sovereign [newt/enzo] {T/W}

[kousei ♚]

n e w t

At fifteen I allowed the fumes of the first cancer stick to take refuge in my lungs. Tobacco, lighter and all -- the sense of regret that came with quite literally letting my body decay to the man-made elements didn't come until the hours that followed when I realized I had to go home to my father with evidence of my transgression on my breath. It wasn't the act of hindering my worth of a career or accelerating the time ticking down to my death, it was the fact he might catch me and slap me silly back and forth.

I've been dying since I was fifteen and I never cared.

To this day I tell myself it was the sense of control that followed every inhale and the relief that followed every exhale. Perfect career boy with the perfect body and the perfect set of lung; perfect in any sense but his mind and his heart. It felt good to destroy the ironic fantasy my father had built of me, it felt good to hold my potential in my hands waste away. Not due to a natural process that I could not control, but to man-made destruction I had willingly brought upon myself. I would be the judge, jury and executioner of my own self-worth.

It hadn't gone to plan, the stress reliever couldn't shield me from the disappointed shake of my father's head or the taunting smile of the girl I shared a womb with. The girl who hated me simply for existing.

Age fifteen and little acts of rebellion -smoking, drinking and drug taking- quickly became habitual behavior. It wasn't the fact that I was relieving the stress of being useless but it was my escape from this world of black and white that my father imposed upon me. Nevah was his shade of darkness, perfect career girl who would dance in accordance to her strings, who embodies the viciousness he could never pass on to me. I could be nothing more than the shade of grey, my existence and unintended consequence of his way of viewing the world. Age fifteen and I made unintended suicide a place in my habitual behavior -- why it felt right I do not know.

The name Newt Krearns was never supposed to be synonymous with rationale I suppose.

Two years and one lost eye later and I've spent my last coin so I can smoke my last cigarette and have a final drink.

It took two years, one eye, one lost girl and a moment of reflection followed by breaking point for me to take notice of the scars on my skin and to decide it was simply better that way because they belonged. Unintended suicide -- age fifteen I never thought I would see it turn into something that felt so right. I leave a half emptied bottle half buried in the sand and clutch the burning cigarette between my thumb and index finger. The disappointed tone of my father's voice still reverberating within the corners my mind -- "Newt, can't you do anything right?"

It's so dark following the sunset.

Pressing the end of the cigarette to my lips, I inhale deeply and exhale softly. Control, it's so fleeting but so necessary to the functioning of our everyday lives that we refuse to dedicate to anyone but ourselves. There's never a diagnosis for sensation of our lives quickly spiraling down the drain and soaking the sand like the blood of those who tried and failed, the Krearns who became nothing more but statistics.

My father swore I'd never be a footnote in a better tribute's victory. "So why do you feel such sympathy for the weak?" It was a question I never dared to answer, even to this day I'd rather feel the scars along my skin form with every breath of smoke I take. "I'm going to die." I say to myself softly, quickly halting the sensation of control sending everything spiraling sideways with another deep breath of smoke.

I continue to follow the call of Poseidon's kingdom, struggling through the stones in my pockets that weigh me to the sand. When I close my eyes I swear, I can still feel the fantasies that could never have been. Waking up to the tickling of my mother's hair against my chin as she kisses my forehead, the approving smile and nod of a father who never thought I was good enough, the laugh of a sister who despises my for existing. I bring an unsteady hand to my chest, a heartbeat I've forgotten the value of racing.

My father made sure to remind me that I never had the impact required to leave my impression on people and I took his word for it. I made sure never to scatter pieces of myself around the district, that way I would never take root and grow into something good, grow into something worth his while.

Uselessly burned out to a stump, I spit the cigarette into the ocean before stumbling over to the first rowing boat I can find. A watery grave, it plays in the back of my mind whether father would've preferred me to have a games number or drowned at sea on my gravestone, the thought of his son dying in either of those ways would have driven him over the edge. Age five when he taught me how to swim -- "we'll never die at sea." At yet I almost broke that creed once when I found myself caught in the wrath of the tsunami and now I will break it for real. I decide I do not care what my gravestone reads, I would rather it remained a blank state; my worth summed up onto a gravestone.

