Drumming Noise//Inside My Head {Cass}

Ariadne

The rich hues of brown and green, blending into one, filled her up as the sharp scent of pine, oak and wildflowers curled her into its fragrant cocoon. Cool grass poked up around her body, accepting her imprint and the cold water was smooth in between her calm toes. On toddler legs, she might've stood and ran, laughing before leaping right into the pond, letting the water devour her. She'd open her eyes to the murky, swirling brown, taking the first shock of cold and then letting it settle into warmth, soothing tired, rough skin.

But, she was not a toddler, not as carefree, but rather a tense, young woman, barely out of her teenage years, a foolish sixteen year old who did not know a thing about people, believing it all to just be the forest.

The forest was a listener and so, she spoke to it.

And it answered back.

She leapt up when she heard the first words, heart jolting and completely missed what the first words spoke were. All she heard were the last words spoke to her.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like a tree?"

"I do not!"

It was her immediate reaction, a fiery one, sparks flying from her mouth, eyes narrowing. That's when she saw who had spoken and the sight evaporated her anger. It was an old woman. An old woman far too old to dare to be out here. Unless, she, like Ariadne, had been here all her life.

Many a times, Ariadne had imagined herself living out here all her life, gathering pine needles for beds, building a tree house and even in old age, bracing herself against arthritic pains and scaling it. She saw herself bathing in rivers, letting her hair grow long again, just to cut it all off and scattering it around the forest for birds to pick up and use for their nest. She would fling herself down into fields of dandelions and watch the clouds. She always imagined speaking to someone else, living her life out with another, cozy up in that tree house, sipping mint tea, matching the songs of birds with whistles and at night, joining the cool grass for some star gazing. Outside the Districts, stars were brighter, not just mere holes of light in the black fabric, but bright, tinkling tears, beautiful pictures. Once she even saw a shooting star, but then, her wish had been spent on a new javelin that she never got.

If she could have just one wish out of all in the world, she'd wish for Greg back, whole and free. Free from her? Or a life in silence? That, she didn't know.

Unlike Redge whom she had grudgingly accepted as a companion before discarding, Greg had been her friend and once or twice, she saw his pale face in her tree house, red eyes squeezing themselves shut in glee as he sipped his mint tea and she laughed at her own story, the one she was telling him excitedly. And he'd laugh and nod. He was a listener which was why he'd fit so well in her forest.

Of course, she never imagined he'd be a listener all his life.

Perhaps this old woman was like her, a dreamer, who lived out in the forest all her life. Perhaps she wasn't like her and she had a companion that she hadn't let go. Or maybe she was just like her and had let her companion go anyway. Ariadne eyed her suspiciously. What secrets did she hold behind the age? Some might think youth was more mischievous, more secretive, but it was easier to hide secrets behind withered skin and liver spots than smooth, unpuckered, unblemished skin.

"Are you alone?" Ariadne asked, the question hanging heavily on her mind, glancing warily at the woman's wrinkled hands, brittle in old age, at her lined skin, marked with years of experience. Or maybe she was just marked with age, a hollow mass that had learned nothing. Maybe that was where Ariadne was heading. A hollow mass of yellow skin, far too big for her bones, so that it sagged and she could pinch it and pull it, but not remove this sinful skin. And all she would have bouncing around inside of her would be guilt, searing her organs, increasing her heart rate.

And maybe she'd die this way and they'd find her alone in that tree house, clutching to nothing, no one, her sorrys still painted on her lips.

Ariadne

Ariadne remembered her first day on her own. Her guardian, Asimila, hadn’t yet left. She was preparing to go on, to find something more and it was journey that Ariadne, the girl she’d raised since she’d found her as a baby, wasn’t going to be making. And so, she needed to prepare the girl.

Having lived in the forest since she was a child, Ariadne thought this might be easy. Asimila left her in the early morning in a dew-soaked clearing and promised her they’d meet there again at night. Ariadne was bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. She could do this. She knew she could! So, when Asimila turned and left Ariadne off on her own, the girl instantly leapt into action. Finding food was easy, building a shelter was easy, finding and heating water was easy. The practical was easy. She knew the forest.

What she wasn’t prepared for was the forest. It was odd, really. She’d grown up in this forest. She’d run barefoot across this grass, she’d scaled those trees, she’d bathed in that river. Yet, she’d always had Asimila beside her to fight away the monsters with adult footsteps. Now, she was alone and the monsters came. They rustled branches and broke twigs and they were behind her, but when she turned, they were gone, quivering shadows. She could hear their rattling breath, taste their sour aura on her tongue. Her palms began to sweat, heart racing and when Asimila returned, she ran into her comforting arms. Please, please, get rid of them.

