The Author Games: Literature

Esther Tehnos' End

To meddle in consciousness was to feel unsafe.

Like with branches of a tree, consciousness had been wrapped around her mind. Perhaps her sight had been clouded, her limbs numbed, yet Esther knew her thoughts were ones that were wakeful. She was trapped in a terrible state of consciousness that flitted with the lucidness of sleep, surely as snakes wound around their prey. Unconsciousness refused to embrace her mind despite her pleas, unwilling to bring her out of the clutches of consciousness.

Esther was not safe.

Consciousness was the savagery that pulled off the veil of dreams, showing the world to blinking eyes. It let people discover the horrors of the evil that flew on the wings of knowledge, the curse hidden within an unassuming facade. Nightmares that tormented in sleep morphed into realities in the realization of consciousness, no longer to be merely hazy figures of imagination.

Family was the only thing that had ever brought her a true sense of safety within the cruelties of Panem.

It was what met her line of sight as she laid without the power to move yet with consciousness, trapped in the rubble of her house, terrified by the prospect of the knowledge. When a figure blurred from clear features firmly took hold of Esther's hand and pulled her to her feet, family was what decorated all edges of her mind, in a haze of absolute panic. It obscured the scattered remains of her district from her mind and vision, for her mother and brother lay in the remains of another building, just as she had.

Esther stumbled across the ruins of her district, racing towards where her mother lay, collapsing by her side. She pressed her ear against her mother's chest, listening for the heartbeat that signified her life; there was none.

"Mother," she breathed, a stifled sob building in her chest, "what happened? Wake up, Mother, please..."

Perhaps her mother's illness had finally taken her life. Perhaps that was it. Then what of her brother?

Esther stretched out her left hand, trembling fingers brushing against Dexter's cheek. There was no warmth that met her touch, leached out as surely as the colour was. She grabbed his limp wrist in a swift move, desperately searching for a sign of any life, but there was not anything to find. The breaths that she took were ragged, rough, as she reached a finger to place on his eyelid, pushing it upwards. There was no suggestion of the sparkle that always would adorn the blue irises; a layer of mist had fogged over them, fading away the colour that had once been vibrant, and they stared into another dimension entirely.

"No, no, no..." Esther whimpered despairingly, a wave of anguish washing over her. "What have they done to you? Stay with me, don't leave me... Please don't leave me, Dexter. Please don't leave..."

Only the ringing screams of silence accompanied her sobs, and each moment that flew by was a new wrath of agony that buried her. The pain was a wildfire that had sparked uncontrollably, scorching untamed torture throughout her being. It was a fire that blazed fiercely through the tenderness of her heart and mind, tearing apart her sanity until it remained in ashes. Fissures ran throughout the fragments that fabricated her reasons of stability, shattering them into infinitely scattered, irretrievable pieces; two could no longer be fitted together as one.

From the border of the sanctuary of sense Esther's mind had fallen; the walk through on the line had been ended, and she was falling into where chaos reigned. She was falling, pushed off the edge by the death of her mother and brother. Fire raged over the tree within her that had been fashioned of hopes and memories, withering the blossoms that had once flourished, setting ablaze the life that had once been abundant in her heart. It brought unkept fits that shook all of Esther, and the ground began to spin, approaching with growing speed.

The wreckage of sharp scraps of cracked glass and broken bricks pierced through the thin cloth of her clothes, yet physical pain could stand no war to battles raging inside. Esther's gaze whirled throughout the smoking landscape, frenzied grief laced tightly with an undertone of fury. Her stares persistently flickered to and fro, yet at last settled as she became fixed on the shine of golden hair, a mane of splayed brown within the ruins. Minutes hovered, fluttering in the air, waiting until the moment when two vague connections clicked in the girl's mind.

She was not yet safe.

Esther's limbs wobbled and she could not muster the strength to hoist herself to her feet, and she resorted to crawl towards to two bodies. Fresh blood pushed through the new puncture wounds, leaving behind crimson stains as it trailed through her skin and clothes. Yet it was all nonexistent to Esther; she could not see nor feel it. As she emerged over the twisted, broken bodies of Aspen Kinsley and Kate Dodger, they were motionless, silent. The debris buried parts of them, yet to Esther, they were only asleep, but alive.

"You killed them," Through a swollen throat, Esther croaked out the words, "you killed my family."

The pulse of her own heart thumped in her fingers as they gripped tightly the handle of her knife - the blade of it continued to glint dangerously, despite the scarlett liquid dripping down to the ground. Esther scrutinized it as she held it above Aspen's body; for a second, some sense of awareness returned to her. For a mere moment, something brought her to the brink of a proper mind. Yet it was only, perhaps, a pebble in the ocean, washed away as quickly as it showed itself, the memory of it gone as surely as it was. And as withdrew, Esther shoved her knife into Aspen's heart, skewering it over and over.

"How dare you," Esther whispered, "how dare you."

Heartbreak's agony had receded to make way for a rage of fury, blurring her sight as she set her blade against Kate's throat, sliding it to the side. It pierced the layers of skin, slowly digging deeper as Esther slid it back and forth, back and forth. "You killed them too," she continued to murmur, "how dare you kill them too."

Kate and Aspen must have been dead then; were they? Were their ghosts lingering around Esther? Were the ghosts angry? Did the ghosts have family?

Woes of the aftermath of murder and the regrets of perishing a youthful life fled from Esther's tunnel of swirling thoughts, as the thought of family materialized once more. She glanced backwards over her shoulder at the unmoving bodies of her mother and Dexter, gasped as she scrabbled to return to them.

"It's okay," Esther clasped one hand from her mother and one from Dexter's in her own hands, breathing heavily, "I got them. They're gone now, we're safe..."

"Don't worry, Dexter. We're safe now..."