Fumbling with my hands, I barely manage to untie the boat from its anchor and another wave of grunts and groans follows as I barely manage to push the boat out from the coast. I roll in without hesitation and I just row and row and row. Granted, I don't go out far; just enough that the water would be deep enough but not so far I can no longer see dry land.

My land.

I stand up on trembling legs, holding my arms out wide for balance like I'm out to embrace the stars.

(weakworthlessuseless)

I am left with only an imprint of what could have been, a fantasy of my mother's hair, my father's approval and the smile of the sister who despises me. "I saw the sunrise, one last time. For us." I whisper, hand held to my heart to feel a racing beat that I lost the value of somewhere within the process of drowning.

I breathe, I step and I fall

down.

I do not see the water rushing up to meet me, nor do I hear the splash that follows but the trepidation at the feeling of the wind being knocked from my lungs and my breath being snatched right before me is palpable. It's dark and it's cold -- I'm going to die.

("Newt, you are strong, remember that.")

Strength was lost somewhere between the beginning of unintended suicide and the concept of a blank gravestone.

WC: 1189

[Tom]

ENZO KREARNS

There's a wave of relief that flows through his skin as he can barely see the sun beginning it's dive through the window of the diner.

It's almost time for his shift to end, so he can go hang out with Everett and Nemo at home. Apparently, Nemo had gotten some sort of cake from the baker's wife for taking care of her kids for their anniversary and Enzo just couldn't wait for a simple pleasantry known as sweets. Everett had also go some more booze for them through some guy at work who told his brother to have it because Everett needed it more than anyone else did. Enzo can see the sun beginning to go down and his body feels like it's aching. There's been so much change in the world since the tsunami had hit.

District Four tributes seem to have grown exponentially during the 75th and now they shrunk down again back to normal. He hadn't known any of them except for the ones who were heard of in the training center, but he would ignore it. A Krearns hasn't been in since Someith, which was for the better. Enzo may be a career, but he wasn't going to lie. There's a fear deep down in his chest hat if a Krearns were reaped, he'd feel at fault if they died. The table he has cleaning seemed to sparkle as he finished up cleaning the place, the owner smiles and hands him a few bills. Only a few words come from the owner's lips as Enzo makes his way to leave.

"I think I saw one of your cousins walking past, Enzo."

He almost says which one, but there weren't many that people knew. Gnoith wasn't likely the one. Crayola was probably too busy training for it to be her. Nevah wouldn't be all the way out here, unless there was something important, so that only left Newt. As the door clangs shut, he dares to go home and not think about it one bit. A mess of a cousin is what Newt was, but he had seen their father. A maniac of a man is what his uncle was. Hell bent on making Nevah, Newt and their little brother, the greatest careers that district four would ever see. It was a load of crap, especially since Enzo was better than both Nevah and Newt. Feet decide to take him in the direction Newt had gone.

There's fractures in his heart when his mind goes back to the past. Parents who had always been so perfect to them. They weren't the worst ones like Nevah and Newt had. Enzo's mother and father had taken gentle care of him. He can still remember the last words that both of them had said to him. "Don't lose your brother again." The words of his mother always reminding him to never lose sight of his brother. There were more important things than being a career in the world. Family was the one thing that she told him to always look out for. That's why they all were working hard to keep each other alive.

There's a wave of worry that washes over him as he pulls out a cigarette that he had taken from some career at the training center that morning. Lighting up the cigarette, the smoke takes to his lungs. There's a slow haze of grey that comes from his throat as he makes it to the beach. He takes another long drag as he can see the sun setting behind the skyline barely. The orange glow gives shape to the memory of visiting Nevah and Newt and the harsh words that he had used on Newt. They were family and no one could change that.

Everything seemed fine when he last saw them.

How he wished that he was right.

A loud rush of water hits his ears as he can see Newt getting in the water. Pockets heavy with stone, there's a catch in his throat as he can remember the sea when it had taken a younger Everett away for a moment. Sandcastles be damned as his brother was out in the ocean. Drowning, until his parents had come and saved his four year old brother. This wasn't an accident though. This wasn't meant to be something for Enzo's eyes. It was supposed to be an incident of sorrow that would haunt him. He wishes for the day when his parents used to save them from the ocean's water. They were gone now and all there stood was him.

