All Too Well (10 Minute Version) | [Cachi/Cor]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

*****

Let’s see.

I think my shin might be broken, so there’s that. A couple of ribs, too, probably. My stomachs barely holding in my vital organs. My nose and mouth are oozing a fair amount of blood, which is awesome. Oh, and a set of bruised eyes. My back's torn to hell.

Is this what survival looks like?

“Hey kids. It’s Cachi here…” I’m dragging one foot along the shore next to the river. It’s hard to pull my foot along the dirt and to keep balance with all the shit I robbed from the kid from four’s dead body, but I manage, somehow. Nothing can go to waste at this point, not anything that could at least get me back to a place where I should be.

He’s dead –

That’s two.

A kid who had a family, who wanted to kill me and laughed –

Just going back in another pine box I guess.

It’s all we have. This, one step in front of the other, until our hearts stop beating or the blood all runs out.

“You might’ve seen me get the shit kicked out of me… again…” I nod back south where I’d come from and spat out another loogie mixed with blood. “But I’m still here bitches. Just call me a cockroach because I’m a dirty piece of shit that you apparently can’t kill. Unless you step on me. Or cut off my head. Or probably put me in a trap. Ha. Ha.”

It hurts to laugh, and worse I feel a bit woozy wobbing along the riverside. But it sure feels better than being dead I bet.

“COR-DEL-YA!” I call out as loud as I could. I listened to the river eb and flow. I could hear the wind rush past and the grass around my feet shift. “You aren’t going to believe what I just went through. You missed it. AGAIN! But don’t worry, we’re gonna be okay.”

I took a breath and clutched my side.

“We’re gonna be just fine. Because we got this. Even if you could split me in six pieces at this point.” I stumble along the bank until I see a figure –

“Cor?”

My voice is low and the skin around my lips tingles, numb. Almost heavy to move when I breathe. My hands tense around the strings of my knapsack.

It's too quiet here.

“Cordelia?” There’s a lump in my throat when I say her name.

[k!ah]

I was alone.

I could feel my heart beat slowing, the muscle slowly dying as my body refused to fuel it with oxygen.

Storm had disappeared the moment I had fallen, my blood pooling around me in a puddle that was alarmingly large. I didn't need him to tell me what we both knew. I was dead. There was no coming back from this. There was no stitches that could be placed to stop the bleeding, no limbs that could be bandaged to save me.

I had been outdone by a child who had barely reached their teens. I was mortified, and as I lay with my eyes turned up to the sky, rain pelting into my skin, I was glad that I couldn't see my mothers face, because I knew what I would see, and I knew that it would hurt.

Rain- or tears, I'm not sure anymore- fill my eyes and my body shudders as it fights to hold on, doing everything within its power to make sure that my pathetic, stupid, little heart, continued to beat, push blood around to the vital organs in an attempt to give someone, anyone, a chance to save me. It didn't know that no one was coming. But I knew that. Because this was the Hunger Games and only 1 would make it home, and... And I was never going to see my home again.

I was never going to see my mum again.

The last thing I was going to see was this shithole that smelt like death and rotten fruit. This... This was not how it was supposed to end for Cordelia Bardot. I... I was supposed to die of old age, surrounded by my family and friends and my trophy husband in a king size bed with silk sheets and soooo much money.

I- I was not supposed to die alone, body discarded by some dirty fucking river, with nothing but my own thoughts and filthy hair, and broken body. I want supposed to be that girl, like the one I had seen on my screen year after year... A cry escapes my lips, snot and tears and sweat and blood covered my cheeks, and I so desperately want to wipe them clean, but I didn't have the energy. I was so fucking tired. And silently I prayed for it to be over, to just be done with-

"Cordelia?"

Cachi? He was alive. A groan escapes my lips and I try to move, begging my body to do something, anything. But it refuses, and it takes me a moment to realise that I can't feel anything. I cant feel my legs, or my fingers against the wet ground. I could barely even feel the rain falling against my skin.

"Ca-Cachi," I manage, my voice broken, fading, as quickly as I was. "Cachi, please, I... don't... want to be alone." I hated that it almost sounded like a beg, but I needed him, I needed him to take my hand, or stroke my hair and lie to me and tell me that everything was going to be alright, even though we both knew that it wouldn't.

I cough, and there is blood in my mouth. I try to smile, searching for him in the darkness, "don't worry," I breath, "nothing some sleep won't fix... right?"

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

*****

Her voice is too soft. Far away, almost. Like she’s already started off on the journey to whatever otherside there might be and just a bit of her is still hanging on here.

I dropped my bag and knelt down over her and already I’m trying to find a way to sew up whatever wounds she has or wrap her with whatever bandages I can muster. I tear through my bag as though there isn’t so much blood it’s making it hard not to slip here. It drips down out of her mouth and I can hear the wheezing of her breath, the way she’s already drowning even though it’s not in the river.

“Hey…” I catch the tickle in the back of my throat. This is the part where I’m supposed to get all that courage and strength and tell her that it’s going to be okay. Except it’s not going to be okay, is it? This woman’s sitting here bleeding out and I’m the one that’s going to see the morning sun, which seems ridiculous and entirely unfair. Cordelia could move mountains. She carried me for seven days and right now I’m pretty sure even though she was dying could punch me harder in the face than anyone I’ve ever known.

But she’s dying.

I lean over to take her hand and nod my head.

“You look like shit Cordelia.” I get the words out because they’re not serious. They’re meant to wound but only for someone who can’t take a joke. And Cordelia was good at taking things in stride – mostly because she would turn it around to make a joke out of me.

“I’m going to sit here with you.” I say.

A few minutes ago, I was so sure that I was going to be the one laying here like this. And Cordelia would come along and tell me that this was bound to happen because I’m an idiot, can’t hit for shit, and ask if she could take the armor off my dying body. And part of me is wondering why – why the universe decided to make a joke of things with me.

Can’t we be serious?

“Besides, what are you talking about? When have I ever left your side? You can’t get rid of me. I mean I know you’ve tried. But I hope you realize now even as much as I might keep getting knocked down, I’m landing right side up.” I don’t know when the tears started, but I could feel them after I spoke. I had to wipe them away with my forearm to see.