𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐈𝐄 ━━ finnick odair ✓

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭. ( loss compounded )

I'm sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Schools of fish flit to and fro around me. I reach a hand out to brush against one and find that my skin is a metallic purple, though it shifts to green when the light hits it directly. This is my home, below the waves churning above my head. It's beautiful here, impossibly quiet. The occasional dolphin call sounds out from the distance, but that's all. I fill the silence often with songs. When I begin to sing now, the fish and crabs gather around to listen. I sing in tremulous highs and steady lows. All who come to listen find peace.

My limbs feel slow as I try to move them about, suddenly seeming unnatural to me. My eyes begin to sting with the salinity of the water. One last breath of water forces me to cough, I'm drowning.

I'm drowning! I forcefully try to cough the water out of my lungs. My eyes snap open and are met by a blinding amount of light. It looks like I'm in a desert. I'm in the desert. I'm in the arena. I sit up forcefully, making my head spin. My parched throat cries out for water and I realize that my skin is wet.

Fritz stands above me, holding a half empty water jug, the other half must have been poured over me. The worry on his face is quickly wiped away and replaced by a tired smile, "Thirsty?" I nearly tear the bottle from his fingers as he passes it over to me. When I upend the bottle into my mouth the first time, it's as if I'm not able to swallow and yet again I end up choking. "Take it slow," he recommends, kneeling on the ground beside me.

I do as he says, letting a small trickle of water run down my throat first, then taking small sips. It's agonizing work to hold back from chugging the whole bottle. Only after I've drank my fill does the reality of the situation previous to this hit me. "Audrey!" I whip my head around to where I left her, surprised to see the spot empty. I turn to Fritz, looking for an explanation but he won't meet my eyes. "Where is she?" I can't fathom why he'd move her. Perhaps to take her into shade? "Fritz, where is she?" I begin to panic in earnest now,

"The hovercraft came after I pulled you away. She's gone," he says, no louder than a whisper. I'm speechless. She can't be gone. I did everything I was supposed to do. I carried her across the desert, I did chest compressions, Fritz did mouth to mouth. I find my hand clutching the fabric of the shirt on my chest.

I wonder if maybe we shouldn't have hiked the remaining distance all in one day. Maybe if I'd allowed her more rest she'd be here. Fritz had told me to be gentle with her and I hadn't been, not at all. This is my fault.

"Fara, let's get moving again. There's a spring about a twenty minute hike up." This statement is the nail in the coffin. Only twenty minutes away is water. If I could have kept moving for twenty minutes more with Audrey on my back... Maybe one less stumble in the sand dunes would have been the difference between her life and death.

My hands pound the ground in weak fists. Fritz doesn't stop me, maybe because he's scared to do so or because he feels exactly the same way. When my hands begin to bleed I stop abruptly. The logical part of my brain takes over once again and recognizes that any open wounds could be a potential for danger. Fritz reaches a hand out towards me and I take it, allowing him to help pull me to my feet. I collapse almost immediately, but he grabs me before I hit the ground. He lets me take a moment to steady myself before he goes to retrieve our things.

He hands me only the small backpack and shoulders the rest of the weight himself. I look at the pack for a moment before putting it on. He must have grabbed it from her body before it was lifted out. We hike in silence. It takes me almost the entirety of the walk up to the spring to regain complete awareness.