We've Been Broken (Chaos)

It was not even a conscious decision. All I knew is that this place held too many memories to allow me to function – they clogged my airways until I was shivering and useless and broken and ready to be destroyed (not that I could be, I had lost everything that was ever dear to me). This feeling of utter abandonment was new and entirely unwelcome; before I was able to shut down and shut out the thoughts and emotions that once crept into my mind, until I found the ability to cover my heart with a layer of stone so that they may protect those fragile contents until the end of time. But then Luna came along with her starry eyes and guarded smile, and she learned how to slip quietly in over those barriers and sit contentedly in shadow alongside my bruised form. And that was enough for me – we flourished in darkness but needed not to say a single thing because we knew, and that was enough.

Then Kaya came back into my life in a whirlwind of bright hair and even brighter smile, and though my mind screamed no, back, retreat! She’ll hurt you! I blatantly ignored their warnings and allowed myself to feel again (for the first time) in what must have been centuries. She cradled the scars willingly and made the ache go away with skilled touches and whispered words, and for once I felt whole. She was my sun and I was her moon, reflecting her brilliance in an effort to find my own. The stone fell away and I was lighter than ever before, my massive frame bounding from one place to another in an effort to find everything shiny and new that was once dull and tired.

And then she left.

At first, I understood. Her brother was sick and he needed to get better. Life and Death waits for no one, no one (and I was an cautionary tale moreso than a fine example) so I set her free, confident that she would return to me in one long moon.

Days turned to weeks. Months. (Soon, years.)

She didn’t return. I was left cradling the joke with a punchline I didn’t understand, clinging to the smell of her shampoo on my pillow and the clothes left to decay in my (our) closet.

I became bitter. Weary. Those stones carefully put themselves together and I started placing them again, ever so slowly, on the careful assumption that she would return to me like we were one big fairytale and because this was all wrong (the prince was supposed to get the princess and there would be no more pain, no more suffering. No more hate) and she had promised. I didn’t used to hold so much weight on words, but every syllable coming from her lips was like honey that would drown me and never let me go.

Lastly, there was Desma. She was so full of spark and spite and life despite it trickling away like solid matter through her fingers, determined to just live as long as she could and not let anything get in her way. We were so deliciously dysfunctional at first that it was a wonder one of us didn’t strangle the other, but we persevered. And we learned. Always.

Always.

(That I hated it when she left the lights on when nobody was home, and I was horrible at archery. I had been a misfit all my life, and I would always take the bed closest to the door. That I was a monster, somewhere deep inside that nobody was allowed to enter, and it scared my best friend so bad that she vanished. And the redheaded girl in the picture was somebody I would always hold close to me.

That she didn’t trust easily, and had an addiction to chocolate. She loved her mother with all her heart, and tried to hide the bruises that would blossom on her torso. That she loved the birds in the morning, and was never scared by anything. That she had gone through her whole life wishing that somebody would just love her, and she wanted me to be the girl to mend her heart.)

If I had one regret, it was that I didn’t give her my body soul and mind, even for those faithful months before she passed. I cradled her heart and let nobody touch it, sure, but I shied away from the fingers that would come and carress mine. She gently took the loose stones and cast them away again despite the fact that I knew she would leave me (like everybody else) and let her love me, giving her all that I could in return. In those final nights I would simply hold her close to me and let the reassuring thump of my heart lull her into fitful dreams, weaving lullabies into her brittle hair and softly singing her into an endless sleep.

But if I had to look so very very deep, I would know. I loved her. Different from the way that I loved Kaya, but I loved her, too. It would appear so nubile and content on her face when she caught glimpses of it, and that was enough to keep her warm on those frigid, aching nights.

And then she died, and I was alone with nothing but the monster to keep me company. It haunted my waking hours with a fervor I had never yet felt, worming its way into my mind until I couldn’t get it out. This place (this District) held too many bad memories, and so I ran.

I built up my walls so very high that even I could not touch the top and secured them with the firmest cement, and flew. Through the fence and into the foliage, never ever looking back into my childhood home that shaped me into the (creature) person that roamed the streets in her last months of sanity like a ghost with broken wings. For weeks I wandered aimlessly, chewing on whatever I could find and watching the distant cycles of the moon illuminate the ice that now shone brightbright in the depths of my eyes. I was cold, frigid. Lifeless. Still, so very free that it allowed me to scrub away the memories into mere feelings, becoming something entirely different that it took so long to form my own thoughts once again.

