𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 | ᴄ. ʜᴀᴅʟᴇʏ

To Deal With Death

I have learnt that grieving a death comes in many forms, and feels like many different things. Guilt, sorrow, numbness, anger, fear, you can feel any of all of them when some dies, but no matter what, pain is there in all the forms of grief. Something nagging and pulling relentlessly at your heartstrings, and you might not cry, and you might not show it, but it's there no matter how deep you try to bury what you feel. 

I don't know what I feel, everything's a little hazy, like after you've had a few drinks too many. My knees buckle, and I can feel them hit the dirt. The earth holds me, and the dead hold Peeta. Or what Peeta was. Is. Who knows. I don't. I don't know anything.

Before I can acknowledge that I'm hurting, an apology is dribbling from my lips. 

"I'm sorry?" My voice sounds wobbly and uncertain. Try again. Do better. "I'm sorry, " I murmur. Too quiet. Speak up. "I'm sorry!!" Too scratchy now, more power, they have to know you mean it. "I'M SORRY!" I scream, ripping my nails through the dirt as I throw my head back in a guilty, shattered cry. "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!" I lower my head to my knees, panting. I don't even know who I'm apologizing to. Mr. Mellark? My district? Peeta? I'm sweating, everything is hot, it's too hot. I fumble for the zipper of my jacket, ripping the coat off my overheated torso. I slip my hand into Peeta's cold one, and feel something sticky covering his palm. 

Shaking my hand away, I recognize something. Deadly and dangerous, ruthless and horrible, Capital approved, I'm sure. What are called Nightlock berries. They'll kill you before they reach your stomach. Dead in a flat minute. The canon shot splitters the quiet, and I aggressively wipe away the tears that have begun to fall. 

"Y/n?" I hear a strangled cry from back inside the cave. I crawl back over on my hands knees, rocks digging into my palms, and dirt scraping my calves. I am going to say "I'm okay!" or "Don't worry, I'm fine!" But before I can squeak out a word, something hits the back of my head, and it all goes dark.

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The little grey area between unconscious and conscious is odd. Feeling your consciousness ebbing back in is like being half asleep. You're not entirely sure what's going on, and you're on the tipping point between dreamland and the real world. For a minute you try and fall back asleep, before begrudgingly accepting that you have to open your eyes at some point. It's like when you swim to the bottom of a pool, and when you begin to swim back up things get lighter, and lighter until your head breaks the surface, and you gasp for air. Again, it's odd.

I crack my eyes open, and hiss with pain. I touch the back of my head gently with a finger, and recoil at the throb of hurt. The sounds of rushing water resounds along the rock walls of another cave, and my wrists press into the smooth stone floor. A headache pounds between my eyes, and I raise my hands to my head, trying to hold it as gently as possible. 

"I apologize, I didn't mean to hit so hard." A deep voice speaks. My head snaps up towards the unknown sound, and I immediately groan, touching my head again as if that could help stop the raging ache. I release short, pained breaths through clenched teeth, and I wobble on the edge of passing out. "I'm sorry, but you cannot go back to sleep now." 

A towering figure walks across the cave towards me, footsteps echoing. Crouched before me now, is Thresh. 

He's a little bloodied, a scratch trailing from his right temple to his cheek bone, and one of his eyes is a little swollen. Besides a few other scrapes and bruises, he appears mostly fine, but looks can be deceiving, can't they?

"If you were going to kill me," I say, my voice coming out a lot more strained than I would have liked. "You wouldn't have settled for doing it while I was still out?"