There's a rush of urgency as he throws himself into the water. Cigarette be damned, he wasn't going to lose anymore family. Jay would have screamed at Enzo from the heavens himself. Mason would drift back to the surface from the seas they had sent him too. His parents would have killed him if he didn't go and try to rescue Newt from Poseidon's grasp. The waters get heavier and heavier as he swims harder and harder.

Once he's made it to the rowboat, he dives. Into the deeps of the ocean, holding his breath and desperately following the bubbles that rise from the body falling deeper into the depth of the water.

You're nothing, Enzo.

The voice of his trainer comes to his mind as he dives deeper and deeper.

Newt Krearns, what a loser.

There's voices of his own that haunt him more and more.

He should have seen it coming. The pain. The sorrow. The waves of heartache that lie underneath the skin of Newt Krearns. He should have seen it all, but how could a simple man like Enzo see it. The joyful can't see the sadness around them. There were signs since his cousin was younger. There are always signs and he's surprised that he took it for so long. There should have been a breaking point before, but not one that leads to this. A boy throwing away his life because his father hated him and the words that the world used carry weight upon his shoulders like the stones in Newt's pockets.

You remind me of your cousin, Enzo.

Oceans of blue and black come into focus and he can see the cousin sinking farther and father down.

Don't compare me to that piece of shit.

He can hear every word he's ever heard or said about Newt coming to his mind. That's when he reaches his cousin. Eyes closed shut as Enzo can feel the panic in him grow in his stomach. He's already reached so far down in seconds. He's struggling with the stones that are in his pocket. Enzo pulls off the clothing that is pulling Newt down. It's almost as if the ocean's waves help him up and out of the water. As he pulls newt into the air, there's no gasp for air. No response from the body that is Newt Krearns.

There's a fear in his eyes that sends him over the edge of regret.

They reach the shore in seconds.

There's not much time.

Enzo can feel his heart pounding out of his chest.

You can't leave like the rest of them.

Hands push down on the center of his chest. Begging him to breathe.

"C'mon Newt. Today is not your day to die."

He's counting slowly to himself. Twenty eight. Twenty nine. Thirty. Ear goes to Newt's chest as he listens for the breath of air that would go through Newt's body. There's no response again and he's shaking. All of the things he's said about his cousin coming back to him. He's terrified and he goes to pushing once again. He can't give up on family. No one gives up on family.

"Newt, I swear to ripred. You better wake the hell up!"

They follow this pattern for a bit. Enzo can feel the exhaustion in his body as he is growing more and more tired. Fear sends a wave of sorrow through him. Angry and sad tears fall from his face as he can't imagine what drove Newt over the edge. Newt was stronger than any of them were. They hid behind their strengths of muscle, endurance, and skills. Newt hid behind the emotional strength that Enzo didn't have. There's so much more to the name, Newt Krearns. Enzo had seen it from the first time he met his cousin. There's so much more that Newt could have become than Enzo. It was jealousy and that's why he did it. Jealous minds sending a cousin over the brink of living.

This wasn't how family was meant to treat one another.

Enzo keeps pushing his chest and then he puts his ear to the chest.

"Don't you dare fucking die on me now, Newt."

All it takes is one breath.

One breath to make everything in Enzo break into tears.

Newt Krearns is alive.

[kousei ♚]

n e w t

Glass shatters at my feet.

("You fucking idiot."

"Look at this fucking mess."

"Can't you do anything fucking right Newt?")

Eight years old and salted streams running down my cheeks, I'm too afraid to even lift my hand and dry my eyes for fear he would see it as an act of defiance and provide me with a punishment twice as harsh and ten times as permanent. My only saving grace was my mother's voice from the doorway of the kitchen to soothe my father's rage and disappointment.

("Oh don't be harsh dear! He said it was an accident."

"You're being overly irrational about this."

"Just calm down, you're scaring the boy.")

