helena : wanderer : fin

[goat]

helena
20
female
wanderer
odair


She's gone.

You don't want to accept it, but she's gone. The sands of her life have slipped right through your fingers and there's nothing you can do about it. Except, of course, cling to her lifeless body and sob. "Don't," you choke out, clutching your fingers in her brown hair. It's caked with grease and dirt, but in that moment, you hardly care. All you care about is keeping her as close as possible. "Don't give up. Not now, not on me. Don't- don't.."

You're cut off by your own sobs. It takes a while, for you to finally let go of the body. You know you need to bury her, but that isn't something you can handle. You need to be able to see her face, to know she's still physically here, not completely gone. Not yet. The streams of tears have long stopped, replaced by streams of blood down your arms from the self inflicted chunks torn out. You couldn't help it.

Instead of burying her, you lie a single tree branch on her chest and position her arms to look like she's holding on to it. It's the best you can bring yourself to do. After placing a tentative kiss on her forehead, you stand, legs shaking and teeth chattering. It's cold. You have to keep moving.





Perched on the edge of the river, you stand with a large shard of glass clutched in your hand. It digs into your flesh, drawing beads of blood, but you don't seem to care. You study yourself in the shard. It's not often that you get to see yourself in a mirror, being as you didn't take one along. So when you found this shard lodged in the dirt, you couldn't help but pick it up and take it along. The river water helped to clean it off and now you're perfectly visible in the reflective glass.

Despite being out in the sun so often, your pink skin is paler than snow. Instead of tanning, you just burn, as seen by the various peeling sunburns on your nose and shoulders. You turn your face to the side and poke at your nose. It's wide, rounded at the tip, and slopes straight down. Your eyes are the next to be prodded- they're wide, and ice grey. Next are your lips, perfectly pouted, but pulled away reveal rotting teeth. Hygeine was hard to keep back home, and here is no exception.

Your hair is a mess. A complete rat's nest. It falls just past your shoulders in messy brunette clumps. When you sleep, sometimes you wake with chunks of hair where your head was resting. You attempt to run your free hand through it, but it catches on a knot right away. You sigh, and set the mirror shard on a nearby river rock. You'll leave it there, for the next unsuspecting person to wander across. With another sigh, you smooth down your clothing. They're nothing special, just things you brought from home. A button down, a thick pair of pants, heavy boots. It's the only outfit you've got, so youve got to be careful. It'll be hard to find clothing out here that'll fit your thin frame. There's no luxury of being picky with anything- you take what you can get.

You're too headstrong, your mother always used to tell you. Once you set your mind to something, there's no getting you off of it. Never giving up sounds like a good trait to have, but it got you into trouble. Because you're so stubborn, you always found yourself getting into arguments because people wouldn't agree with you. Speaking of agreeing with people, you have never been one to take other's sides, choosing instead to make your own path. You didn't want to believe the Capitol propaganda, or be dragged into the mess that is the Hunger Games. You decided that you would do something else, and you did.

Back home, you didn't have a lot of friends, but you were loved by those you did have. When you get close to people, you become undyingly loyal to them. Your love isn't something that's easily won, so somebody's gotta be real special for you to become so devoted to them. You become so devoted, you tend to put their needs before your own. It isn't fair to you, to be unconcerned for yourself because of somebody else, but you did it. But now that you're alone, there's nobody to keep alive, so you're forced to take care of yourself. To keep yourself alive.

You wouldn't say that you value yourself much. Of course, you act like you do. Back home, you would prance around like you were hot shit and didn't care what anybody said. You wanted people to pay attention to you, but instead, people just considered you unapproachable. Sure, there were the select few that broke through that exoskeleton of yours. Your old best friend, your boyfriend, his little sister. On a rare occasion, they made you feel valuable. But they're all gone now.

If you don't value yourself, why do you stay alive?

Something rustles in the forest. You clutch your bag close to your body and get ready to run. A figure pops out from the bushes and dashes past you, but it's not a person. It's just a rabbit. You exhale, deeply. You remember being innocent like a bunny rabbit. You remember being six, where nothing else mattered but the fun you had running around with your mother. She was youthful, childlike, at a point in time. Before the coal mines corrupted her mind. Before she thought nothing and nobody mattered. You two would have the most fun, dashing around the tiny house and pretending to be animals. You were lions, or foxes, or small house cats. Whatever animal you picked from your storybooks, that's what you'd be.

Then you remember being ten, and your mother coming home drained every night. She didn't want to play anymore. You would roll around the dusty floor and beg her to do something, but all she wanted to do was eat and sleep. She barely spoke to you, unless to criticize the way you did something. You weren't happy with that. You wanted what you wanted, and all you wanted was for your mother to be herself again. Later on, you were going on thirteen, and giving up on trying to fix your mother. You remember meeting Aaron, and he was also thirteen. He didn't really have a mother either- she was working in the coal mines as well. He really admired his little sister, who was around six. Or seven. You can't remember anymore You two would always hang out at his house and care for his sister while your parents worked themselves to death.

Fourteen, fifteen, and so on- it's all a blur, and it's a blur of Aaron. You two fell madly in love, and everybody knew. He'd managed to break through the wall you'd put up. Endless nights were spent on rooftops, counting stars, crying on shoulders. No care was given to your mother and the criticisms she had about you anymore. It was all love. He became your everything, and you became nothing.

You knew you had to leave. Eighteen was coming up and you had plenty of tessarae to get you a one way trip to the Arena. You confided in your plan to Aaron, and he swore to keep it a secret. He knew you had to go, too, but he wouldn't come with you no matter how hard you pleaded. The morning you meant to leave, waking up in Aaron's bed, he begged you for one thing- take his sister. "She's turning twelve. Please. There's nothing I can do if they reap her. She has to go with you."

Quickly, he packed a bag while you grabbed his sister. She didn't know what was going on, and you couldn't tell her until you were long past the fence. With not even a kiss goodbye, you knew that the last time you'd ever see Aaron would be him sobbing from the other side of the fence. His sister fought and cried. She wanted to go home, she wanted her brother. You hissed at her to be quiet, to keep moving. "This is to keep you safe," you told her. Finally, you had to spit out a lie. "You'll see your brother soon."

"How soon?"

"Maybe a month."

A month became two years. She toughened up, forgave your lie, learned to survive. You weren't so sure either of you would make it, but you did, and you couldn't stop smiling that you were proud of her. She'd smile back and say it was all thanks to you. In those moments, you felt like you had finally done something right.

And then she got sick.





"and now i just sit in silence."

[goat]

done!

[aya]

Accepted!