It was only recently that I began to calm from the frenzied rush of running and escaping and being. Now I look into the pool of water that reflects a stranger back at me, and wonder absently if this is who I was all along. Hair wild and eyes hard, with shiny shiny teeth and skin streaked with dirt and worry. I could see my hidden regrets dangling like a necklace along my gorge, and even as I tried to swipe them away with claw-like nails they remained, ever present. I draw back feral lips and allow my gums to gleam in the sunlight, watching my visage change for a moment into an animalistic mask. But I relax and shake myself, blinking a few times and the picture dissolves into nothingness.

A snap draws me from my musings and I flick my eyes upwards, glaring in the direction of the interruptions. Too big to be game but too crisp to be mere nature, I instinctively fall into an easy crouch and stalk quietly towards the noise. The District Nine people are the most in touch with Mother Nature, relying on her for sustinence for the longest time. I look like a child of the earth now with my tendrils in a tangled mass and skin several dusky shades darker, muscles roped and hard from weeks of constant traveling. Fingers sinking gently into the bark of a tree I climb, hissing in delight at how I feel no resistance in response to the weightlessness that surrounds me. The foliage cloaks my body in careful shadow, and I creep to the edge of the branch.

There sits a girl, midnight hair in a mess with torn clothes and thin arms. A Wanderer (like me, but the notion has yet to sink in) that has lost their spark and purpose, limbs splayed out in quiet abandon. There is something akin to a smile – but it’s all wrong, predatory and feral and unheard of – that graces my face, the old spark of grim mischief returning despite the prison that surrounds my chained emotions.

Languidly I stretch myself out like a feline in the sun, one clawed hand dangling for a moment before combing seeking fingers through her matted hair. Rough, velvety speech greets my ears, haunting from the days it has been spent locked in the confines of my throat. “Don’t give up, darling. I’m sure I can find use for you somewhere.” Visions of slave markets and bloodbloodblood runs thick through my mind and I smile again, eyes flashing something sinister but all too empty in the gentle light.

My fingers flicker helplessly in the air for a moment as her raspy voice reaches the soft shell of my ears, swallowing back the foreign burst of emotion that threatens to drawn me. I am so unused to the white-hot tendrils of anger that reaches into my mind that I have to blink the haze from my eyes, shoving back my thoughts into the little box that I had chained them to. The tones of her voice bring back so many unwanted memories, so much that they just swirl and cloy and I can't even think through this haze that crawls along my skin in a vile display of--

"Luna." I hiss, voice flat. All this newly discovered feeling aches to burst into my words but I swallow them down with sharp ends that dig into my throat; I am still bitter after being continuously left one by one but it is perhaps her betrayal that will continue to burn ever so bright after the rest of my regrets have been held in a tightly closed fist. I had thought her different with the starry eyes and reluctant trust that I had to work (ever so hard) to earn, but it seems she is as willing to break promises as she is to make them. From how far she's wandered it has brung her no ill peace of mind, and it is that that keeps the carefully sealed anger smouldering and ready to rear up into a ferocious flame. But that's not right because I've spent so long trying so very hard to extinguish everything except this concentrated ball of frozen something (I'd say hatred, but hate weighs a thousand pounds more than I am willing to carry) in my chest, so I bite my tongue and simply raise my face to the sun. "Look at that, you're shaking. Surely you can't be cold?"

There is no illusion in my mind why she left - she grew weary of struggling through my shifting consciousnesses and fled before the dawn. Perhaps rightly so, but it doesn't stop the venom from seeping into my tone because she promised not to leave. I might be a worthless liar but I am not an imbecile; promises are for the weak and I had allowed myself to lean too heavy on things people are unable to keep, breaking my foundation when it would've been able to be salvaged. In this sense Desma is the only one I cannot be (cold, apathetic, desperate) furious towards because she struggled to keep her word until the very end and who am I to fault such bravery in physical form?

