"You see her when you close your eyes;
Maybe one day you'll understand why;
Everything you touch surely dies."
-Let Her Go, by Passenger
…...
She was there every time she closed her eyes, tried to sleep. The same laughing, happy, golden, smiling Prim, so full of goddamn sunshine and cheer. Dancing and giggling behind her weary eyelids.
Katniss rubbed her dry eyes. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't even blink. She didn't dare to look at that ray of sunshine when she didn't exist anymore.
God, she needed a drink.
Captain Everdeen, prime of the US army. Saved a lot of soldiers. Saved the goddamn world, they all said. Like shooting down a squadron of enemy bombers could save the world. Like saving anybody counted if she couldn't save Prim.
Golden Prim. Smiling Prim. She closed her eyes for a moment, exhausted from days without sleep, and saw her. Happy, smiling Prim. Haunting her. Slowly killing her with guilt.
"Go away, Prim! Leave me the hell alone!" she yelled at the image, sound bouncing off the filthy walls.
Peeta, Sergeant Mellark, poked his head in through the door. "Captain? You okay?"
What the hell do you think I feel like, pretty boy? she roared inside her mind. It wasn't really his fault. He'd been a faithful wartime companion. It wasn't his fault he'd been assigned to 'assist Captain Everdeen with her post-traumatic stress disorder.' Yeah, right. More like 'keep her in a hellish empty box of an apartment until we can take her out and play soldier with her again.' That's all she was. An army figurine in a dirty tin.
"I'm fine. I'm great. Situation a-okay, Sergeant Mellark," she rasped. Her voice was hoarse from screaming at the walls. Damn you, Prim. Leave me alone.
He looked concerned. "I could make you some tea. You don't sound so good. A cold, probably. I made waffles, if you'd like some."
"Must be a cold. No thanks, Peeta. I don't need anything." She was slowly starving herself. Poor pretty boy didn't understand why she wouldn't eat or drink anything. It wasn't like she mattered, anyway. She didn't have Prim.
"Do you want me to go away?" he said, his blue eyes so goddamned like Prim's that she could barely look at him. Of course, he could barely look at her. She used to be pretty, beautiful even. Now her greasy black hair hung in clumps around her face, and her gray eyes were dull, deprived of even a spark of hope.
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Bye."
He closed the door and walked down the stairs, every slow footstep adding to the 'Why I hate myself' list. Katniss bolted the door shut and pushed a desk against it.
"My sister," she mumbled. "The only person I had left."
Primrose Everdeen. A military doctor. Signed up with happy blue eyes and long golden braids. Had to cut them off, though. The braids. Sat through it, cheerful as ever, like she hadn't loved her beautiful hair. It was cut right up to her ears. But Prim didn't mind that.
She was a beam of light. Every single soldier who came across her was firmly convinced he met an angel. And so she was, an angel shoved into battle. Doctor or not, there was fighting and there was killing, and she'd be right in the thick of it.
Katniss let out a thick sob. It happened again and again and again. Everyone she cared about. Her father, Corporal so long ago, blown up by the bombers. Her mother didn't survive much longer. Just gave up, starved herself, and went to meet her husband. Like Katniss was pretty much doing now. Maybe it was the Everdeen pattern, one blows up and another kills herself over it, pretty nice family line don't you think?
Then there was Rue. Assistant doctor, exact same age as Prim if you can believe it. Same birthday and year. Adorable girl, hardly looked past adolescence. Shot down by an enemy soldier. How stupid was that! How could anything like God or fate or destiny exist if a little tree-climbing girl could be shot by some random soldier? It was sick, it was monstrous, and all Rue's family got was a typed notification and a small sum of money in exchange for their eldest daughter. She didn't immediately die. She survived just long enough to be hauled back to camp, cough up blood, and see Katniss and Prim one last time.
Prim didn't tell anyone, but that was the first time Katniss heard her cry.
Then there was Finnick, navy captain. I'm too handsome of a beast to die, he'd say, with his devil-may-care grin and beach boy body. The ladies fell all over him. He flirted, all right, but he didn't really care about any of them but his southern belle at home, Annie.
Shot down. Bang-bang-bang, another gap to Katniss's heart.
Prim.
Katniss rested her face in her hands, just for a moment, and she came back. Prim. Laughing, happy, smiling.
Covered in blood.
