What is peace? Is it the act of not being involved in a fight, or an attempt at stopping destruction wherever possible, through whatever means? Or is it a mixture of both. Could it perhaps, rather than meaning just coexisting in perfect harmony and never fighting back, mean something more. Is perfect happiness even possible? No. So then, is not peace just as much the act of fighting for what is right, to bring about the best possible end to suffering, even if the best possible end does not mean perfection. Yes, I think so. Because, what else can it mean. I have seen people say that all they want is peace, and so they sit back and do nothing, saying they don't want to cause a war. But is a war not already upon us, whether we understand this or not? Is a war not more than just physical fighting, but also spiritual. A battle between the forces of good and evil in every realm, not just our own? And is not that battle raging right now. Of course it is. So we are in the middle of a war. And to not join in the fight, to not work towards some greater good, is foolishness. Foolishness.
These thoughts all rush through my mind just before blackness completely takes me, and my head hits the floor, capsizing me into a world I have always tried to avoid. A world where nothing is as it seems, and everything seems real. A world where your worst nightmares, and greatest desires, combine to produce something unimaginable. A world where you may long for death, only to realize this longing is both misplaced and impossible. Because you are engulfed in it. In death. And escape is impossible.
The first face I see is Annie's. She approaches me, grinning, but not in the way she normally does. Then she begins to speak, but I can't hear her. Her lips move, but no sounds escape them. I grow frantic, flailing, trying to reach, but she stands as though trapped behind a wall. I reach it, and find that it is like hard glass, unbreakable, though I pound against it with all my strength. She doesn't look worried, or even upset. I look at her face, and it transforms before me. Her eyes grow slanted, and her pupils dilate, as though her eyes are just black holes of nothing. Her lips puff up, and her nose grows larger. Then her tongue flies out of her mouth, but it is not her tongue. It is a snakes tongue, long and thin. It flits up and slowly wets the end of her lips. But hey aren't hers. They are his. The President's.
He stares at me now, nothing of Annie left, and then the glass wall recedes into the ground, and I am standing in front of him. He speaks, and the voice is not his. It is lower, in a hiss, but unmistakably the voice of Annie.
"You are worthless. You can not be loved. You are nothing, nothing, nothing..."
Her voice fades out, but the word nothing continues to echo around the room. I hear another voice behind me, and turn to look, but I see nothing. When I spin back, the President is gone. But the voice remains.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I fall to the ground, curling up with my knees to my chest, and clench my hands over my ears, trying to block out the words. Her words. But I can't. They travel through space and matter, and my hands do nothing to cover them. I can't escape them. I can't.
And then I hear the call again.
"Help, Finnick!" The voice screams,"Help!" The voice is initially Annie's, and sounds strange combined with her statement of 'nothing' that continues to repeat. And then the echo dissipates, and the scream changes. It is Katniss's scream. The girl on fire. The girl who has become a beacon of hope, even to me. And she is in trouble.
I spin around, but am surrounded by darkness on all sides, and then it transforms, and I am standing in dense underbrush. I don't know what type of forest this is, perhaps a jungle. But I have only heard of such things, and can not put a name to it for certain. But Katniss's voice continues to scream, and then it is joined by a multitude of others, and I don't recognize some of them, and some I do, and then I look up and notice the voices are being screamed from the beaks of small birds of all different shapes and sizes. And I see the one that looks like katniss, because the eyes are hers, like the mutts in this year's games. She is staring at me with wide eyes, or at least the bird is. And suddenly I feel myself being lifted up off the ground and into the trees, and I am face to face with her, and then she too transforms, but it is into herself, rather than some mutt version of who she could be. She is dressed all in white, like a wedding dress, and I don't understand why she is in such an elaborate gown in the middle of the forest, but she is, and she is in a tree, and she couldn't have climbed up here with it on, so she must have flown. So she must be a bird, not Katniss. A mutt after all. But then she speaks, and I know it is her.
"You've failed, Finnick. It's your fault. All of this. You couldn't even do one little thing. Be the person Snow wanted you to be. You couldn't. And now so many people will die because of it. Because of you."
"No." I am whispering the word, but it isn't helping. She must be right. But she can't be, she can't be.
And then some animals I have never seen before spears her through the heart, and disappears into blackness, and I watch the light leave her eyes, as well as the hatred for me that is implanted within them.
And the birds take up their chorus of horror again, but this time only one stands out to me. Among the birds is a small white one, with gentle eyes, that can only be one person. Mags. And she too needs my help.