And perhaps it's the trembling in my kneecaps and the instinctive and neverending twirling of my arms and the tears staining my face that I'm half desperate they'll fall and half terrified they won't. I cannot even bring myself to even try and dry my eyes because the look in his eyes scream cold rage at my clumsiness and incompetence.

("I-I'm sorry it was an accident."

"Accidents happen, but only if you let them happen you idiot.")

Useless, stupid idiot; even from age eight.

("Go to your room.")

Paralysed by the suffering of her brother, Nevah Krearns stands in the doorway. However, it is not concern or sympathy for her brother that keeps her rooted to the doorway, it is amusement at the situation and laughter as I take my walk of shame across the ground, legs trembling and tears still stained onto my cheeks -- ("you sure you don't want to throw on one of Niven's bibs little baby Newt?")

Everything goes black as I sink

lower

and lower.

It becomes impossible to take anything in.

("Newt Krearns, do you want to die?"

"No, death scares me.")

He could never understand why I had such sympathy for the weak, even from the tender age of eight. Brought home from another day of throwing knives and wielding tridents, my father sits us down to watch another recap of another games. At the age of ten, he still scratched his head when the splitting of skull and the shattering of skeletons made my stomach churn and brought tears to my eyes -- (Please, turn it off dad.") And he would turn to my, bewildered that Nevah could sit down so calmly and take onboard skills to fit the pressure of polarization while I couldn't so much as stomach a stab wound.

("Pathetic.")

My mother wouldn't be content with listening in while her son suffered in forced silence. Setting down the knives and plates she washes and walking through the door way, scowling at the sight of tears I had only just grown the courage to dry in the past two years in the presence of my father. She took the remote and switched off the television, cheeks red with rage.

("Stop it! Can't you see it's bothering him?"

"The boy needs to learn or he'll never be strong enough."

"This is no way to teach him!")

The silence was left to be taken in steps, she wouldn't back down and my father wouldn't dare embody hypocrisy by looking anything close to weak or fragile in front of the children he preaches the values of strength and diligence to. We are left suspsended in the silence between two unmovable forces that we wouldn't dare shake or stir for fear of the backlash we would recieve.

("They'll have to learn someday."

"Please, just not today.)

He let us leave.

I could never embody the traits what my father polarized me to. He wanted me to be a Nevah, burying my insecurities within the soil beneath my skin. He wanted me to leave pieces of myself within the district and the people in it and around it, preferrably with gashes left upon their skin with throwing knives and spears sunken within stomachs up to the hilt so crimson petals could bloom from the soil. He wanted me to be a Someith, cutting ties with the bonds of humanity shakily tethering me to the ground. He wanted me to be a Jay, driven by the black ashes left to fester within my heart -- the only reality I would've been worthy to face would've been one covered with red rages.

But I resisted the pressure of polarization and I allowed my mind to shift the opposing direction to my father's idea of a perfect career boy. I would've rather planted white petals and watched them bloom in soil and I didn't fester hatred in my heart like black ashes, rather than red rage I subjected myself to the chemical rages of smoke and liquor, bathing my veins and lungs in the after-effects of unintended suicide. I am my own falling grace.

("No, death scares me.")

Everything is so cold and --

("Newt you are strong, remember that)

-- I'm dying.

As I slip between the bounaries of the unconsciousness and awareness I find myself slipping between percieved reality and fantasy.

An undefined age -- Niven's hair is wrapped between my fingers and my knife is buried into the heart of the dummy up to the hilt.

("Now that is how you throw a knife,")

The sound of my mother's clapping fills the backyard and mixes with mine and Niven's laughter. An undefined age, a different world and while my self-worth is measured with how close my knife lands onto the target it manages to hit the bullseye everytime. I manage a blink, with two eyes and not one. I don't cringe when the thud of Nevah's knife fills the courtyard, knife buried into the dummy's neck.

("You're not half bad yourself, Nevah,"

"I can say the same about you,")

We stand on an equal plane.

In the corner of my eye, he nods in approval.

("Newt, you are strong, remember that.")

It's like smoke in my lungs all over again.

And I...

I...

...

"Don't you dare fucking die on me now, Newt."

