Life asked Death, "Why do people love me but hate you?" Death answered, "Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth."
Inspired by the above quote as well as the always talented Ellenka's oneshot the sky was blonde like her hair. If you haven't already read this, I highly recommend it.
Don't own the Hunger Games.
Coming into the world through a tunnel where a light is shining brightly (funny, it seems that you just left a world the same way), you cry immediately, an instinct reaction. But is it for leaving or coming into this new world?
I choose coming into this new world, where crying turns to starvation, sickness, and pain…so much pain, and if you are born into this world dubbed the Seam, you often will experience all three; some at the same time.
But you don't know this when you come crying into the world, and don't for a while. Not until you know your name, and that your father works in these dreaded mines where he plays with my old friend daily. Not until you realize that you are in a world where it's not easy. Especially not until you meet for the first time in your memory that little contest where my old friend has a field day pleasing others with the entertainment value and most with a sick sense for those who invited death in the first place annually (not to mention what they accomplish daily with my old friend, especially here)-The Hunger Games. Most definitely not when you until you realize that soon, very soon, you might be called to this contest and almost undoubtedly go into my friend's arms and out of mine.
But you go through, even when you experience all that there is to suffer-death of a loved one, starvation, loss, desperation. But you go on still, gripping onto me with all your might for you and those you love still with you.
Why? I ask myself this all the time, because personally my old friend is a more forgiving one than I. And then my friend explained it to me-I'm a beautiful lie.
A lie that everyone clings to, in denial and distorting (normally) to make it worth it, terrified of letting go of me and grasping to my friend though they are perhaps the better choice. Everyone decides that they have something to keep on to me-family, friends, hope for a better future…ranting on and on about wishing to change things for the better in the forest outside this wretched home of yours, where you feel like you grasp to me even tighter. Ironic seeing as you send so many animals to my friend's waiting arms while you do so.
But that's not the only reason I'm such a beautiful lie. I give you hope, a helpless hope that you grip onto dearly even when those you love are dancing with my friend, just barely out of their all-consuming reach. When the one you love is sent off to that dreaded contest to keep a beautiful soul holding onto me, sacrificing herself in the soul's place in the knowledge that she very well meet my friend soon enough.
And all you can do is watch. Watch the beautiful lie (in more ways than one) pan out on a television screen as your love 'falls' for another, ripping right into the heart that beats because I make it so. Making you wish for another to just grasp a little tighter to my old friend even if you feel like a terrible person for wishing so.
But even with that sin, you cling onto your hope and miracles happen, and she makes it through. And you think even if she hurt you to the point that you are near letting go of me and onto my friend which would be relief at that point, that beautiful soul you love saves you. It gives you hope. And you fall once again for me, the beautiful lie.
Even when my friend almost tears her away again.
Even when she so obviously falls for the one she lied about before.
Even when my friend has a field day in your home, and you fight for me for others.
The beautiful lie continues, except now you are bitter and yet more hopeful for a better future-an oxymoron if there ever was one.
But bitterness doesn't stop you from fighting for me, though I might point out your methods have become not so forgiving. In fact, you seem to embrace my friend on several occasions if only in your mind, and in your plans, and in theoretical work that you have no knowledge will fully please my friend.
You even occasionally believe that just maybe…letting go of my lies wouldn't be so bad. Or at least that's what you think when you hear one of the favorite tragic melodies of my old friend, giving hope even with them. Perhaps they are better than I, but far more feared.
But still you cling to me, even as others go to my old friend, some unintentionally (and just maybe unknowingly) go to my friend's hands. And then my dear friend's painful truth hits you right in the gut, and you recognize me for the beautiful lie I am.
Why wouldn't you after all, when I come crashing down around you and you feel as if you have nothing left? Strange since you haven't your whole life, but now you see it fully (without the ranting, that is).
And so when your love calls for you to send her to my friend, terrified that you won't help her because she has given up on you (and you on her), you barely have time to think. You try, for her, because no matter what you love her. And what's a beautiful lie if you don't have someone to keep you in that denial anyway?
And yet…she keeps living it.
You don't.
The painful truth hits you right in the head in the form of a bullet you were going to insanely shoot at the one you love, from an angle where you don't know who delivered it to you. And yet…you don't care.
You don't care because even while you slip from me, a grim smile graces your war torn face while I drain from your exhausted, heavy, guilt-ridden eyes. Hope.
So what if I'm a beautiful lie and my friend you are going to is a painful truth? Both are inevitable, and one comes right after another. Perhaps when I grasp you once again you will have a happier time, and the lie will take hold in a form that doesn't embrace my friend for a long time.
Maybe next time denial will keep you with me.