talk some sense to me. | jules meets hei-hei, day four.

It tilts its head to the side and peers at me, as if examining something strange and unusual. Like it can't quite believe that I'm alive. I can't quite believe it either. The state of myself I can only imagine based on how every part of my body aches or stings or feels disgusting, sticky with sweat and blood. Maybe it has a right to look at me with curiosity. Maybe it's just as perplexed at my still-beating heart as I.

The cry that comes out of its mouth is near deafening, and without thinking my hands fly from my dry mouth to cover my ears. The second my right hand meets my skull it shocks me with paralysing pain, forgetting all about my missing thumb underneath the glove finger. I bite down on my dry, cracked lips and wince, drawing blood with ease. Still, it helps to drown out the short but loud noise.

"Shhh!" I hiss instinctively, as if I was scolding my younger siblings. I frown in annoyance, skin prickling up with fear and and the embedded instinct that comes with navigating this arena alone. This thing hasn't attacked me yet but that won't stop other tributes hungry for death looking for me, and I have a feeling they won't show me the same mercy.

At that thought I think of Silas and his kind hands that had committed so much atrocious violence in the same hour. His words, his confessions. I make everything hard.

Maybe today won't have to be so difficult.

With the slowest movements I can muster I haul my body to a sitting position, resting my good hand on the ground to carry the weight of me. It's a bird of some sort, sitting in the middle of the river with its colourful feathers soaked. My eyes dart to its massive beak and instinctively I feel for one of the spears lying next to my legs. That thing could swallow me up in one bite, making note to keep that at the forefront of my mind.

"You're not gonna eat me, are you buddy?" I ask tentatively, my turn to tilt my head as I examine the creature. I never paid much attention to birds back home, but something in the back of my head tells me they don't eat meat. 

It sits in the river, staring at me for a while. I sit in silence and stare back, timing the rise and fall of my chest with the soft stream of the water that passes. Every inch of me wants to jump forward and stick my head into the river, gulping down enough water to satisfy the two of us - but I'm smarter than that. Sudden movements and a lack of hesitation almost killed me yesterday. I'm not about to make the same mistake twice.

"Let's make a deal" I offer, pulling my knees up to rest against my chest and trying not to think about how absurd it is to be striking up conversation with a giant rooster. "You leave me alone, I leave you alone. Okay?"

It responds, quieter this time. Now that most of the fear has drained from my body my face allows a smile, half of a laugh. "Good," I reply. "Glad we're on the same page."

Keeping my movements controlled and calm, I slide my backpack off of my shoulders. Any sudden movement could send this creature into a panic - like Noah - and it's the last thing I want when I've just let my guard down. It hurts a little less to move than it did yesterday. Much better than the day before that. I'm healing. Slowly, as my insides ache at the thought of my sister and my mind feels like I'm in a heavy daze. But I'm healing.

I'll be scarred. Though the more I think about this, digging through my back pack for medical supplies, the more I realise I can't recall seeing a single scar on a victor. Even their fake limbs look near-real. Maybe the Capitol knows a thing or two about healing more than I. Wouldn't put it passed them to have invented a cream or a balm or even a soap that washes away imperfections, erasing all the violence these games cause. Hyper-aware of the cameras watching my every move I keep my thoughts to myself, frowning with concentration as I thread a needle and tend to my wounds.

A little gasp meets the warm air as I pierce the skin on my good leg, doing my best to stitch up the now brown-and-purple gash with my weak hand. "See this?" I say to the chicken, still looking down at me curiously. "A crocodile thing gave me this. At least, I think it was a crocodile. Almost killed me. There's a few gashes on my back, I think. Took half of my thumb off too. Bastard..."

I shudder at the thought of it snapping at my feet, my hands, my neck. The way it growled and slunk toward me on the ground. How small I felt. How helpless. How much I wished for a quick death. How terrified Noah would have been...

"It's dead. I killed it. Just," I continue, motioning toward the armbands of croc skin wrapped around torn uniform sleeves. "Don't worry. I won't do that to you, though. Feathers aren't really my thing. Sidonie, however..."

Then I realise I'm laughing to myself, imagining her prancing around the house with the fluffiest winter coat on that money can buy. White and blue and red, nothing quite like it in Twelve. The idea brings me the slightest pang of joy, which turns into love, which turns into determination. I grit my teeth, pulling up on the thread stitched into my skin, and promise that when I get out of here I'll buy them all the clothes in the world. Everything, anything, it'll all be ours.

