Come on, Skinny Love, just last the year. || Disaster
It was the sunshine streaming down in the morning that woke me from my sleep, otherwise I never would have wanted to open my eyes. My head rested against the sinewy muscle of his arm having must of slipped there during the night when my eyelids finally fell too heavy and Neverland came my way.
His eyes soon opened, I knew, at the feeling of my movement. Brown eyes fluttered wide open as they attempted to accept the light was offering. A smile crossed my lips as I look at his sleepy face. “Morning,” I muttered leaning my face back into his arm, the smell of dirt and sweat and him strong. I didn’t want to move because I knew. I knew. “That stupid memory—,” I said with my voice still soft as he made a small moan of acknowledgement, “At the ball. Being held by a boy in a mask with brown eyes. Just ace.” The words of my voice as it paused with each sentence caused my breath to dance across the exposed skin of his arm as did a smirk grow across my own face.
I heard him begin to speak, his voice begin to form words but it all meant nothing when the explosion sounded and shook the earth. Some believe the world will end in fire. Some believe it will end with water, with ice. But there are those of us, who against better judgement, choose answer C.) but for once, it’s wrong.
There was silence as I sat up just as he did after the first shake, I turning to look at him, my face expressionless but my eyes showing the fear I felt. And all at once a canopy of birds erupted from the trees around us forming a tapestry of multiple colors. Beauty at its finest, but there was no time for that as another wave shook through. We were birds bobbing in the ocean, calm and still but with waves ready to happen at any time.
Whether someone heard me or not did not matter anymore. This was it for those eight of us remaining. My voice screamed, howled like the wolf within me for Larka, wherever she may be. One of my pack gone, but with no time for finding my sister. The naked soles of my paws tried to run, tried to stand as another quake erupted splitting the ground. A knife, a knife. My knife. My hands have found their old familiar friend, and out of the corner of my vision could I see Larka running towards us, her voice making meaningless attempts to speak, but the frantic attempts conveyed what she could not.
A song played in my ears deafening all else as I ran, struggled to stay afoot when all else around me fell to pieces; the whispers of the angels accompanied by the beating of my heart as their drumbeat. And the drumming in my head grew louder and louder with each step that I took until I fell and stumbled feeling cuts across legs and the palms of my hands. Scratches in which the crimson plasma pours from but bothered me no longer.
I had held it in for so long, but now they had set the beast inside of me running free. For my flesh had turned to fur as my paws beat the hallow’d ground that shook with tremors as I ran like prey from the hunter. Yet there was no escaping even whether or not I managed to fly free. The Capital, these Gamemakers were the Predators. Augustus’ words finally made sense to me.
There is no more holding back. I’m ready to attack with every fiber and being in my body. These fellow tributes of mine are nothing less than the animal I am. They have no pain, no feeling, no remorse. They’re animals, small and weak and simple minded just as I am.
And at last the rumbles and shaking stop. I stagger to get my footing. Behind and in front of me are large holes in the ground. Logan and Larka are missing. They could be anywhere now. Perhaps they fell into one of these cracks. Perhaps they are dead.
Larka, sweet and lovely, the Little Lark. No, she can’t be dead. No, neither can Logan, whose thought of death only makes wish I too were dead with the longing in my heart.
A crack, a crunch of a fallen branch. Someone is here, and they will die at the hands of me. I’ll have their blood, ruby and thick, drip from my knife any cost. I turn towards it, knife braced in hand. It’s no longer a weapon, as I once saw it, but an extension of my arm. It feels a part of me just like any other piece of me. I’m ready to cut, to kill. But no.
Because it’s Logan, torn and cut and wide eyed like me like a doe caught in the headlights. I drop my left hand down to my side because I’m aware that it’s a weapon. I open my mouth to speak, but no words can come out. No words could justify anything that has happen. Instead I take a step forward towards him, but my head is swimming and I collapse at his feet, tears streaming from my eyes mixing with the dirt and blood on my face reminding me what it means to be human.
But he does not leave me there. Instead he lifts me up and wraps me in his arms, carrying me like the small child I feel I am. He supports me when I know he can barely support himself, and with the slightest touch he makes me feel like my skin is on fire. Not fur, but skin. And for that, I cup his face with my hands. Hands meant for feeling and touching and living, but instead cut and clattered with dried blood and mud. And I bring him forward until I can see into his eyes, and yes. I’m sure as it’s always been.
And our lips are touching, the pattern of his breaking against mine and mine coming back strong and longingly having done what we wanted to do that night but too fearful to do so. Here in the face of death does my tongue graze the inside of his lip before I have to pull away. No words. Not one because we both know. We know.
I bury my head into the curve of his shoulder and neck as he cradles me in his arms. And we walk because in front of us is our first and last salvation.
The Cornucopia.