I blink the traces of weariness from my feral eyes and silently slip down from the branches of the ancient oak, landing in the gently stirring leaves with a quiet crunch. Every muscle is tensed in secret distress - even her mere presence brings everything back in flashes of an old picture that was burnt but not destroyed because I'm trying so hard to leave my old life behind. (But I know I can't. I will never escape from the girl who touched my heart, the one who held it and the one who mended it all over again.) It brings back murmurings of crisp autumn nights huddled close under the boughs of a drooping tree to breathe each other's warmth in that way we just could, with no words needed because in that moment, none existed. We have inflicted and fixed too many tragedies to ever return, but I would grudgingly be lying if I swore that I didn't want those days to return.

Even with the knowledge that I cannot ever allow my heart to rely on anything resembling her light again, it is difficult to see the too-thin arms and gaunt cheeks - I allow a slight frown to knit my eyebrows together at the tangled mess of hair that probably mirrors my own. Her knife rests outside her grasping fingers and she never has it farther than her reach; I clench my jaw at how familiar her mannerisms are to me after so much heartbreak, unwilling (unable?) to forget those little things that redefined us into the singular being we became on those days.

I touch my tongue against my shinyslick teeth and cross my arms, closing myself off from the expression I don't quite want to decipher - I would smile if it wasn't so depressing at how her body positively thrums fear under the weight of a simple sentence. In the past I would have revelled at having such an impact on a (lesser being) other person, but it is our past that taints every future interaction with a longing I have no interest in wallowing in. "Seems we can never leave each other behind." Clipped, cold. I leech all traces of warmth, anger, anything and replace it with the void I have learned to cradle that shields me from the sucking wound that refuses to heal. "Strange how that works, isn't it?"

Actions

"You lost the right to ask things of me a long time ago." Nothing but weary fact, I ignore the urge to run my palm across my face in frustration. While I had not fooled myself into believing that I was over (any of this) her departure, I had severely underestimated the following riot my emotions were playing. Nothing but weeks of the monster for company had made me nearly forget they were there, and now the resulting explosion is becoming difficult to contain. I have never been a neutral being, content to wallow in my fits of intense anger because cold indifference never came naturally to me. I always have an opinion and I expect you to listen to it because that's who I am, but it seems that approach on the world doesn't work anymore. Instead I reach into the void that carefully devours what I am and inhale deeply, rolling my eyes to the sky to avoid watching her too-thin limbs and be spurred into doing something.

For all my rage that burns ever brightly, I've been different recently. Having friends has stirred something inside of me that is loathe to be contained, a strange empathy for the people I care for - that act in itself is laughable, I have failed myself by allowing people to enter - that I don't want in the slightest but still possess. If I could I'd stuff it down because it's in my very nature to sweep through like a blood-stained hurricane with nothing resembling remorse, but in the sun I cannot hide from myself. Is it possible for monsters to change? Some part of me does not wish to know the answer, content in mindless carnage and sorrow, but another raises its hopeful head in a way that I can't fathom.

A flash of something catches my eye and I glance down, noting how she seems to claw her fingers at it for a moment before dropping it like it burned the supple flesh of her digits. I raise both eyebrows and float silently to her right, peering over in the curiosity that always seems to be my downfall to what she hides. Within the folds of her clothes lies a stone as bright as the setting sun, and I unconsciously squeeze my eyes shut at the memories that wash over my head in a tidal wave of sound.

It flickers in the beams of soft light as I hand the thin chain over to her, lips twisting up in a grin of contentment when she takes it from my fingers. My body is tricking itself into things I have only felt with one person before (a flash of crimson hair invades my mind and I clench my jaw to avoid crying out) but I'm too pleased to let it stop, watching in pleasure at how the orange glow seems to reflect across the snowy expanse of her skin.

"To show that no matter how much you miss the moon, the sun misses it more." Something warm invades my chest when it's securely fastened around her neck, letting hope of something better bloom across my face with palpable hesitation. I have used and been used to the point where I am unable to trust in anything that does not take tangible form, but my gut is whispering darling, you have to feel again. you can't keep wasting away so I take a deep breath and let all my inhibitions float away, focusing on the feel of her tousled strands between my fingers and the quiet breathing of Dwyn inside the shelter.

It won't last, as all things do, but for now I allow myself a rare moment of clarity and just breathe in with a sense of deep peace.

