the knight's cry | {shelby/erastus}

Post by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] on Jul 11, 2017 23:51:41 GMT -5

E R A S T U S .

Night time, day time, night time, day time.

Graveyard girl has added many corpses to the mix.

Day time, night time, day time, night time.

She looks worse by the day.

My fist against the door: knock, knock, knock. She tells me her secrets and she tells me her thoughts and I know what has broken her, I know what is killing her, but what I don't know is how to make it better. Roses in my hand on the way over: stupid idea. Chocolates? She said she hasn't been eating well, so: stupid. Hug?

She hardly seems the type, but I've decided that maybe all she needs is a friend and that is me. I am a friend. I am her friend. She is my only friend, and I don't know why she has stuck with me but she has. Even through all of this, broken hearts and chipped fingernail polish and vodka breath and fucking swarms of insects and elephants on stilts and drugs ruining tea parties and murder and isolation--

She is still here.

Barely.

"I'm so sorry, and I know it doesn't mean anything," I had told her, and it was true. My apology was not needed. I didn't put her in the games. I didn't wipe blood on her hands; she was forced to do it herself. But I am sorry. Because she deserved so much better.

I am not sorry out of guilt.

I am sorry out of loss, because she is dead and gone in a way. Loss? Ha! I barely knew her before. Girl in a graveyard. Pretty girl. Eyes on fire and a heart burning in her chest. Sometimes, when I hug her goodbye, I try to see if she even still has a pulse, poor thing, or if parts of her just haven't realized she has given up yet.

Knock, knock, knock, I try again. Come on, Shelby. Open the door, open the door, open the door.

I should have kept the stupid roses. At least they looked nice.

No answer.

I open the door anyway, close it behind me.

"Shelby?" I call. No answer. Oh God. Oh God. Please don't let me find her if she's-- Please don't be dead, Shelby. Please.

Up the stairs I go. Room one: empty. Room two: empty. Room three: empty, I gave her those curtains when she moved in.

Room four: please don't be dead, Shelby. Please, please, please.

You're all I've got.

Open the door, pansy. Just do it.

It makes a creaking sound, silent hallways hissing the echoes back at me. Please, please, please.

Room four: "Shelby, holy hell!" I say, stepping inside.

Alive. Alive. She is alive. Relief fills my chest. She is alive.

"I was knocking on the door for ten minutes, at least. Did you not hear?"

I sit on a couch oh my goodness this thing is soft. I wonder how much it must have cost. Wait, didn't I help her pick this out? Nope, it was the one downstairs. My hand is on her back. She's so frail to have broken so many people. But then, shatter the glass and you'll be the one getting cut, right? My hand moves up, down, up, down, carefully. I'm trying not to poke her with my fingernail or something.

I wish my hands were softer right now, damn.

"Are you okay? I was thinking we could stay up late and night swim again." The best thing about the Victor's Village is the lake on the far side, easy. Well, and the houses. And there is also a cute park too. But the lake is pretty cool. Level waters, well-kept. I think I saw a fish in it the other day so hopefully I don't get eaten but anyway this lake is literally never used for anything because Shelby is the only victor.

That is why I first started coming around her. I was sitting there talking to Andromeda and she said something about a boy I think? I don't remember. Wait, no! She said her friend's Dad had disappeared and how sad it must have been for her friend's mom to be so lonely. And I thought: Oh, well, Shelby is the only person who lives in her entire side of the town, and she is there by force, so.

Up, down, up, down.

Day, night, day, night.

"Or we could just stay inside?"