Broken promises suspended in the air, someone's sobs cut through the air and their tears mix with the essence of my grave. I'm left coughing and sputtering, shuddering and writhing with the rapid twitching of my heartbeat and the broken rhythm of the rise and fall of my chest. My first thought is that I was snatched from beneath by the reaper's scythe before I could find a voice. Not a single second to spare for extra time; I didn't even leave a note. Yet one glance down at the sun beating down on the clothes I wore this morning and the tears of--

(Enzo?)

-- tells me different.

"Enzo-" I pause, breathing weak with the rhythmic rise and fall of my chest. "Did you pull me out?" I ask, fingers as my head rolls to the side. I squint with my one good eye, the wetness of his clothes and hair and the apparent exhaustion he exhibits tells me everything I need to know. For a split second I thought I'd broken the anchor tethering me to this plane, there is no need for fantasies when I fail to embody the values taught to define self worth after all, and yet he found a way to reshackle the feet left bloodied by the scraping of the iron around my ankles.
For a moment, I felt what it meant to be whole again.

Father loved me and Nevah could look at me with anything other than pure malice in her eyes. I could hit a target once again and my father's nod of approval wasn't a falsified fantasy -- it felt like ecstacy. To smile at something other than stars within my heliocentric fantasies that I fabricated in my desperation to feel something other than the despair that comes hand in and with hopelessness. The final moments of drowning gave me something consciousness would never dare yield even if I prayed to every living or drowned god before throwing myself to rest in Poseidon's Kingdoms and break decay within Neptune's stormy howl.

Fire within my veins, salted ashes coating my lungs, I weakly raise a shaking hand and clasp it around Enzo's collar. He took it all away and just the thought of what could've been makes it impossible to even contemplate gratitude for saving my family from what would've been between a day and a week of mourning before having to fork up money for my gravestone. Here lies Newt Krearns -- a weak and worthless idiot.

I forgot what value lies within the function of my pulse with an eyefull of glass and the full impact of rubble. I doubt even Enzo would restore it even if he tried. "Why would you do that?" My hand falls from his collar, finding its home within the sand. Not even in the presence of my father and I'm left with a trembling hand too weak to even dry the dried tears staining my eyes.

Here lies Newt Krearns -- never worth it.

[Tom]

ENZO KREARNS

It takes one breath for the world to shatter around him.

A coughing fit of water chased away by the oxygen that fills the lungs with life.

He didn't realize he's been holding his own breath for a moment, until it releases at the sound of life under his hands. His sobs finally giving up at the sign of life, tear streaked face staring down at Newt Krearns like everything was different than before. Newt's voice rings in his ear weakly, but it was expected after almost drowning into a watery grave of the ocean's bottom. The fear in his chest of if he was later coming to life once he can see his cousin's sad eyes.

"Enzo-"

Newt shouldn't even be carrying the name, Krearns.

Heart beats chase his body into wanting to hug his cousin, but he wouldn't do that, especially not after almost drowning. Space is what Newt needed in that moment. Space to let out the water and bring in the breath of life into his chest. The small breeze of the air spins around his body with a gentle kiss of satisfaction for his endeavors. Newt's voice sounding like a pleasant angel's against his ear. Relief flooding over his skin like a new life has been born into his skin.

"Did you pull me out?"

"Yes, I did."

Exhaustion rings through his body as Newt Krearns has his head turned looking at his skin. There's something in his eyes that sends guilt through his body with it's ever growing claws of defeat. He's already questioning how they had gotten to a point of no return where death was Newt's only option. There's a gentle crashing of waves against sand that would normally be a sound that eases his soul into comfort, but all it did was shatter his heart in flames of exhaustion and thoughts of Newt drowning.

Hands go to his collar, grasping it ever so gently, like an anchor to the world around them. It's shaking with the thoughts that lie within Newt's head. Enzo can feel his own fingers twitch in almost wanting to hold his cousin's hand in his own. That's when he can hear Newt shakily asking him something. A question that seems to send guilt into his stomach, but he wasn't feeling guilty from the past. Family was meant to stick together. It's one of the last things that he can remember about his mother. It's why he protected Mason's coffin that had washed up on shore. It's why he visited his cousins in the first place. It's why he grew attached to his brothers in a way that would kill him if anything happened to them.

