blue. {finnterstellar, day 6}
Dec 2, 2014 22:51:34 GMT -5
Post by Cait on Dec 2, 2014 22:51:34 GMT -5
well no one’s gonna fix it for us
no one can
‘Open it.’
Before he’d fallen asleep, those were the words he had spoken to me. A few metres away was a discarded bag with the number 6 embroidered into the fabric. Somehow as we had walked, Finn’s own parcel had become lost in the depths of the Arena, and we were too frightened to turn around and retrace the steps back to the Chasm – if we could even find it again.
Now, we sit, side by side and staring at a motionless package that he retrieves for me. His gaze burns bullet holes into my face as he waits, and although there were never any Christmases back home I feel like this is a good substitute for those wasted years of youth.
The object inside is foreign to me, and from the look of confusion that clouds Finn’s face, I assume the same goes for him.
‘What is it?’
No response.
When I look at Finn, I know why I'm met with a wall of silence.
He’s fucking asleep.
The object resembles a shell, with a lilac coat and thin string attached to the end. I pull at the string, noticing the way it resembles the rope in my bag, the rope that almost had me killed.
And when a voice comes from the shell, I’m not even surprised. Another Capitol invention to rot the mind. A simple toy meant for simple-minded children, and whilst I’ve had no innocence to preserve, the voice is a voice and perhaps I won’t feel so alone.
‘Do you like the colour lilac?’‘Yes.’
‘Will these days ever become shorter – will we ever have days that don’t feel like two weeks’ worth of waiting?’‘No.’
‘Do you think President Snow smells like yams?’‘The answer is highly likely.’
A smile spreads across my face, and a few moments of silence pass before I find my voice once more, notes of solemn nature turning the air chilly once more.
‘Will Finn leave me again?’ Will I be alone tomorrow, all alone again?
I hold my breath, but I already know the answer.‘Yes.’♢
Long after Finn’s voice had stopped replying to my own was the time of evening when my eyes began to droop at the corners and a heavy head whispered tales of slumber. The antics of the previous day had worn my body down into nothing but an unstable pile of bones that threatened to snap under the pressures of the arena, and yet it is still many decades before fatigue joins the cuts and bruises that Finn had tried to mend, the scent of petroleum that I had tried to wash away. More deaths were concretised in the sky, starlit funerals for the forgotten.
I went to a funeral with Belle once – many Summers ago – although it wasn’t a typical funeral. There were no hymns, no candles, no casket. Nobody else to see her die.
By a rock is where I take solitary stand for the night, and when laboured breaths and unsteady heartbeats are the only sounds in the silence, I drop my head between my legs as I retch, again and again and again. Blood in my throat scorches muscle tissue, and when the air turns cold and sharp and the stones in my throat fall into my stomach, all I feel in my chest is dread. My fingers graze the earth in front of me, dirt and grass finding a new home beneath chipped fingernails that paw the ground, searching for a way out. Someone told me pressing your palms into the ground connected you to the Earth, and right now I need something to anchor me down against the lack of gravity flowing through my veins – even if this layering I clutch to is simply artificial, perhaps not the ground at all.
I want to say it is Belle that fed me that knowledge, but it has been several hours since her voice ricocheted around the empty spaces of my mind. Only a few hours, and yet already the malicious hues of greyscale patterning she brought to my thoughts was lifting, being replaced with techni-coloured dreamscapes.
Only a few hours, and already the discordant notes that made up her voice were harder to recall.
I cried for a long time after that. For Crusader’s last ally, for a boy I did not know, for a lost sister. For Finn and for me and for all the other cruelties the world still had in store for us.♢
I’m not an accomplice to Winter.
The fall has been cruel and thoughtless, bringing nightmares in abundance. Not even the forms of two children were enough to bear mercy to the dark, and no matter how still we lay beside each other, as if we weren’t there at all,we’re nothing but vulnerable.
Despite the golds and browns that touched home with each Autumn, it provided no contrast to the incoming chill hanging like a snowstorm over our heads.
Now, Winter follows in its sister’s harsh footsteps, bringing inevitable interruptions to our sleeping that came in the form of the darkness stealing parts of us away from our shaking frames. The nights were already cold and the skies were already black before the primal passage of time could be felt in the stirring of every dead leaf littering the ground.
There were many Autumnal casualties this year, and I can only pray there are less within Winter. Because eventually, the days will get lighter and the trees of home will grow back fresh leaves, chlorophyll embedded within their glossy shine. It gives me hope that someday, something beautiful can grow from the nothingness sitting in my lungs. But for now, I only have Winter.
The cost of life is death, and this is the season that makes us pay.
This is the season I used to dance with Belle in, in the middle of the fields when the rest of the world had fallen asleep, encased in sheer blankets to help combat the chill of nighttime.
I miss her.
I miss dancing.
I miss the fluidity of arms that flailed with no instructions, legs tha moved with a mind of their own as tiny hands held bigger, stronger hands as I was spun again and again and again, and although there are no sounds to accompany any expressions of freedom, there is a steady pulse beneath my chest that taps out a rhythm I long to glide to.
Beside me, Finn is stirring, and there’s a rejuvenation of my heart that doesn’t stop me from sitting next to him and whispering a final wish of mine.
‘Finn, will you dance with me?’
syke no attack
[/presto]