I remain to her right but note that she doesn't swivel her head from the previous position, moonlight glinting off her sunglasses to make them glow. There is something off about her - Luna might have been meek but she was never a coward - in the way that she moves and talks, subdued and breathy and just altogether wrong that I cannot place.

"So what are you running away from?"

My eyes narrow and I bare my teeth, startled by how easy it is to hide myself in irritation, like a shroud over my strong shoulders.

"You'd know a lot about running, wouldn't you, Luna?" I snap, brows drawing together angrily and crossing my arms like a petulant child. "You never used to. But it seems like people change, hm? If I had to dig so very deep that I would simply bear the basis of what I am, my essence, I would know that she turned from me that night in the cabin where I whispered fairytales into her locks and tried to raise the guilt from her skin, as she never knew how to oil her flesh and let it slide off with few repercussions. I let her blood stain my fingers and coat my bare legs, warm sin dripping down the sides as repentance for the things we had accomplished (accomplished what, really? We had made another family believe in demons but found nothing of our own worth) and those that we had not. But I have always been so, so good at denying the important things in life as silly self-preservation and instead shake the anger that clings to my skin, letting it pool at my feet and sink back into my veins.

I don't know if I'm running away so much as towards. I have always been good solo, but I haven't felt this kind of crippling loneliness in a long time. Not even since Mama left (all I remember now is the scent of her perfume, the click of her heels and bright yellow eyes) with a suitcase and sad words to never come back. It weakens my resolve and allows others to slip in through the cracks - how I was always reaching for something I couldn't grasp on those morphling nights while I drew dragons of smoke.

For even an extention of this razorblade contact, I'd gladly whisper the things that I'd always wanted to say but never let myself (you hurt me, I can't trust you, why do you make me feel like this?) because they have always prided me on being strong and there and together, not some little girl who aches at the slightest mention of heartbreak. Instead, I circle slowly around the tree with my hands clapsed behind my back and allow the distant whispers the trees murmur to fill my ears, swirling quietly in the hollow of my chest and replacing what should have been a heart filled to bursting. Sometimes I wonder if I was supposed to come out differently, all shiny and new with careful eyes and a gentle smile. That perhaps the person in the mirror would allow herself to feel anything other than disgust at a world that cares not for anybody but themselves - a girl who still believes in good people and white knights.

But, as I watch Luna's gaze remain riveted to the spot where I have long vacated, I get the nagging suspicion that I lost my faith in fairytales much too long ago.

Actions

I move so fast it's a wonder she doesn't attempt to smack me, dropping into a crouch so quickly my joints murmur protest. There is anger, yes, but underneath it is the never-ending urge for her to simply understand because no matter what she believes she is Luna and will always be Luna, and maybe there's still some part of her that recognizes that. My hands splay against the trunk on either side of her head, catching strands of spun onyx, and the nails sink so deep that I hear gentle cracking - of bark or bone, I don't know. "Complications are a part of life, Luna. You of all people should know this." I hiss, not unkindly, furrowing my brows and tensing muscles in time to the eerie silence that has descended upon the forests, waiting with bated breath for a movement to end the moments we have not yet begin to reclaim.

This shell is not the girl I know, all lost and listless with wrong words and slurred speech. I'd have been slapped for speaking to her like this last I saw of her, but now she simply gazes off into the distance while I snarl incoprehensible anger as if she believes that she deserves it. Complacency is no longer the new black and I long so deeply to draw it out of her chest tied to my fingers like strings, strands of sickness within her core to spur something besides this quiet inaction. I am made to move, to breathe, and her stillness has begun to fray my already tattered nerves.

"She left." It comes forth from parted lips without a sliver of hesitation and I have to look away momentarily, swallowing heavily past the hard lump in my gorge that has risen and constricts my breathing. I used to tell her everything at once and my whole being is aching to do that again, just to spill secret seeds and let her nurture them into fragile, blooming things. I am so close that she can undoubtedly feel my breath against her face, but my mind refuses to let me say the words aloud - perhaps the air will take them away and carry them so far away to her so she can feel the weight of my heartbreak, and for everything I've done I have never wished to cause her pain (I would sooner die, I know nothing else). "She said she'd come back, but she didn't. She left me and she isn't coming back." The ghosts refuse to be silenced and come forth at once, struggling to be heard, escaping from the dungeon in my chest from where I had chained them.

