Hello, and welcome to Butterfly Weeds!

Note: this story will contain themes of depression and acephobia throughout. Please proceed with caution if these are triggers for you.

It's 3am. Again. And here I am, lying awake in my bed instead of sleeping like a normal person. Because that's what normal people do. They sleep through the night instead of coming to consciousness multiple times and just staring up at the ceiling in the darkness.

One would think that being on sleeping pills would help me. I would've thought so too. I don't know, perhaps I'm just doomed to nights of tossing and turning in my bed, tangling myself up in my blanket, and just squeezing my eyes shut until I do eventually pass out and wake up a few hours later if I'm lucky.

There's a part of me that wants to just say fuck it and go get my laptop to work on my school assignments. Sure it's a weird time to be working on them, still I might as well get something productive if I'm gonna be awake anyways. But I have no desire to move. I never have a desire to move. It's like the bed always has a magic spell on me, binding me to its covers, and I can never break free.

I shut my eyes again and just will myself to go back to sleep, at least for another three or four more hours. Waking up in the morning will already be as difficult as it is.

My eyes are wide open an hour before my alarm is set to go off. I throw the blanket to the wayside, quickly retrieve my phone, and begin to scroll through Capitolcord. Not really any new messages, none that are interesting to me anyways. I then close the app because I don't have anything particularly interesting to add to the conversations. Some days, I feel like being in a sassier mood, but this isn't one of those days. Besides, conversations always seem to happen without me.

I decide to check up on a couple of idle games I installed recently, since those take up less of my time. Are they boring? A little. But they're just mindless entertaining and sometimes that's all I really need. Then I open Capitolcord again. No new messages, and I suppose it's on me to expect that. Jeez, Tati, it's only been twenty minutes since you last looked. Who's even up at this ungodly hour anyway!?

Oh yeah. Me.

I should probably get out of bed, I think to myself, going back to staring up at the ceiling. I have so much shit that I need to get done. Exam season is coming up in three weeks and if I don't want to just barely squeak by, I might as well get a head start on my studying. Not to mention all the assignments I still have to work on. And then maybe I can fit some writing in as well. My Brick Warriors fanfiction on Capitoldemia has been doing nicely, but not exactly pulling in the views I would've liked.

That's what I get for writing about a rarepair anyways.

With all this work that is piling up and all this time that's slipping away by me just lying here, one would think I'd feel a sense of urgency to hop out of bed, wash up, and start working on meeting those deadlines. Or at the very least, updating my fanfictions. I feel no sense of urgency. No worry. No stress. Well, I do feel stressed, but not enough to do anything about it except lie here and continue to look up.

I feel nothing. Just numbness all the way through.

I need to go to the bathroom. That's the urge that finally pushes me out of my bed and from my room. I grab the first stall on the dorm floor's communal washroom, do what I need to do, then head back to my room. Then I lie back down in bed. I feel tired. I'm always tired. No energy to move, no energy to be productive, no energy to even scroll through my phone that sits almost forgotten next to my pillow.

I make a halfhearted attempt to retrieve my laptop and open up my group presentation. We're presenting on the history of the 74th Hunger Games next Thursday and half of our slides still aren't filled in. I just write some quick info on the backstory of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, only so I can say I contributed my piece and actually did something for today. I know the details or barebones, but I can edit it later.

Well, if I just continue to lie here, then at least I can still say I was somewhat productive.

My stomach growls. Shit, I forgot that I need to eat breakfast. I barely had much dinner last night, because I didn't have it in me to stomach anything, and now current Tati is paying the price for past Tati's lack of appetite. I open up the small fridge in my dorm room and pull out a packaged croissant that I was wise enough to grab from the college cafe yesterday, having foreseen a little of what my morning would be like.

It's a simple breakfast, but it does the trick. Plus, it's bread. Who doesn't like bread? I like bread. It's simple and tasty in almost any form.

Now it's time to take my meds; I have learned the hard way in the past that taking them after I've gotten some food in me helps to reduce the more serious side effects a little. I crack one of the pills in half, because that's much easier than sifting through the bottle to find one that's already been split. Then I gulp down my required dosage of antidepressants, only needing a small sip of water to chase down the tiny pills.

I suddenly feel a jitter form in my right leg. Yep. The pills are working alright.

Now, what the hell am I supposed to do with myself? The logical option would be to go back to finishing my schoolwork and getting that stupid presentation done, but I just…simply don't feel like doing it. I can maybe go visit my friends in the visual arts building, assuming they're there, of course. But it's the weekend, and those who don't live on campus have already gone home. It's just me in my little dorm room, with only my phone and laptop for company.

I just lie back down and flop around on my bed. God, having no energy sucks and makes every single day a slog to get through. I find myself scrolling through Capitolcord yet again. One of my friends has posted a picture of her and her boyfriend kissing each other's cheeks. I immediately exit the app upon sight. I don't feel like viewing that. God, why do people in relationships always gotta be so gross about it? It always gets so awkward to watch them play tonsil hockey in public.

I try to will myself into falling back asleep yet again; it's still early enough that I think if I nap for a few more hours, it won't make a big deal. Not like I have anything planned tomorrow. No classes, no due assignments, nothing. Another day of me just holed up in my room, alone and empty.

I'm tired of this. But I can't bring myself to do anything else.

"Just one more week," I tell myself. One more week until my family is coming from the main city to visit me on campus. One more week until I can finally have people I can feel authentic around, let my walls down around, show how much of a wreck I am. They already know; there's no point in hiding it. Not like how I hide from my friends, who always seem to have these picture-perfect lives where everything goes smoothly and nobody ever feels like they're on the verge of a breakdown all the fucking time.

I hate myself for this. For feeling like I'm wasting my day. I know that I'm lucky, and that I should be grateful. I'm Tatiana fucking Tremblay, I'm the daughter of the Head Gamemaker, for crying out loud! My family is one of the top five richest in all of Panem! My parents are willing to support the fact that I want to be a history major, a degree about as useful as wearing all white in a District 12 coal mine. But I have that freedom. The freedom to study what I want, to get my own room in the campus dorms, to never have to worry about the costs of anything…

So why is life such a chore to go through? Why does it take so much out of me to live?

Meet our main character for story, Tatiana Tremblay! She may or may not be me self projecting onto a Capitolite, haha.

Anyways, reviews on this story would be greatly appreciated! Just do please be considerate if you do review, as this is a very personal story to me for several reasons.

Thank you and see you next chapter,

-Vr