Over time, the monsters began to fade. Of course, after the Detention Center, the monsters turned into demons with clawing fingers and hot, acrid breath, sweeping across her face, but Ariadne knew the dangers of the woods far better than anyone. It was in these woods that she was captured, tied up and thrown into a hovercraft like trash. She knew the dangers and didn’t need this sassy woman telling her to be careful.

Cocking a hip to the side, Ariadne rolled her eyes at the woman. “You’re telling me to be careful?” She crossed her arms, annoyance swirling just under her skin, tensing her shoulders. “You’re, like, a hundred or something! I mean, c’mon!”

If there was one thing Ariadne hated: it was being lectured. In her sixteen years of life, Ariadne had a lot more to show than most people. Years living in the forest, fantastic adventures with Greg, capture and torture, being forced to torture Greg, befriending Redge and breaking Greg out of his bondage…and leaving him. She had more wrinkles than this woman, most definitely, but they were hidden, much deeper. A lot more painful. Deadly even if she allowed them to spread, like some kind of disease they were. She was a disease.

She eyed the other woman suspiciously, cocking her head to the side. Why was she alone? That’s what she wanted to know. How did she end up about here? Was she a forest-born like Ariadne? Asimila used to tell her that the birds had constructed her, pulling twigs off of trees, building her up from dirt, using bark to construct her face and moss for her eyes. Or had she left her District for some reason?

“Why are you in the forest? Why are you alone?” Ariadne asked, tightening her crossed arms. “And don’t ask me the same thing. I live here…and I wasn’t alone before…I have someone. Or had,” she quickly corrected herself with hardened eyes, “but I’m fine on my own!” She was trying to prove to this woman for some reason that she was a lonely, hermit of a girl. She had friends. Well, she had friends. At one point. A friend. She had a friend. Now, she didn’t.

She was a lonely, hermit of a girl.

Was this woman like her? A lonely, hermit? Or did she have friends? Did people like her? Was she forest-born? Was she made of hollow twigs? Was she just dirt inside? No lungs? No heart? No soul?

Or was that just Ariadne?

Ariadne

Ariadne had always loved to talk. When she first met Greg, she hadn't allowed him to get a word in. Asimila used to her chide her on it. On her flapping lips and vibrating throat. And Ariadne would laugh.

"There's so much to talk about," she'd say in her old foolish way, laughing her fool's laugh. She was a little girl. A stupid little girl.

However, her foolish words still rang true, ding donging in her head, reverberating across her skull and she couldn't escape them. There was so much to talk about.

"My name is Ariadne. I was left here in the forest as a baby. I was left a blanket with someone's initials on it. Asimila found me and brought me up. She's gone now and I went on a stupid adventure to find out who my parents really are. I met Greg in District Ten. He agreed to help me find my parents. Except, we ran into a little problem...his dad killed his mom. Greg is a bastard. His real father is somewhere in the Capitol, I think. So, I guess we have that in common. He doesn't know who his father is and neither do I. Along with my mom. I think for him it was more of shock, you know. He'd lived all his life thinking the wrong person was his father. Asimila told me right off the bat that she wasn't my mother. That was I abandoned and-I guess I'm getting off track.

We were captured somewhere near District Seven, I think. They took us into this hovercraft and it was dark...and scary and the cells were worse. It was the most disgusting, it was the most-it was the darkest, I mean, place in the world and even him being there couldn't make me feel any better. I felt terrible, you know. It was my fault he was here. I'd dragged him out into the wilderness. But, what happened next is what will...I guess, haunt me forever...

They interrogated us. Well, he did. This big terrible Peacekeeper and he touched me and he forced this...this knife into my hand...he said Greg had killed his mother and he hadn't! I saw the entire thing. He didn't do it, but Greg and I both knew they would never believe us. So, he handed me this knife and pushed me towards Greg. Greg was to be Avoxed...all...all because of me...and I didn't want to do it and I begged the Peacekeeper, but he made me anyway...

His blood...oh god, it was so warm on my hands and I couldn't stop crying when they forced me from the interrogation room and I thought I'd never see him again...

Of course, I found someone else. I found Redge. He wanted to find his sister. I told him to take me to the Capitol. We found Greg and he agreed to come with us. We ditched Redge-I wanted to...Anyway...I thought everything would be alright now, but just the other night, I was staring at Greg. He was asleep, you know...