"And all Desma wanted was for me to love her and now she's dead. She's dead but she didn't want to leave me and I held her while she died. I felt her slip away and I couldn't do anything, just like I couldn't stop you leaving or Kaya leaving." Despite my intentions the syllables are slurring together in a muddled hiss that colours my words with the agony I feel all over again, seeing the letter in my hands with her neat scrawl covering the page and blank, unseeing eyes reflecting back at me with brittle hair and feeble fingers still clasped in mine.

I remember sinking to the floor and staring at the meaningless apologies written so perfectly side by side, unknowing that in a few weeks I'd be mirroring the pose, legs touching and back arched, howling into an empty house even as I cradled a limp body so close to my chest like the finest china that I never wanted to part with. I love you is the greatest joy and heaviest responsibility, and it didn't feel adequate yet perhaps strikingly so that they were the last words I spoke to both before they left my side forever, sending a piece of me along with them, cradled in the palm of their hands so they might safeguard it until we could have the pleasure of meeting once again. My regrets will forever replace the spaces until memories can once again be made, and I take comfort in the fact that Desma might be waiting for me though Kaya has long since left. "So don't you dare believe that I ran to escape my responsibilities. You know me better than that."

I study her intently for a few moments, taking in the curve of her jaw and the pale of her skin. Her head is still tilted wrong and following on instinct (because since when do I ever do anything else?) nails detach from the thick bark with a quiet groan and lithe fingers clasp around the edge of her bulky sunglasses, yanking with a swift jerk and exposing her eyes to the gentle night air.

Actions

I don't give into her pleas, morbidly curious even though the sinking in my gut tells me to run and never look back. I take the bad in Luna's voice just as I take all the good, just everything, because I have never once let her feel like she would be unable to do so. There is something inherently wrong in the way she moves; mechanical, cautious - like I was to hold a knife to her throat any second now. Perching the glasses atop my head, I let go of the tree and sink down to my knees and guide my hands as seperate beings to circle the thin bones of her wrists. "Luna, let me see you." I say softly, thumbs reaching out to trace along the pallor of her sunken flesh. A tear tracks its way down her cheek but I leave it as is, not wanting to bring any more grief upon her. Once upon a time she trusted me, and even though she tries to forget, I never will. And that will be enough.

It's like those nights where she attempted to braid the stars into my hair for nothing more than the vague notion that she could and that was always the basis of us as people; we did things because we knew that it would never break us. I would start to wonder where along the line did we lose the capacity to judge the strength of blows against the threads of time, but it hurts to think that life has gotten to us to the point where it cracked something once incapable of bending.

Wind whistles mournfully through the branches and I have an echo of drowning ricochetting through my skin, clogging my nose and dragging me down. My shoulders slump heavily against the weight and I almost have to bring a hand to wipe away the moisture I feel ghosting across my flesh, cold in the bitter night that starts to creep upon us. Out in the open we are exposed, fragile. She is thin and dirty and looks like she hasn't slept properly in ages - even if I have to knock her out myself, I'll ensure that she has a meal and good hours to eliminate the dark circles that appear starkly under her closed eyes. I shrug the backpack that straps across my back and tug gently on her hand that shields herself from me, subconsciously nudging my foot to shove away the knife that lays just out of reach. When provoked, it's obscene what people can do to protect themselves from - what? Exposure? Pity? Part of me doesn't wish to know but a greater half aches to understand.

One palm goes and touches her cheekbone, thumb worming its way across until it smoothes gently across her eyebrow while the other fingers curl carefully against the shell of her ear. Just her stance is cause for alarm - awkward and strung taut like a bow ready to snap. I ignore things like personal space and issues because there is her and there is me and there is something that hangs heavy like a chasm between us. Perhaps I am always the one to reach across and mend the divide but it is simply how we work; she is too self-destructive to want my trust and my pride will always be pushed away for the sake of our relationship that is stronger than she always believes it to be. She has seen me once at my most raw and did not push me away (you lie to yourself, child. It is why she left.) and for that I will forever remain by her side whether she wishes it or not.

