Broken Pawns

f i f t e e n

 I stand up once again, ignoring the pain. I turn to face Mara who looks at me in pity. I wipe the tears from my face and take a deep collected breath. My eyes meet hers.

"Go ahead." Though my voice shakes it sounds strong.

Mara raises her gun, aiming it for my heart. I take a deep breath as a gunshot echoes through the hallway.

------------------------------ Gale's POV ---------------------------- 

  You never know how much you love something until you lose it. That was something my father told me when he was alive. 

"You might think you hate it." He used to say. "But you'll realize just how much you love it once it's gone." 

He was the first person to tell me what President Snow did after the quell. 

"It's the things we love the most," My father would say, "that destroys us, Gale." 

    I had always thought my father was talking in riddles. I thought that he was just talking to me to make some sort of conversation. It's taken me six years to understand what the hell he meant, it took me six god damn years to understand that he was right.  

"You might think you hate it, but you'll realize just how much you love it once it's gone."

   I never knew how much I loved the sound of her voice until it was gone. I never knew how much I loved my brother's till they were gone. I never knew that I would miss the sound of my brothers arguing and Katniss yelling at me until it was no longer there.

"It's the things we love the most that destroy us."

   The sound of my mother's sobbing, the sound of my broken friend's voice as she screams my name. The echoing of my brother's voice and laugh in my skull, the sound of him cursing at me with that dirty mouth. My father's last words to me, Katniss's last words to me. 

  It's funny. It really is. Years ago It was me who was disagreeing with everyone on letting go of their life. I always said there was something to live for and maybe that was why I was letting go. Because there was nothing for me to hold onto. 

   It's funny, I have come close to death so many times that it didn't scare me when the darkness took over me that day. It's funny how the darkness seemed to comfort me.

   I have nothing to hold onto and that's why I didn't fight as I slowly started to slide away. I didn't fight to breathe, to move, to think. I let myself slide away. I wanted to slide away on that day. I wanted to die and I thought that I certainly deserved to. I was ready to say goodbye to everyone I loved.

I wanted to slide away on that day and I want to slide away today.

I was ready to pay for the many sins I had committed.