He was an Avox. He'd never be able to speak again. All because of me. And here we were, again hiding out. What if we were caught again? They would surely kill him...and I couldn't do that to him...I couldn't...I messed him up...I couldn't do that. I pointed a stick to the nearest District. And I left...I couldn't do it anymore...it's time for me to only screw up myself. That's what happened."

The words could so easily come pouring from her mouth, so ready, so sure, so right, and they welled up into her throat, thick, but they stopped just short of her taut lips. She couldn't stay that. She couldn't tell the truth. It was a ghost, tightening its white fingers around her throat and her tongue was no longer there, torn out by a rusty scalpel.

It was tearing her apart. Ariadne was a dead girl, eyes scooped out, groping about blindly, so dead, so heart-wrenchingly dead, just listening for the beat of her heart, the beat of her stone cold heart, that never beat for anyone. And her stomach was churn most unpleasantly and her skin was hot and red, trying to sweat it out, clawing fingers on her skin, but this truth wasn't hidden in water or blood. It was deep within her bones and against it, Ariadne pushed and pressed, arching her back against sudden waves of pain, sending her into a hunched over position in front of this woman, as if her question had caused it. It was Ariadne's fault. She'd asked first.

"I-I," the girl stuttered out, momentarily flustered with the racing thoughts in her head. "I'm Ariadne and, and they interrogated us-and I left him and oh god, it's all my fault...his blood..." her mind was in a frenzy pouring out dismembered sentences and she was still hunched over, heart racing, now racing, beating so wildly with overwhelming images that filled her eyes, sending shuddering waves of nausea through her.

Cold, steel gray floors. Stained. Now, it was stained and so were her hands. Scarlet blood, so warm, so dangerous and it never left.

The sky was darkening and Ariadne could feel the shift in the weather, sending shivers down her spine as she cast her mossy eyes to the gray clouds rolling in over the azure blue. Soon, it would begin to rain. In thunderstorms, amid the booms, bangs and flashes of light, Ariadne never liked to be alone lest the lightning touch ground and there he be. Another shiver went down her spine and Ariadne sank back to the cool grass and pulled up the blades with her hands. The woman was right. It was just the two of them now. A selfish little girl and an old woman who was waiting for her. Waiting for her to say it. To confess her sins.

And to her own surprise, that was exactly what Ariadne did. She opened her chapped lips, revealing a swollen throat and tongue, heavy with the truth and out it spilled. She spoke with more emotion than she thought she had inside of her. She gave a small smile she told the woman how she ran into Greg and must've taken him aback with her constant talking. Her gaze met the ground when she spoke of Greg's parents, his father killing his mother and the two of them fleeing into the forest, amongst the fall leaves and the scurrying animals, falling asleep under the stars together, bathing in rivers and by this point, Ariadne's eyes were glassy. Relieving their travels through the various districts to find Ariadne's parents was even more painful, jabbing at her stomach, but then softening, for the search had been fruitless, useless and Ariadne wondered now, deep within her dark, gloomy mind, if it had been real at all or just a ploy for Greg was all she needed, for he filled her up like parents, a companion she didn't want to lose.

The absolute worst part was recounting the trip to the Detention Center. Thinking of it wasn't hard; it haunted her day and night, filling her stomach with stabbing scalpels and coating her hands in warm blood, so she was used to it. It was saying it out loud that really got her. She'd never spoken about it to anyone. Not even Redge. Now, she poisoned the air with her words, spitting out the flies and grime of the cell and spilling Greg's blood from her lips as tears dribbled from her scarred eyes.

"I was depressed for a long time...it could've only been a few days, a few hours, I'm not sure..."

Then she found Redge and selfish Ariadne, needy Ariadne found another companion to make sure she got her way. She'd always imagined telling her story of how she broke Greg out of the Capitol with her chest swollen with pride, but instead, she was hunched over, knees drawn into her tiny breasts, for the next part killed any pride she had left.

She left Greg behind.

Idiot girl, foolish girl, she left him behind, thinking he would be happier. Now, selfishly, Ariadne wished him back. For she'd given him every ounce of happiness she had buried deep within her skin, she'd given it away and now, she was empty.

Alone and empty, except for this old woman.

For a long time, Ariadne was quiet, listening to her words hum in the air, her arms still tight around herself. She couldn't release her knees, couldn't untangle herself for she didn't feel any lighter, any softer, any safer. There was still a weight in her stomach and as the dark clouds overhead rumbled warningly, Ariadne's ears rung with what she'd desperately been trying to hide from herself.

"Ariadne."