"What happened?" I murmur when the pieces start to fall into place with the glasses and the vacant gaze and the wrong angles and just everything that isn't right about her. She is like home to me and I simply can't leave her like this; the world doesn't deserve her at her weakest because they haven't dealt with her at her best. I am (so, so close) inside now, carefully swiping my thumb lower to pry her lids open with the forceful tact that radiates a slow burn inside my chest. When I move the origami crane bumps against my ribs in time to the stutter of my heartbeat, steady and demanding and so very loud. I know her, know that her senses are screeching and crying to keep me away and distant where I can't crumble her carefully made defenses. But months spent with a ticking clock and drying bones have shown me that they only last so long before they come toppling down on top of you. It's what spurrs my body to breathe a murmured trust me as the pads of my fingertips find purchase on her eyelid and lifts.

"We've already shared apologies, Luna. I've forgiven you. But have you done the same?" I keep talking to her through my examination, widening her eye with my fingers and watching the way it rolls blindly in her socket. I know all too well the feeling of focusing without really seeing - the eye that sits in the right side of my face has long clouded over and left me in eternal twilight - and it reflects in the way they cloud, dull and distant. My hand waves over her face and instinct is to follow the movement but there is no recognition, nothing. Just fading stars and milky quiet that seem to bring out the ghostly colour of her skin. Without consent my brows draw together in a frown as it becomes more and more apparant what has transpired in the weeks (months) that we have been absent of each other.

Blind.

It must have happened recently. The forest is a treacherous place, and there is no way Luna would have survived the countless days without her precious sight to guide her. She looks like a skeleton child; like she'd curl into herself and disappear, like she'd bend in two and snap under my palms. My fingers dance along her too-sharp cheekbones and dip under her too-steep jaw. They tell a different story than months ago, when drunk on power and something else (misery and loneliness and the urge to feel) my nails mapped out the stars in her skin until they were emprinted into my palms. No longer do they align with each other - the weeks of malnutrition has hollowed her cheeks and surfaced her bones. My hands twitch over the protruding mass of her collarbone and curl down to her elbows before ghosting over the bones of her fingers that dig into the soft earth. I watch her intently as I have always, reading the emotions that splay across her skin as her eyes have been rendered mute to the echoes within her skull.

Even as her face contorts with various emotions that wheel so fast even she can't place them, my palms land on the tops of her knees. Fingers dig into the muscle surrounding them, hesitating for only a second as I string together a loose plan formed of half-truths and secondary thoughts. Shuffling so I rest closer to her in a crouch, I skim my touch to her hips and splay my hands wide. Giving her no chance to fight, my muscles strain as I lift her off the ground with a muffled grunt and heave her into my lap. Balancing on the balls of my feet it takes everything in me not to over-balance, but after a moment of panic I right myself once more. When her hips finish settling to mine, it takes a surge of powerful legs to right myself again. I give her the knife that she has dropped (no guarantees that she won't slit my throat right that moment, but I take chances for a living) and adjust my grip on the backs of her thighs. "You're too stubborn for your own good. And you'll hold on if you have any sense of self-preservation." Blinking back the sunlight streaming into my eyes, my feet carry me - where? It's unknown. Just away from here.

I walk through rough terrain for what seems like a lifetime, but I am both grateful and concerned at once for how she seems as light as air. Her hair tickles my neck but the feeling gives me comfort, something familiar in a world that refuses to stay still. Sun begins to wane and the air chills over my skin, a cool blanket which brings respite from sweltering summer days. Wind whispers primordial songs and I shiver when grasping fingers rake across my covered sides as the trees beg for our tales. We have one complicated by guilt and doubt, spun into a tangled web we have woven of our own consent. She is warm in my arms and I find myself leaning further into the unbidden touch, wondering how long its been since I have felt the skin of another.

"Too long, child. The last time was when you held Desma as she died." As if agreeing my chest pangs where the origami crane rests carefully against my breastbone, swinging with the crescent moon pendant I keep with me always. There is a flash of brittle brown hair and expressive eyes that lurks in the hollow of my skull, but all too quickly it is gone. I blink away the burning that feels suspiciously like tears and shift Luna against my frame, realizing that we've reached a small clearing with a drooping willow tree. My feet carry me there now that my muscles begin to sing exhaustion, gently placing her down under the protective vines that form a circle safe from harm. "You can argue all you like, but you're not leaving any time soon. Just accept it and sleep."