"Why would you do that?"

The hand drops from his collar as his eyes go back to Newt to make sure he's still alive.

Relief washes over him as he can see he's still alive, but his heart sinks as he can see Newt isn't exactly happy with his rescue.

Instead of answering, he pulls a cigarette from the box that had been left on the beach in his rush to save Newt. He pulls a lighter from his pocket and the smoke ignites in his lungs. He takes a long drag and lets the smoke blow outwards towards the sea. Cracks cut in jagged lines around his walls as he thinks of letting Newt into his own inner circle. There's nothing left for a man who wants to die. It's a choice of his own life, not Enzo's, but he wasn't going to give up without a chance to try and convince Newt it was a stupid idea.

"You need a drag from this more than I do."

Hand sits out waiting for Newt to grab the cigarette that sends smoke through the lungs to relax the body.

They share a cigarette like Everett has done with him many times before. Words seem to come from his lips as Enzo leans back on his hands staring at the sun dipping slowly in the distance.

Don't lose your brother.

"I never told you the full truth to how I broke my leg in the tsunami."

It's almost a relief of pressure to come off his chest, but it's not exactly what he's looking for. He's opening a door that he didn't know if he wanted to open, but Newt seemed to need something more than just Enzo's empty words that would mean nothing. It's like a shock to his system when he continues speaking of the past that's changed his outlook on life for the time since then.

I've already killed one Krearns, don't make me kill another.

The words still ring in his head like they had been spoken to him just yesterday.

A whisper of a ghost that Harbinger brought from the past.

His heart had been blackened to ash like Jay's until harbinger Rhodes set him straight.

"Mason's coffin washed up on the shore. I tried to get to it. It was on top of the rubble that used to be my home. I climbed and climbed that rubble like it meant life or death. I still can't remember exactly why I was so certain in getting to his coffin."

Krearns always watches out for their own, even after death.

He reaches for the cigarette again with an outstretched hand. Smoke fills his lungs once more as he lets it back out towards the sun.

"I slipped on my way up. Rubble crashed into my leg, snapped it cleanly according to some District Six doctors. Harbinger Rhodes, you know who he is. Killer of the great Someith Krearns was the one to find me there laying with broken bones and a tearful look. Told me he was sorry for what he had done, but I was naive. I threatened him, even though I couldn't even manage to get up. I still have a scar from the glass shard that I held in my hand and ended up cutting badly."

Enzo leans back with his eyes staring up at the sky above. He can remember the anger and the fear that was in his blood, polluting his mind of ways to kill someone like Harbinger Rhodes. All he could think of was how much he wished to thank the man for saving his life. Thank him for getting Mason back to the ocean. To thank him from saving Enzo from himself long ago.

"I was afraid to tell anyone of Harbinger. He got Mason's coffin back into the sea after he brought me to the safety of the makeshift hospital. My only regret is not thanking him for giving me a second chance. I would have died that day if it wasn't for him."

There's a gentleness in his eyes. He's letting go of his worries now as he sits with Newt who was still coming back from almost dying. There's a freedom to the ocean that Enzo's always admired about it. When he's alone in the ocean's breeze with the sound of crashing waves, he feels like he can take on the world by himself. Freedom was being able to live a life the way that he wanted to without caring about the words people spoke behind his back.

"You know, my parents died from the tsunami, they were in the rubble I climbed. I can still remember the last thing that my mother told me before I left that morning. She told me not to lose my brother again. I didn't fully understand why it felt so important to me back then, but now I do."

Exhaustion still lies deep in his chest, but he's caught his breath already. He doesn't feel as wet as he had been before. He can feel his hands going warm in the dying sunlight. There's eyes that he can see clear as all can be. Newt Krearns was suffering. Suffering from everything in life that he faced on his own. Enzo wasn't going to regret anything as long as he still had time to change things.

"Consider this your second chance at life like Harbinger gave to me."

Can't you get any better, Enzo?

Enzo, you're pathetic.