I leap out of the tree, even though I must be a thousand stories up, and land safely on the ground. And then I flee, because there is nothing else that I can do. I flee and leave the birds behind me, with their words that strike fear into my heart when I do not need it. I can not listen to them, not now. I can't.
But she follows me, always at my shoulder, never leaving, screaming words in my ear. Of failure, and of worthlessness. Mags. She won't leave me alone, until I run into a clearing, and see a table set up in the middle, and then she flies to the table, and lands on top of a woman, and then disappears. The woman has long white hair, and aging skin with wrinkles. Her eyes are closed, and I walk up to the table. Mags, the real Mags. And yet not. A fear strikes me, as I see the truth. She is not breathing. I frantically feel for a pulse, but there isn't one. She is dead, gone, and her body is cold. She has been here for a while.
I lay my head on the table and sob, not able to move, not able to think. And then water starts to build up at my feet, and pours into the clearing like a pool, and my body is lead, and I can not move. The water is at my chest, my neck. I am drowning. I will die here, like this. Unable to move or to breathe. It seems fitting.
The water covers me, engulfing me, and I can not breathe, but it doesn't matter. I am still alive, and I don't need breathe. I am just trapped. I watch Mags float up from the table, and then suddenly her eyes pop open, and her mouth drops in an unheard scream. And then the air fills with the scream, and I realize it is not hers.
It is mine.
And then her face begins to transform, as Annie's did. I don't understand at first. Color begins to fill her face again, a pinky red, filling her with life. And then everything darkens, and her hair turns the color of blood, and her face and neck all transform into the same inky red. I can taste it. Her blood, mingled with sea salt. And then another transformation. Her entire body contorts, and suddenly I am seeing nothing of Mags, but rather a perfect white flower, with a small drop of blood on one of its petals.
A rose.
A laugh fills the water. His laugh.
And then I am screaming, and thrashing, and I open my eyes and realize I have escaped. Not just the water, but the jungle world itself. The scream freezes in my throat. I try to relax, but I am still hazy and can't understand the truth. That it was just a dream. My body is tense, and I am cold, shivering, though the room itself is warm and I am covered in blankets. My body is shaking uncontrollably, and I am covered in sweat from head to toe. As I slowly reenter the world of the living, I whisper to myself, 'A dream, it was just a dream, only a dream. You are okay. Everyone is okay. Just a dream. A dream.' But I can not force myself to believe it, and all their words come back to haunt me. That I am the cause of everything that has happened. That it is me. That it is me.
I choke and swallow the bile that builds itself up in my throat. My heart will not stop beating at a thousand miles an hour, and my body will not stop shaking, and I can not pull myself fully from the world of dreams. The world of death.
I lay there for what seems like days, months, trying to get myself under control. Why isn't Annie here? Why isn't she here to comfort me, like I do when she wakes to nightmares of the arena? Then I remember that she is mad at me, that she isn't speaking to me, and my body is wracked by another wave of uncontrollable sobs at the thought that I could lose her. Because without her I am nothing, I am lost, and it would be my fault, and I can't stand it.
Finally, I am able to control myself enough to calm down. My heart is still beating irregularly, but not as fast, and I am still shaking, but not nearly as hard, and my mind is still racing, but not ending up in the same places it does when I first pull myself out of a nightmare.
I am broken. I understand this. I can never be whole again, but I can maybe be happy, if even for short periods of time. But I need Annie. I can never be happy again, even for a moment, without her. If there was one upside to the nightmare, it was this newfound knowledge, even though I have had it all along. I can not allow myself to lose her, no matter what it means. I can't. And so I turn, planning to stand up, to leave the room, and my eyes land on the nightstand beside my bed, and my heart stops. I know it does because I can no longer hear it, loudly in my ears, beating like a rabbit. For sitting on the side of my bed is a small, white rose.
And I am drowning again, and that is when I realize that I am still dreaming. That I never fully woke up, and that this is all a part of the nightmare. The unending nightmare perhaps, that will never be fully over until my body is six feet under and I have passed on to whatever comes after death. Of course I have not woken up. I should have known. There is only one thing that ever fully wakes me up from a nightmare of this magnitude. And it does not involve a slight pinch to shake myself awake. Because I am unconscious. Somewhere my mind registers this fact, and I realize what I have to do to fully wake myself from this haze. And my body begins to shake again as I recall.
