A/N: Yes, I do know how to format (mostly) proper grammar.
Insert witty disclaimer here.
Mother's crying.
I reach to pat her shoulder she likes it when you pat her shoulder, only it's not there, it's far far far away and I can't reach, even if I stretch my hand out so much that I can't even see where it begins and where it ends
Sissy screams.
So small. She's only twelve her first Reaping it scars everyone forever and ever and ever and you can't live it through and every face still haunts your dreams but she's screaming like the world's ending right now.
It is.
The stage is wet like the rain and the water and the dam when it burst and all the tears tears ice fire trickled through under her feet. She doesn't notice.
Someone else is called up.
She doesn't know him
but she sees him later all red and gored and he's only got a torso and his limbs but his head is gone, all gone with the evil evil shark and the stingray
and then the beautiful crocodiles with their glittering scales and friendly happy kind caring sad hurting predatory smile takes them on a long boat and they arrive at a reef where there's more crocodiles and there's a shark and stingray and dark dark evil things that frighten her and make her cry herself to sleep at night.
They feed her.
They clothe her.
She's happy there , but she knows that the crocodiles with their friendly happy kind caring sad hurting predatory smiles will turn on their hapless prey and consume them one by one by one
and they rip off the innocent shrimp's head because he's small enough and tasty enough and the crocodiles like the shark and sharpens his teeth for him because he can kill people.
The gong hurts her ears and she shivers because the crocodiles are now creeping on her and trying to eat her, so she runs away. She doesn't take anything because she knows they would come and kill her soon so there's no point. She knows the inevitable, and she isn't surprised when the Careers track her and her district partner down. But she sees his teeth and she sees the poor shrimp
Papa smiles at her. "Be a good girl for me, Annie."
She clings to him, breathes his salty ocean scent in, and doesn't say anything, just lets the tears slide down her young, chubby face and her babyish whimpers do the talking for her.
Her mom pries her away from the sea and the salt, and she wails because she knows that the sea and the salt won't ever come back, not ever, no matter how hard she cries for it or grabs at it or traps it in a net. Because it can't hear her cry, and it slips through her fingers, and it passes through the mesh surface of the net.
He turns away to his boat. She knows he isn't coming back.
It still shocks her when the news that he died reaches her, and the wet, salty tears trickle down her cheeks again.
The ground is red and brown and pink and white and a buzzer's going off in the background, only it's not a buzzer and the sound's so shrill and she realizes that she's the buzzer and she's screaming crying shrieking and it's only her and the corpse. So she runs away, into the dark dark forest and she hears the crocodile's cannon and they come to retrieve him and she doesn't want to be anywhere near them because they kill stupid stupid don't know the worth of life and every time she fought for it and don't care who they kill because it's all just entertainment.
She never plays with her food again.
She doesn't know how much time passes and she doesn't want to know. She drinks water but it's not salty and it doesn't taste like the sea she loves and knows and she eats without actually knowing what it is she eats. Mother's there now, and Sissy, both smiling and happy and beckoning her home away from the crocodiles but she doesn't follow them, just curls up into a little ball and sleeps.
There's a loud roar that she doesn't register and then she sees the water she hasn't seen the water in so long. It's so blue and clear and she feels the tree that she's perched in shake when the wrath of the sea is unleashed upon it. She jumps off of the branch it's so weak, so malleable into the water.
It's not salty but she doesn't care anymore because she hasn't seen so much water in so long.
She swims.
She swims because there's nothing else to do she'll never admit it, but she's looking for Papa in the water, all waxy and drifting and beautiful in the twisted sapphire shadows and she hears the cannons sound, one after another and more and more lives are lost to the crocodile's lair.
She turns on her back after a while to save energy. Limp, like a rag doll. She still has control.
The cannon sounds again won't it ever stop and then she hears the trumpets blaring out of the speakers she covers her ears and screams and then a hovercraft appears to take her away.
She fights it for as long as she can, but she's so limp and she feels like the delicious jelly pudding she had the first day that the crocodile chef made for her and so she gives up and lets the hovercraft take her away, a pelican holding a tiny fish in its mouth.
They feed her again, and dress her, and try to make her talk in front of the big screen, but she screams over and over and over because the crocodiles still smile because they're not done with her yet.
She sees his parents when she comes home. Except they're not his parents. They're him, lying on the grass, blood staining the ground his head torn off she can see inside him and it's so gruesome and she starts screaming again.
They move her into a big house it's beautiful and shiny and bright but there isn't the sea near it and she can't even feel Papa's presence anymore.
They take her on a victory tour.
She doesn't speak.
There's no point in screaming.
The crocodiles still look at her, with their friendly happy kind caring sad hurting predatory smiles, and she can't do anything because she knows that they're there and they'll never ever leave.