to give you.

Dear Destiny, I know you don't believe me, but I'm sorry.

She thinks this was my choice. She thinks it was what I wanted. Destiny believes with all of her heart that I betrayed her. It hurts almost too much to bare, but I bare it anyhow because what other choice is there? Almost. That's how it is - everything is almost too hard, almost too painful, almost more than any of us can take. But not quite because no matter how much we struggle beneath it's weight, there is no other choice. We have to accept all these almosts. We let them pile up, one beneath another, over and over. And then we break. It strikes me that every single day I have stood in this arena, I have worried about two things. I have worried about giving up, and I have worried about not giving up. Both are terrible, unforgivable, tragic. Like the way Destiny gazes at me. To say she is looking at me as though I have killed someone is far too true.

I don't hear her exact words; I am too awestruck by the enormity of their meaning. That it is our fault her love is dead; her fault. No, Destiny, no, no. Never. The way I have stayed sane is to remember however terrible the things we do are, they are not our fault. Maybe I am lying to myself, but it seems almost enough to stop me from slipping, falling, spinning. I don't want to use the word crazy, not in my mind. Because Destiny is not crazy, not really. Isn't the definition of crazy being mentally deranged? And deranged is such a harsh word. Not a word that deserves to be applied by the girl who stands before me. Only she doesn't just stand before me. She breaks before me, screaming and crying and lashing out with the axe she has used already to kill. It comforts me to know that I will not be the first. Not the first nor the last to fall beneath the weight of the monster she holds. Give a girl a weapon, and she will kill. Teach a girl to kill, and she herself becomes a weapon.

Suddenly I can hear her words. She shrieks them, however to me they sound like whispers. Like thoughts. As though I too am thinking them, beneath all the lies I tell myself. "You think you're helping me by doing this to me? Do you know that every single person I've ever loved has always left me behind? My dad abandoned my mom and I before I was even born. My mom died when I was just a kid. Pandora was killed and I didn't even get to see." I should be feeling my heart break with sorrow. My mind should be struggling with how unfair life is. I should feel sorry for everything she has lost and all she has left to lose. I'm not, though. I'm being selfish, just like I accused her of being only yesterday. While she screams, all I can think is - Destiny, what do you mean you didn't even get to see? She wanted to see Pandora die. She's wishing she had watched, and this is something I cannot stand to listen to, because watching the boy you love die is something far, for more terrible than hearing a cannon fire and seeing a face in the sky. This is a promise.

Despite my desperate pleas, which stay inside my mind because I can find no way to express them, she continues. She's not listening to me! Listen! But how can she listen if I am as silent as the sea has fallen, the breath taken from me by this girl. "I couldn't even say my last goodbye. Penelope fell before I could help her. She was dead before I noticed." (And, Destiny, you think I didn't feel the same sorrow at losing her? Haven't we been through all of this together? Wasn't Pen just as much your stability as mine?) "Fitz... who knows where he went? Just one more person I never got to say my farewells to, though." I don't know what to think, I don't know what to say. (But Destiny, what is the point of saying goodbye to anybody when you are just about to see them again?) I am sick and I am cruel and I am just as bad as those I scorn.

I remember the Klaus I used to be. Afraid, unsure, stumbling on my words and backing away from everyone. Worried of my own mortality. But death is not something to be afraid of. It is simply where you go at the end, and when the end is depends on the length of the story. Usually, the bad guys die first. I look at Destiny and I wonder if insanity is a crime. Is it so bad as I thought yesterday, when I screamed at her to get a grip, pull herself together? Perhaps it is much worse of a crime to do what I have done - change completely. Because when I speak, my words are loud and clear as the setting sun. "Destiny, darling. It's not leaving anyone behind if you are the only one left." I know this well enough, because I too am alone.

My sister gave me her imaginary friend to keep me sane. Irony, right? What's probably worse is that I accepted this offer, thinking it would console my sister. Maybe I would even utter a few words to Kofa, I thought. To keep Marina thinking that she could do something to help me. But I was wrong to vow to pretend. When I said I would let Kofa look after my mind and hold me together as she has always done for Marina, I should have told the truth. Because right now, here on the sand, I realise that only one person can be held together at a time. Maybe she is stopping me from falling apart, but at the same time my sister is somewhere out there, watching me stay just a little more sane than the others around me. While she splinters and cracks and grasps for what she has always had to hold onto. And Kofa is not there. As I look around, I can see that when the world burns, only one can stop the fire from consuming them. It should have been me. I have been selfish enough already.