Katniss screamed, falling off the moldy sofa. She clawed at her eyes, trying to remove the image, but she stayed there. Giggling. Acting like she wasn't drenched in blood.
"What's wrong, Katniss? Don't you want to play?" She danced across the room, becoming more real every second. God, it looked like she could touch her. But everyone who she touched, even as casual friends, even for a second, had died.
"You blew up, Prim! The bombers got you! You can't be here. You can't. You died." Katniss was panicking, clutching her skull, opening her eyes as wide as she could. But Prim was still there, in the room. A hallucination? But she looked so real.
"I know. Silly. Of course I'm dead. I blew up! Look at me! I stitched myself together again, though." She pointed with a scarlet-caked fingernail at her face, and Katniss screamed again.
Stitch lines were running across all of Prim. Her delicate face, sewn roughly together, blood seeping out of every misplaced stitch. She looked like a scarecrow.
"But...but that's not right. You're Prim. You're my Prim. You can't be like this," Katniss sobbed.
Prim's head, with a stitch line right around the neck where the head had been sewn back on, tilted to the side like it used to when she was disappointed.
"I don't know why you're wailing and crying about all this. I'm the dead one. It's your fault anyway, you know."
Katniss felt like she was going to throw up. "W-what? Prim? I- I- oh god, I'm sorry! I tried to save you! I'm sorry!"
Peeta pounded on the bolted door. "Captain? Who are you talking to? Let me in! Captain Everdeen, I believe you are experiencing a post-traumatic stress disorder hallucination! It is very bad for your health! Let me in!"
But Katniss had ears only for Prim.
"Everything is your fault," her little sister hissed. "You weren't there to save our father or our mother. You weren't there to save Finnick, and you didn't even save Rue. She was my friend, you know that? My best friend. Hell, I loved her more than I loved you. And you let her die because you were all over pretty boy Peeta."
Every word stung more than a bullet. Katniss would rather have died a thousand times than have to hear those words from her sweet baby sister.
"B-but that's not what happened. I tried to save them all, I really did. Prim, I'm sorry! Please! I love you. Prim, I love you." She staggered forward, grasping at Prim, who danced out of the way.
"You're so stupid, catpiss," Prim taunted. "I loved you too, you know. I loved you so much. But then you killed a man."
"I was trying to protect you! Prim, he was going to shoot you! I was trying to s-save your l-life."
Prim shook her head sadly. "I wish you hadn't. If he had shot me, it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as blowing up. And when you took that life, dear sister, I lost all trust in you."
Katniss curled into a ball, hands over her ears, shaking, trying to make the relentless voice stop. But nothing could.
"Just end it. End it all. Come join me, and I'll know you really love me. That's all it takes, Katniss, one moment and we can be happy together, forever."
"Just one moment," Katniss murmured. "It would only take one moment. I'd be with you again."
"No! No, Captain! Don't give in! Fight the, the, the voices! You can't kill yourself!" Peeta yelled. Katniss didn't even hear him. Almost robotically, she approached the drawer by her bed. The one with the gun that was in case of emergency, and shared a space with a bottle. She always knew she might have to use it again. At the beginning of the war, she never thought she'd have to use it this way.
"Prim...would I see them all again?" she said, tears streaking down her grimy cheeks. "Father, Mother, Finnick and Rue? Would they all be there?"
"Yes. Everyone would be there. We would all be happy forever. Come with us, Katniss. Come join the family. They're waiting for you."
"Katniss!" Peeta shouted. "Katniss, don't do it!"
Not noticing the demonic glint in this not-Prim's eyes, Katniss drew out the gun. She felt the cold metal press against her temple. It felt good, somehow, to hold it there. It felt relieving. It felt like she should have done it a long time ago.
She looked at the not-Prim, the false Prim, the unreal Prim, not the Prim who would never do this to her sister, and felt not a flicker of doubt. "I'm ready."
"Yes, that's it. Press the trigger, nice and easy. That's all you have to do, then you can be with me," said the scarecrow Prim, the lying Prim. "That's it. Just press the trigger. Do it, Katniss."
"Katniss! I love you!" Peeta sobbed, pounding at the door. "Please. Please let me in. Don't do this, please, please! Katniss, I've loved you since I first saw you. Please don't go."
For the first time, Katniss listened. And she didn't care at all.
"Somebody else loves me more."
BANG!