When I finish I unfurl my leg and lay it across the riverbank grass. As silly as it is talking to a giant bird, I find its company comforting. The way it stares at me with giant eyes reminds me of my sisters a little. How Sid and Noah would sit so intently, wide-eyed and desperate to learn everything I had to tell them. With Sid, it was about the shop. With Noah, it was about anything but the shop.

My heart hurts. God it hurts so much. In a good way, I think.

"You remind me of my sisters," I confess to the chicken, lying back down in the grass to look up at it and the sky. I wish there were clouds to watch, imaging them as all sorts of silly shapes and creatures like Eli and I did when we were small. My good hand finds my brow to shield my eyes from the sun gradually rising into the blue and filling the arena with heat. If not for my imagination, I'd take the shade.

"Not that they're chickens or anything. You're just a good listener."

It's a one-sided conversation, but a conversation all the same. Better conversation than with the now-dead, hand-less boy who tried to take me out. Better conversation than a version of Jamie in my head. Better conversation than Sophie, whining about bugs, or sweet yet unsure Beck stumbling over his words, or unnerving Silas-

A canon fires.

Right. How could I forget?

My throat closes up in the boom's echo, the insides of my cheeks dry and desperate to taste water. I sit up on my elbows, craning my neck from left to right for any sign of trouble. Heat batters down on my back and fills my eyes with light, the low buzz of mosquitos greeting the morning air across the way.

I follow the bird's feathers right down to where they meet the water's surface, glistening in the reflection of the river. "Hey, buddy," I try, taking out a canteen from my bag and carefully edging myself forward. "Do you mind?"

With every inch closer my eyes stay trained to the water, only darting up to assess the bird and its giant beak. Minutes pass and I come so close to the edge I can hear the lull of the stream calling me. Tempting me.

Another crank of my neck to squint up at the bird. "Alright buddy. Promise you won't kill me in the next ten seconds?"

It just blinks at me.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and plunge my head into the water. A cold rush startles my eyes open, stinging and blurred - and then I sigh, closing them once more. How good it feels to dip my face into something so icy after all of these days in the heat. I almost feel clean, bringing myself up again to gasp for air and laugh up at the chicken.

"I can see why you picked here to settle for the day. Oh my god..."

I go back in for more, filling up the canteen to wash water all over my bloodied limbs. The water turns murky with my own blood and my tended-to wounds sting - but I'm smiling as I wince. I feel refreshed, a little cleaner. A little better. A little bit more like myself again.

I'm healing, inside and out. Slowly, but I'm healing.

"Thanks buddy," I nod to the bird once I return the shore, back against the grass again. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm Jules, by the way," I greet, turning my head to prop myself up on an elbow and rest my left cheek in my palm.

"Do you have a name?"

"Bok bok? Alright. I can get around that."

I roll back into the grass and smile into the sky.

For a while I lie there, eyes closed, basking in the comforting warmth of the late-morning light. Without sight my hearing heightens, tense and waiting for the slightest sound of trouble. As I take small sips of water from my canteen my skin prickles, beads of water evaporating from my cheeks and my hair turns saturated to damp to sticky with sweat. 

A sigh into the hazy air, I open my eyes again and blink away starry blue light. For the first time since reaping morning I almost feel relaxed.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?" I ask my giant friend, avoiding an honest answer. A drumming in my heart twinges at echoes from my brain every time I think about my family. I can't stop thinking about them. How could I not? But every time I do I want to curl over and heave pineapple into the riverbed, wrecked with guilt and hurt. 

Thinking about the Monaghans means thinking about how I'm going to die. And how it won't be with them. How it won't be with Jamie. How I might have to kill someone in the process. How I might fight for my life, the only choice that's mine that I have left - and how that might make them hate me.

And then what's the point? What's the point of all of this? Of me being here? Of Noah living? Of me volunteering? Of fighting to live and living to die? Surely, surely, I should have had a say?

I hate myself for feeling it. Thinking it.

I hate myself even more for swallowing it down. For blacking them out. For refusing to come to terms with what I want for sixteen years. For putting myself last. For being forced to do so, simply because I am Juliet Monaghan - my mother's daughter.

For wanting to be my own person. For wanting my life to be mine, not hers.

Not Noah's.

"Don't answer that" I add, voice quiet and ashamed, as my fists curl into balls and shake at my side.