She speaks in half-truths but I have learned to bend myself to her rigidity, moving when she does not. I see the way her hands tremble when she eats whatever it is she wants to hide from me, or now her body seems to sag from relief after ingesting the crumbling substance. My eyes narrow in recognition - I've tasted every vice there is to offer and still feel the pang of want at times, it haunts me almost as much as my own psyche - but I say little, bringing my long knees up to my chest and looping thin arms around them. It disgusts me how much muscle definition I've lost, replaced by bones and an underlying weariness. It wasn't until I slept out in the damp wet of summer showers that my joints started to throb, sheltered as I was from the vicious winters that bit into District Nine. I've never been a hunter, and I self-consciously adjust the bow slung across my back and how it has begun to fray into the simple black shirt now torn with use. "I try not to sleep if I can help it," I mumble, finding it difficult to look at her though she can't even see my face twist with the bitter taste of tainted truth. She's known for as long as she's known me that there is something wrong with my mind, something dark and perverse. A brush of fetid air by my ear and I twitch away, forcing myself to keep my gaze ahead and not to where I know I'll catch a glimpse of gray, rotting flesh.

"You never know when the Keepers could be around." A blatant lie, but we're so out of sync that she won't know the difference. My fingers grapple with the flask at my hip and I nudge it into her hands, noting the downturn of her mouth as the substance travels down her throat. Rivers are abundant if you know where to look - I might be a thief first but you can't live in a district for twenty years without picking a few things up. My face sours at the remembrance that I'm no longer a teenager, that responsibility is on the horizon. (That horizon is still many moons away, but it looms closer the faster I try to run.)

The back of my hand shoots up to stifle a yawn even as they raise heavily to wipe the grit from my eyes. Sleep is a distant dream I would simply hope to achieve one day, akin to becoming mayor or finding a new, better person to be. From the weeks I've spent running from one place to another I've been able to test my limits, to fight off exhaustion until it swallows me whole in a great blanket of darkness. Loping aimlessly with a mindset more than mildly fractured gave me no room to think and observe these past weeks, but seemed to have opened a barrier from my thoughts and my dreams. Strange, twisting things with shadows around every corner, clawing at my arms and threading through my hair to drag me down. I'd awake drenched in sweat but never knowing what visited me in my sleep, nothing but vague echoes of screams from days long passed and a cold fear that entrenched its claws deep in my gut but refused to let go. I'd sprint until I managed to shake it off and felt an hour or two of unbridled freedom, but then my muscles would give out and the cycle would repeat with vicious abandon. But I grow weary of living like an animal, chest panging with something I'd not care to decipher.

(Loneliness. But never fear, I'll always be with you.)

Above us the willow whispers softly and I find myself leaning into its drooping branches, feeling the cool, damp leaves brush the lingering heat from my skin. It mumbles in words we can't understand but sound comforting regardless. Together, right. A mother's love that I never got to know.

But the darkness is my mother now, cradling me within its womb even as I strive for an unknown destination. There were undercurrents of something in District Nine, reaching out from the sordid corners of One to grace our ears. It sung of understated violence and slinking away from the light, dealings in things that should never be surfaced. My whole life revolved around the obscene and the unloved, doing whatever the underlords asked for coin and food. Perhaps I'm too young to properly understand what it is that the rising gangs in the advanced district require but a purpose is what I need. Something to align me once more to my wants and fears in an effort to banish the red-headed ghost that lingers always in the back of my brain, taunting me with memories that I wouldn't erase even if I could. "We're not far off from Six now," I reflect, but this time can't stop the yawn that halts me mid-sentence. "we can stop there for a while if you want. It looks like you need to patch up and really, so do I." Wind licks at my jaw and I follow its invisible hands, slowly lowering myself down on the soft grass that yields to my insistent weight.

"Luna, I swear that if you aren't here in the morning," My toes point as I stretch to my full height for a moment before relaxing into a loose ball, eyes already falling shut despite my struggles to keep them pinned on her. "I will hunt you down and carry you the rest of the way with me. I'm not letting you go again." And with that, blackness washes over me with almost a startling intensity.