There's always a second chance out there for everyone. Enzo wanted to give him a chance at life where words didn't weigh like the planet upon shoulders. He wanted to give Newt a chance where life wasn't a barrage of insults that fly at him with every wound cutting deeper and deeper until there's no fight left in him. He wasn't giving up on family and he never would.

"I saved you from your watery death because it's what family does. We look out for one another. I don't care what Nevah or Niven or your father says. You're still family. I couldn't live a life wondering what more I could have done for you."

There's a breath he lets out as he falls back onto his back staring at the sky above. The cigarette was almost out and he's already back into a calmer stage. He's upset still with Newt, but he's feeling better that his cousin is alive and well now. Heart still beats as he slowly turns his head towards his cousin. Words seem to come from his throat out into the open air.

"You're worth more to everyone than you know, cuz."

It's the truth.

Newt Krearns was worth more than he could ever truly know.

The sun may set behind the sky, but the moon always comes up to ease the night.

[kousei ♚]

n e w t

His touch is an anchor.

I am suspended in this limbo, sitting still as I drift between the land of the living and unconsciousness; the only saving grace that remains is his touch. It keeps me anchored in this realm as my sister's voice cuts through the biting coldness that sinks deep into my flesh. "You are a bloody fool," and she wouldn't be wrong. Two things I needed to get right, the transformation of unintended suicide to something quicker and the final sight of the sunrise for the ones that came before me. Damned by uselessness, I only succeeded in the latter but fucked up the former; he doesn't understand that I wanted to remain lost and never found.

A flash of relief, a spur of disappointment -- the look in his eyes is a weight heavier than the final command of a father who would disregard me to a fate even he would be blindsided by. If someone was to be my saving grace, the man with injuries never permanent and a deadly habit to match mine is the last person I would expect. If not because of the drive he has that leaves me green with envy then due to the point he indirectly hammered home, a summation of everything I could ever be after seventeen years of wasted oxygen.

Useless.

I asked him why he saved me and the question hangs heavy in the air between us, drowning out my shivering skin and chattering teeth. Instead, he pulls a death stick from the ground and a lighter to follow; the face of unintentional suicide making its way back to the forefront of my mind. He sets it alight in the form of compressed phoenix flames, unintentional suicide follows my rebirth from the sea and my second opportunity to leave nothing but fragments of myself when I'm gone.

I should be gone.

"You need a drag from this more than I do."

Unintentional suicide; I eagerly grab the cigarette in a fumbling manner between my index finger and my thumb. Inhaling as much tar, nicotine and chemicals as possible in one drag and relaxation passes over my body but the despair doesn't flee my mind. It's strange, when I once saw myself sharing a cigarette or a drink with someone better I imagined it wouldn't be in the aftermath of a death I begged to be true. "Thanks, I guess." I manage, propping myself up on my elbows then pushing myself so I'm sitting straight.

"I never told you the full truth to how I broke my leg in the tsunami." He says and I raise an eyebrow in curiosity. I had assumed he's fallen off a crumbling building or had it crushed beneath a piece of rubble, I don't remember what he told me because while he had been humiliated with temporary crutches, I had been subjugated with a permanent maiming. To this day, the place where my eye once was still itches behind the patch -- I try in vain to restore a piece of myself that can't be found.

"Mason's coffin washed up on the shore. I tried to get to it. It was on top of the rubble that used to be my home. I climbed and climbed that rubble like it meant life or death. I still can't remember exactly why I was so certain in getting to his coffin." He stops, taking another lung full of smoke before continuing on. "I slipped on my way up. Rubble crashed into my leg, snapped it cleanly according to some District Six doctors. Harbinger Rhodes, you know who he is. Killer of the great Someith Krearns was the one to find me there laying with broken bones and a tearful look. Told me he was sorry for what he had done, but I was naive. I threatened him, even though I couldn't even manage to get up. I still have a scar from the glass shard that I held in my hand and ended up cutting badly."

Left to the mercy of the one he hated, he still somehow managed to rise from the ashes of his pride. "Oh." Is all I manage, one eye falling to the sand beneath us as my fingers curl around the grain. It's strange, while I buried my disdain for the madman I called family with every new opportunity he presented father to draw comparisons between the proud and the pathetic, Enzo saw him for what he was regardless. When he was struck down on the final day and stripped of his chance to reclaim glory to our district I smiled behind my father's back. When Enzo was presented with a fallen cousin he carried the ignition within him until confronted with the fuel for our family's decay.