It appears in front of me. The silver trident. The same one that was sent to me in a parachute in my own games. The most expensive gift ever sent, and the one that both guaranteed my victory, and also the first person that I would ever spend a night with. Because what better way to say thank you for saving my life, right? Or at least, in the mind of the President. But still, I reach for the trident, and when my fingers touch it, I am back in my own game. In the arena that traps me far to often. In the arena that signified my fate, and the life that I will always live. The life that I will never be able to escape, no matter what. Ever.
The sky is dark, as it always is. I follow a path that is familiar under my feet, because I have had this same nightmare thousands of times before, and I know what I must do. But it doesn't make it any easier. It gets harder each time.
I step into a clearing, much like the one with the table, and Mags. The trees close in on me, and as always, there is no more escape. My fate lies here.
A young woman appears in the middle, and she turns, her green eyes staring into my own.
Annie.
She is draped in a white dress, like Katniss was. It is different every time, but this one looks like a wedding dress. She is a bride. Who's bride? My mind shuts itself down, so I don't need to think about it.
She runs to me, and wraps her arms around me, as she does every time. I let my own arms hand by my side, unable to return her affection, knowing what I must do next. A light fills the sky, and the Capitol anthem fills the air, and then a voice. But instead of the voice of Caesar Flickerman, the Capitol interviewer, who it has always been, the voice now belongs to someone else. At first I can't place it, and then I realize it is my own. And I want to scream.
My voice speaks, but it can't be mine, because I am not using my voice. The air fills with the words that are both mine and not mine. And I don't understand.
"You must kill her, if you are to survive." the words are the same as usual, only the voice is different. And then the President's laugh fills the arena. Also new. Strange.
I used to fight it, to try to find some way to save us both, but it just prolonged the dream, and it always ended the same way. Now I know what I have to do, and I don't waste time. I raise my trident, and am about to close my eyes and thrust it, when she speaks. She has never spoken to me before.
"Wait."
I stop, and lower my arm immediately. I feel sick.
She holds out her arm, and uncurls her fingers. What I see both astonishes me and fills me with joy. Because it seems that not only has Katniss given us a spark, she has also given me a greater hope, and a way of escape. Because in her hand, Annie holds the same berries Katniss used to save herself and Peeta.
Nightlock.
I grab them, wrapping my fingers around them, and take Annie's hand in my own. We stand together, and count.
"One." I say.
"Two." she responds.
"Three." Our voices overlap on this last word. This command. And I lift my hand to my mouth and swallow the berries, and she does as well. We will not survive this, but perhaps it will end the nightmare.
It gives me a feeling of relief, either way.
And when I wake for real, I feel a hand encased in mine, and a voice soothing me. And when I open my eyes, I am looking into Annie's and she leans down and kisses me gently.
"I'm sorry," she whispers,"I understand now. I love you."
Those are the words I have always wanted to hear.
And I realize that as she saved me in the dream, from the command to kill her, she is here, saving me again. But the thing is, when people save one another, it is usually from a threat to their life, or from a physical or mental threat from someone or something else. But that isn't how it is with Annie and me. We have never been normal.
No, Annie does not save me from anything physical, but what she does save me from, I could never fight without her. I need her, beyond anything else in the world.
She saves me from myself.
I lean in and kiss her again, and repeat the words,"I love you. I love you, Annie."
And she smiles gently, and wraps her arms around me, and leans in beside me, and we stay that way, wrapped in each others arms, for a long time.
And when the Capitol attendant enters my room, with two things, neither affect me as I thought they would. Only because of Annie.
"Mags will pull through. She will never be the same, but she will pull through."
Then the young man hands me a white rose, and says that it was sent from someone. He doesn't know who, but it came with a message that said I would understand.
And I do. Mags will survive. Annie and I are together, and nothing can separate us. I may be broken, but I too will survive, and I will play a part in the rebellion that will bring down Snow forever. This rose was meant to hurt me, yet again, but it hasn't. In fact, it has the opposite effect. It makes me stronger, and gives me more reason to hate him. Snow.
I take the rose in my hand, and look at Annie. She too, understands what this means, and I realize I will need to tell her the truth, because I can no longer keep it from her. And relief fills me, because it means I don't need to keep the truth to myself any longer.
But I do the one thing that I am capable of. I take the rose in my fist and crush it, letting the liquid inside it run slowly down my hand, and feeling the thorns push themselves into my palm. I may be injured when I defeat him, but I can defeat him, and isn't that all that matters? That and love.
So I wrap my arms around Annie again, and pull her in.
And this time, when we kiss, it is a kiss full of passion and love and loyalty and hope. It signifies our love in a way nothing has for a long time. And I know that I will never lose her. Ever.
Our lips do not break apart for a long time.