my l a s t song for you }{ beatriz oneshot

I knew she'd die.

It was obvious she was going to die from day one. Not a career, the red blood which once ran through her veins stained with innocence; not bred to win. She's from district nine and we don't birth victors, we pick up the shattered pieces of hope and ponder the thoughts of what could have been.

Now, we all stand on a rotting boulevard of broken dreams. No air, no warmth: just cold. It's annual, but you're immune when it's one of them, but once it's one of your own-

-it's different. You drown, you suffocate.

Acceptance is what drives your inner belief. You tell yourself they're going to die, but still your fingers cling onto the last string of hope and stay like stone. You won't let go because you don't want to face the consequences and you tell yourself they will because you want to feel strong.

But you're nothing but paper once the inevitable does happen. Ripped and torn, thrown aside like something that's not worth a life on this world. Plain, simple hearts now blackened by the poison of false hope and dreams, lies etched into them like a glistening knife.

I join my mother's hand with my own: shaking, frail with regret. Salty tears slide down her face like a waterfall, her ivory skin turning a burning red as thy seep into her. Bitterness and disbelief drowning everything she once knew.

A hole through her mind, a space in her heart.

We become drunk on the silence. Faces pale with sorrow, colour draining as they see her blood on the ground. Injected into our stream is heartbreak: the substance flowing aimlessly around our bodies until it strikes like a predator to prey, like a stab in the back--

--like a knife to the eye.

These four walls which we used to protect ourselves from the tsunami of emotion seem to crumble so easily, as if made from fine strands of inky hair, cut perfect to the same size. Flimsy and vulnerable to any detail of movement, that's these walls. Drugged with every feeling under the ocean and sun, we stare with our pierced eyes and let it all sweep over us. And as it does, we shuffle and turn, rolled over like a new leaf.

Yet we still remain carriers of the plague of memory.

I can't bring myself to look at the screen, her body, her face. Everything I knew and loved and shared: gone in the fastest few seconds. It can't be classified as a murder, it was merely a flashing blur of a manoeuvre. An inanimate turned animate object killed her, juggling knives and swords of all sorts as it laughed at her pain. It swept over her like a tide on the shore, each moment expressed in her face as the knife dug deeper into her eye, into her mind.

That was when I knew it was over.

If I was there, I'd force that inanimate turned animate object to die. I don't know how I'd do it, but my anger and passion would find a way. My fingertips now glowing with flames, my fury would tear it to pieces. I'd light it up and stand tall as it withers away like a thirsty rose. But the Cornucopia isn't the true enemy, the ones controlling it are.

The cascading colours of my heart would dance on, marching me towards them so that I could do it. Take their precious little baby of a creation and force it down their throat, take what was once Maya's security and chop away at their bodies until there's nothing left. I'd do it, I know I would. You could throw me all the genies in children's stories and they would never be able to grant my sickly wish. 

Gamesmakers. 

My heart goes out to her and them. Wyatt, Sue, Noah. Normal people turned sickened under the sun, dealing with the senseless hate. Noah. She loved him. It was swelling in her eyes. Inches of her concealing what she felt to blend and be blank. My fist clenches. They have to win.

They have to win.

I close my eyes and feel my body throb with a hunger so deep it feels alien. I open them and they instantaneously fill with water and I'm struck with the realisation: she's gone.

Forever and always.

It'll be the little things I'll miss the most. Her smile, her touch, combing her hair and snuggling up to her in a cold winter night. Everything I took for granted. I should've wanted it whilst I still had it, warmth within her, friendship knitted together by heritage and blood.

I won't have her to be that silhouette filled with knowledge and happiness and motivation. The big sister a little sister dreams of is just gone, faded into a virtual reality which is too real to be a dream. A trail of devastation left in her place, sadness smeared over her footsteps as she moves on to whatever is next.

She'll never come home.

Time as I know it begins to slow down, everything moving in a sallow and pallid motion which is snail-paced but fast. Each and every intricate movement is melodic, prancing around me like an orchestra of brass, harsh sounds digging their way into my ears and through my head.

The rust and dust and cobwebs are blown out by the first sound of the instruments. Tables turning, chairs spinning, voices barking until finally:

black.

I fall like a king at battle who is merely a child.

In the brisk time between consciousness and unconsciousness, I swear I could see her, feel her. Do everything with her I never did before, never can do. Her complexion faded blue, her hair dry yet alive with the atmosphere. My eyes swarming with the ghost of her: her essence enthused with life but she's never looked more dead.

I wake up on the floor, bursts of shouting and the smashing of glass violates me as I rise to my feet. I stand outside, a fire roaring in front of me. People moan at it, shout at it with annoyance and irritation, but this peacefulness is a harmony like no other.

As the fire cackles like a witch brewing her next potion, I've never felt so distant. My hand extends itself towards the scene before me but it's welcomed by the deadly matter of nothingness. Blank and bleak and black and white surrounds me. No corners, just vast pasty fields of chalk and an eternal sky of no stars.

A paper heart emerges from my chest and flutters across the empty space towards the fire, forcing itself to burn in the flames as it turns from white to black, from black to ash.

I inhale and I'm standing at the foot of her gravestone, I exhale and it's all lost.

Forgotten times of love lie in shreds and I lie with them, weeping like a willow on the blazing ground.

She's gone.

Forever and always.