I could never hate, I could never fight, I could never forgive like he could.

"You know, my parents died from the tsunami, they were in the rubble I climbed. I can still remember the last thing that my mother told me before I left that morning. She told me not to lose my brother again. I didn't fully understand why it felt so important to me back then, but now I do."

And that's where I see the contrast; when their hearts were still beating, they beat to instill values in their children's lives. While my father's heart still beats to this day, the only thing he instilled was a thirst for a glory not seen since the 67th and a disdain for anyone who failed to bury a hatchet in the heart of their humanity.

I wish I was less human.

"Consider this your second chance at life like Harbinger gave to me."

A heartbeat almost scattered into the sea.

("Don't be a loser, Newt.")

We don't deserve second chances.

But I don't shake away the anchor binding me to this beach, I give him a weak nod.

"I saved you from your watery death because it's what family does. We look out for one another. I don't care what Nevah or Niven or your father says. You're still family. I couldn't live a life wondering what more I could have done for you."

It's strange, to see a compassion reserved for only those who would never be able to give it in return. When gathered around my deathbed, I imagine Enzo's pulse would never be able to match the rhythm of the rest of the final creed. For they would never be able to feel sympathy for the weak, compassion for the one who was too human. My resolve withered as pieces of myself were lost; my eye to natural disaster, my dignity to time and my heart to despair. Once, I would've clung to my life with nothing but greed in my eyes but with the withering of my resolve it takes one Krearn's who's values and pulse doesn't match the rhythm of the rest of them to see value in the valueless, a worth in the worthless.

I almost don't want to believe him, for it would mean breaking down beneath the weight of sudden compassion when my hollow chest is used to receiving none. "You're worth more to everyone than you know, cuz."

I sit in silence, wondering if he'll say anything else and terrified that he will.

Degraded and sunken; where's the value in the one with zero worth?

"He doesn't want me anymore, Dad," I say simply, staring at the sky and wondering if it would ever think to weep for me. "Because I couldn't hit the target the way he wanted with one eye, because I told him I was sorry for losing the one thing I was good at to something beyond my control." I run my fingers across the grains of sand, biting my lip and sighing. "He called me useless and told me to get out." I finish, gripping all the sand in my fist and letting it run through my fingers and onto the ground with a cold sigh. Perhaps if my mother was home she would've taken me under her wing and stopped me from leaving, perhaps she's looking for me now.

(I don't care anymore)

My soul is heavy and it's scarred, uglier than the scars that mar my rib cage and heavier than the weight of my father's judgement when when it sits in this hollow chest I've been left with.

"I've got nothing left," I haven't seen Finlay since the bar, Nevah carries a contempt for me and Niven's too high up on his heavenly throne to even pay notice to the lost boy who's nothing but a grey speck within his sovereign nation. "I've got no one left," the sand runs empty in my palm and my hands falls back to the ground and I look back at him, good eye wide but too dry for tears. "You lost pieces of your family to something beyond your control, I lost my family because I was quickly becoming a liability to pride."

I was becoming more of a liability with every knife that failed to strike an artery, with every spear that failed to strike true, with every whisper behind my back because I'd lost any semblance of talent with my eye.

"Him and Nevah made sure I knew that it's unfair that I survived that tsunami when better men and women than me died," And I remember, drifting in limbo between life and death while I was surrounded by a graveyard. Corpses strewn across rubble, broken bones, flesh impaled and I was left to rot in a graveyard for people regardless of wealth and status -- death didn't discriminate yet I woke up with a scream and a sputter. Evander, his name was Evander and he saved me from a too slow to be savored but too fast to accept a death wish. "People like me don't deserve second chances." My voice breaks.

("Newt Krearns, do you want to die?"

"No, death scares me.")

A conversation over twelve years old, a value ingrained beneath my brain that would blossom to form the foundations for my suicide.

("So why do you feel such pity for the ones who are long dead?")

Not pity, but envy.