Me and Destiny are so much more alike than I thought. We were born, our mothers died, our fathers slipped away into the shadows. We were brought to this place, we killed. We lost the boys we love.All of it in the name of a game. It's just the game of life, Klaus, and sometimes the dice doesn't roll the way you want it to. Whose words are these? Why can I not put a face to the slow, mechanical voice so filled with knowing? Was it my brother, my sister, the words of some author changed around in my mind? No. Suddenly I am giving myself calming words. Yet still I do not believe I am crazy, because they must have come from somewhere. No. No. Only my mind.

If I have gotten to the point of whispering to myself inside of my mind, then maybe I was wrong. You never really know that it's all over until the end. Take a story, for example. You may think it's all written out, and then there is a twist and the story continues, flying forward. Or sometimes, you can't quite believe it is the finish and it is. Often there are sequels, but a sequel tells a slightly different story. My sequel would not be about me. I have starred in enough stories for a lifetime. At the same time I feel as though I am clinging to the pages, begging somebody to slow down. As much as I want less twists and turns, I am deathly afraid of the conclusion. How fitting.

I have forgotten where I am and what I am doing. Maybe it's because it hurts less to forget that I am in the middle of a fight to death with one of my best friends. And I raise my eyes and see she is speaking and I do not want to listen to her words! Her words so far have spoken only the cold, hard truths that I never should have known. That I am selfish, that all of this is my fault, that the choices I am making are not good or fair or just but plain wrong. But I do listen, because I still love her. "No, I don't want to. Please, just let it end. Just let me give up." What? No, Destiny, never give up, never ever give up. Welcome death but do not give up. Take it in your arms and hold it close but don't give in to it. Why do I always do this? Want something, try to convince someone. And then they accept and I lose all tract of what I wanted to begin with. I wanted to survive. But not this, never this.

"Klaus, please... Just make them go away. Make them stop yelling - I don't like it when they yell." It breaks my heart that I do not wonder 'who?' for even a moment. She is talking about the voices in her head. Her own insanity. She is cracked and torn apart and she wants it over. No! Fight me, Destiny, come on. Fight. And then she does fight and she whispers silent pleas as her hatchet comes down. Make up your mind, Destiny! Choose! If you want to die, sweetheart at least let me live. But then I come to yet another realisation, the last of many today. This is the games. And this is the way it is played.

You remember the sound of running water. The smell of old books pulled from the highest shelves late at night. Your fathers soft voice reading to you, just that once. The rain outside, tapping on the window as though it wanted to come in. You didn't let it - you were selfish and you wanted the slow burning fire and the thick soup and the card games all to yourself. Still the rain managed to find it's way inside, through the cracks in the window. It's tell-tale smell filled your consciousness, and you huddled closer to your brother, feeling his warmth sink right through your skin. You smile, and so does everyone around you. You make yourself a promise - that when you look back on your childhood, this will be the night you remember. The room lit by a dim yellow glow. A story being told to you. The miracle of seeing every one of your siblings together, listening, still. You have forgotten that Lyana was just a little bit too fidgety. That right in the middle of the tale, Marina cried out for Kofa to come back inside, to get out of the rain. You push away the details that don't quite fit in to the perfection you made up your mind to hold close to you, forever. Hopper's arms were rapped around you and your camera was positioned by your side. It was only the next morning - when you awoke somehow in your own bed although you had fallen asleep in front of the fire - that you realised it hadn't been recording. And you didn't really mind because that night had been more perfect in your mind than it could ever have been captured on film. You only had to live it once to know it was more perfect than any other moment could ever be.

Goodbye. This is a losing battle - you can feel it slipping away. Destiny is just as conflicted as you are - pleading for mercy and then lashing out at you as though you are not the person giving her exactly what she wants. You don't understand. All of this is a tangled mess, knotting itself together in your mind as you struggle to pull it into something slightly more understandable. It ends up even more confusing than how it began. You have said so many times that you cannot do this anymore. But now you can't. Your legs grow weak and your head spins and you stumble down onto the sand. This has not happened since the bloodbath - all the while you thought you were growing stronger, you were wrong. All of this was not building you up but knocking you down so efficiently that you barely even realised your decline. And now it is too late. The sand feels exactly the same between your fingers as it did that very first day. There is an aching inside of you, so much more awful than all of the gashes and bruises and blood that spills from your heart. You want Hopper. Your big brother, you want him right now, here. You want him to hold you tight and make the pain go away. You want him to kiss your forehead and wipe away the blood and tell you it was all just a nightmare. To close your eyes, because it will all be better in the morning. Only Hopper is not here, and he will never hold you close again. You haven't cried in a while, but you cry again now. How stupid of you to think you could do this. Stupid and selfish and wrong. Lying on the sand, your legs having given way, tears mingling with the blood. A sob shakes your entire body, and you let it, because why not? What point is there in controlling yourself when none of this is real? How can it be real when it will all be gone in a couple more seconds, a couple more hits by Destiny's axe. In a way, this was just a dream, just a terrible, terrible nightmare. The difference is that this won't be better in the morning. "Hopper?"Your brother's name is a whisper, a strangled cry buried beneath a hiccupping sob. "Hopper! Hopper, I need you! I need you!" Suddenly you are screaming, everything blurring around you. The control you thought you had just moments before is gone, gone the moment his name passes your lips.

