𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐒 ❦ The Hunger Games

eighteen

☆ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN! ☆
018. the last word

|| DANGEROUS NIGHT||
❝we burned and we
bled, we tried to forget
but the memories left
are still haunting.❞

➳➳

THE HELICOPTER'S LOUD blades flew impossibly fast as it came into sight.

The white sand on the beach was blown in my face as I didn't just watch it pick up the Morphling that had saved Peeta's life, but as I watched Finnick wade just slightly too far to the left to get hit by flying water. The dead was picked up by a claw that seemed as stiff as the body had become even after the short time it had been the property of death; just like that another wasted life was deposed of in front of our eyes.

In particular, in front of the eyes of a man that had seen the closest thing he had to family die just hours before.

Finnick was too busy staring at the salt water to watch it go. It was clear that he wasn't hunting because he wanted to get us food, like he explained to us all as soon as the sun rose above the trees and we were content that we could be safe, but instead it was obvious to me that he was trying to keep his hands working. It was one of his favourite ways of ignoring grief and the sickening feeling that came with losing a mentor- with the damning loss of his friend.

I knew the feeling all too well, so well that it looked like I was staring into an imagined version of myself when I glanced at him.

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry for your loss, I know better than anyone that it won't help." I told the boy once I had waded over to him in the water.

My voice was as timid as it normally was, so timid that I feared that the next loud splash that came from his trident hitting the water would scare it away. Those were the only words that I thought would make him stop, or at least would make him look up from the whirlpool that was sucking in all of his attention. Maybe, he only looked up because it was the first time I had started a conversation with him since our last fight.

"She was one of the kindest women I will ever meet; she saved us."

The water was comfortably up to my low thigh as I took the next uneven step towards him. Even if Finnick glanced right back down when I started to speak again, there was a slither of hope that resided between the small wrinkles by the very corners of his eyes. When I spotted it, the clear water seemed to sparkle slightly as he raised his trident to try and not only kill another fish, but to kill the part of him that was intently waiting for an apology.

It was traumatic to watch him like this, but nothing had changed.

Even if he was taking the death harder than anyone, I couldn't tell him such a lie to make it a little bit easier for him. She was more that a mentor to him, she was the only person in the world that could of replaced the parents he missed so violently. Now he was being abandoned on an island with nothing but the clothes on his back to keep him alive.