This isn't a matter of life or death. It is just something clawing at the inside of you, making you desperate and frenzied and crazy. You don't know who you are, just for a moment. Then you realise you are exactly what you have always been. A scared little boy sobbing into the sand, calling out for his brother. This is all you will ever be, if you do not fight. It's a wonder how everything changes - how moments ago you were fighting for Destiny, and for yourself, and now all you can think about is Hopper. About how he will never ever hold you close to him again and you will never breathe his inky smell and laugh at yourself for ever having worried about anything at all. When you are with Hopper everything is warm and safe and stable and forever. You are fighting simply to be there again. "Hopper!" A shake, a stumble to pick the weapon up from where it lies beside you. "Hopper, I'm coming. I'm coming back. Wait for me, okay?" This is not the first time you have lied to protect your family, and it will hopefully not be the last.

Penelope Libertine was dragged away by the tide. Her features marred with blood and tears, the weapon protruding her mind. They had all turned on her - she took one blow after another until she could not take it any more. Stark Harper. The name of the girl who stole her away and held her under the sea until she could not breathe anymore. The tribute who did not extinguish the fire in Penelope's eyes, but devoured it. Penelope was my sandcastle - a place to explore, filled with secrets and mystery and beauty. A strange kind of stable. Struck down by lightning just when we needed her protection the most. It wasn't her fault, none of this. When her name was called at reaping, nobody stepped up to take her place. The boy who came to protect her failed. I wonder, if he makes it home, whether he will be appreciated or resented. My desperate mind questions whether the family of Penelope will secretly wish that she had lived and he had died. Isn't that the way it always works? Only the good die young. It was a saying my father once uttered to me, after he had worked long past midnight to provide for us. I had stayed up, sitting by the window seat with my face buried in a book. That was what he had told me before he ushered me off to bed. And I hadn't believed him, because the amount of times your heart manages to beat before he stops logically has nothing to do with whether you prey every night or are sorry for the things you do wrong. It turns out I was wrong, because when you die young, you suddenly become good. You had far too much potential kindness locked away in your future. The future you would never get to live.

Penelope Libertine. Four.

Fitz Ripley was lost, in time. I think he wanted revenge, and I pretended not to notice, but after Penelope was lost, so was he. Not in the same way as poor Destiny - but he had lost his purpose in this terrible place. So he went searching for a new one, I guess. To kill the girl who drowned her potential with a blow of her spear. But why? If the arena was truly about avenging the deaths of those you care for, then we would all be spinning around in circles. He is wrong, but who can blame him? Perhaps he couldn't face us after he failed. He was here to protect her and keep her from death, and he didn't manage even that. Aren't we all failures, here? In the end, everybody loses the game, even the final victor. If you don't end up broken, you are still irredeemably responsible for the death of twenty-three other children. For Fitz, there is more to all of this than simply life and death, and that is why he walked away into the sunset and left us. I didn't cry, but I could feel everything slipping away as I watched his footsteps fade in the sand. Like imprints upon my heart, they lifted until they were so faint I could barely make them out. A memory of what once was is the only thing that still remains. A boy on a mission has, in turn, become a boy with no more reason to live than the rest of us. Who was I to think that some deserved life more than others? In truth, we all deserve the chance to see our nineteenth birthday. And then there were two.

Fitz Ripley. Three.

Isn't hope just a trick of the light? The way the sun bounces back of the tips of the waves and almost blinds you with it's beauty. Light, like love and loss, is something you cannot touch. It has the ability to make the world clear and crisp and visible. At the same time, it can fade away to darkness in a moment. Sunset is beautiful, but it is a lie. And this is when I look at the reflection of the sun and the sea and the rainbow colours oh so perfect in Destiny's eyes, I know it is time. I have said before that it is over, but I was wrong. Nothing is over until the final blow, until the last drop of blood sinks into the sand, until the tear of conclusion mingles with the sea. I used to think of myself as a warrior, fighting for what is right. Again, I was incorrect, because this is no war. It is only a war if there is something worth fighting for. I look around myself - to the ocean, glistening the colour of Marina's eyes. To the forest which once surrounded me, the steam running through it. Tall trees stretching higher than my eyes can make out. I remember when I was small, I used to sit on the bathroom floor after a shower, the door locked. Water would drip down from my hair and into my eyes, and I would stare into nothingness, wondering about reality.In ten years time, I thought, I wont remember this moment. So does that mean it isn't real? I was wrong on both accounts.

Destiny Lenstil. Two.

I used to worry about the clock ticking and the sand slipping through the hourglass. I used to lay at night wondering when my time would finally run out. Like always, I forget to worry about the things that would run out first, the things that would hurt more. Like my friends. I was more worried about losing myself than them, and yet here I am. The final member of the group I thought would stay stable long after I was gone. I am the only one left. Destiny is still breathing, but as I bring down my sword what I hope is one final time into her stomach, I meet her eyes. She is gone. She has had enough and we both know it. The ground seems to find itself flying upwards toward her and she lies there for only a moment before I am beside her, hoisting her up so she can lean against me. I wonder if it seems like forever, that moment I wait. I wonder if she can feel my heart beating and I wonder if she hopes it will stop sooner rather than later. I stroke a bloodstained strand of hair from her eyes and look right at her. "The sunset looks really pretty today, don't you think?"



"It's beautiful, Destiny." I swallow a million apologies and follow her gaze to the sunset. It is beautiful - but I hate it for drawing away the light and swallowing everything I ever loved with it. I used to be afraid of the dark, and now I am afraid of the darkness. Did you know my name means 'Victory of the People'? There is no victory in this arena. I finished Fawn off; but I slaughtered Destiny alone. Still, she looks right into my eyes and I think perhaps she forgives me. "I'd never seen the ocean before today, except for in the stories my mom used to read to me. You know I don't even know how to swim properly?" I am smiling. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but perhaps because right now, in this moment, everything makes sense. All the questions whose answers I have been grasping for are not answered - but they fall away. Nothing matters. Only Destiny and me and the ocean and the goodbyes that I never got to say to the others - but I will say to her. Don't leave me! I want to cry, but I don't. Instead, I whisper something that snaps everything back into oblivious, blind uselessness."Someone told me that if you're drowning, you learn to swim," I say. "Its not true, though. We've all been drowning for a long time now." I smile, as though the reality of all the pain is something amusing. It's all just a big, sick, terrible fucking game, after all.

Klaus Goravich. One.

How does she manage to stay so positive when everything is crumbling and falling like the walls of the castle and the threes in the forest? Is it the same way I do? Just smile, Klaus, because whatever happens, it'll get better. "I don't want to be drowning anymore, Klaus, but I think it's too late to learn how to swim. It's... it's time for me to go, now. I'm ready." Again, I was wrong. That flash of something in her eyes was no more hope than the last look Fawn shot me before she slipped away.It is a look of raw truth and she speaks the words I do not want to here. She's not ready, not at all.Seventeen years old, that is all. But I guess she is as ready as she will ever be. I've never been one for reading people, but I doubt that the poor little girl is lying to me. I think for a moment about lies; how nature lies far more than people. Why would anybody pretend when at any moment you could die? How could you chance leaving the world with untold truths and straight out lies left behind? That was why I had to do it. Stop pretending and let everybody know exactly who I am before it was too late. "Are... are you sure, Destiny? Please- you don't have to do this. You can still swim." I never could make up my mind, and now I am attempting to go back on the biggest mistake of my life. I never should have struck out at the only person I had left - but I truly believed she was lost. For that, along with many other things, I am sorry. Just not sorry enough to drag her back from the sea. She shakes her head, a movement slow and filled with pain. "No, Klaus. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. It's time for me to go see my mom again. Please... just make it end." Her mom. Again. I wish I could whisper those same words, because it would mean I had seen my mom. But as I search my memory for a hint of her, there is nothing.

I know what it is like to lose something before you even get the chance to hold it. How can I do this?Do what she asks so that the only thing I have ever done for her is killed her? After everything she has done in order to keep me here. "One wish, Destiny. Wish for something before you let go- for me." More for me than for her, because there is no way I can let her go like this. Murder is no gift.She nods her dainty head as though she understands all the conflicts that mar my thoughts in this moment. She doesn't, but that is okay. Alright Klaus, one wish. I don't know if the words fall from her lips of if I just want to hear them. I don't know anything anymore, because everything I thought I knew was so much more than wrong. "I wish that you would stop drowning, Klaus. Please." I nod, every single word gone from my mind as the breath is lost in my lungs. I can't speak, I can't think, I can't do this. A lie. I can do this, and I do. The sword comes down one final time without hesitation.As though I am somewhere near as brave as I pretend to be. In this moment, I am not pretending to be Jamarion or Hopper or Fitz or Penelope. I am pretending to be Destiny Lenstil - the bravest girl I ever knew.

"Thank you, Destiny. For teaching me to swim."
And then, there was one.