☆ CHAPTER  FORTY ONE ! ☆
041. a long sleep

|| SHUTTER ISLAND ||
❝Goodness Gracious,
I'm replaceable,
you say that I'm
too crazy, I guess
you were right. ❞

➳➳

PEETA LOOKED LIKE he hadn't eaten in months.

Had it been months? Had time slipped between the cracks of my hands so fast that I’d failed to noticed the months that would age me and those that I held closest? Had the days counted into weeks, which went by without giving the boy whose screams were once the harshest thing I could imagine a visitor? Were his eyes, that I’d been told now glisten with a layer of depravity, not the same entangled blue eyes that’d once stared in at me from a distance in the hopes of once again being able to give me a comforting hand? His hair was now brown, but was it time that had forced out the blonde that reminded me of cornsilk despite the coarse texture?

Surely it couldn’t have been a month.

I knew there were gaps; some large enough to leave me grasping for one minute out of an entire year so I could emerge from beneath a wall of grey smoke. Before Katniss, and the heat, it was hard to put faces and details together in any real order that didn’t seem wildly out of place. Even now, I questioned whether I would be able to push this girl away from harm, or if my arms were too weak. But when I looked at the boy- the baker who was a stone compared to my polished glass- it was hard to imagine somebody like him being friends with a person who could barely take care of her own needs.

But it was all so confusing. It could've been a month; if I had my life to put on it, I would do so in the hopes of finally coming to a definitive answer. I would bet my life on almost any assumption I’ve made just to finally know something was real.
I hoped the skeleton of the boy I remembered could tell me.

Gently, I shook the boy awake until his eyes sprung open and he snatched a deep breath from the surrounding air. For a second it looked like he’d forgotten where he was. You could almost see the switch, when his legs curled into himself and his neck lulled back so the crown of his head was rustling against one of the chipped concrete walls. It took a moment for his eyes to open again, but when they did, the depravity I’d been warned about took it’s form as a rush of energy and exhaustion.

"Lorna?" Peeta whispers struggled to claw into my ears.

"Peeta, what have they do to you.”

I’d failed to consider that once I’d met somebody who knew me, I’d feel like I’d forgotten more than I felt in the confines of my room. I thought I remembered him, and the way it would feel to cup his cheek and watch the blood rush to the tip of his nose and below his eyes, but even that had been outdated. His cheekbone was so utterly prominent that I could feel it against my palm as I tried to give him some of my life, some of the energy that I had stolen from him in the time I’d forgotten he was like this- the month that I had spent only thinking about myself.

"I had to warn them Lorna. I had to- Katniss needs to be safe. I thought they’d killed you ... and I just assumed I’d be next. I never thought you could be here, I never thought that you’d... I’m so sorry. I’ve put us all in more danger.”

He was searching- no clawing- for forgiveness as he wrapped both his hands around my forearms for support and dug his nails into my porcelain skin. He was searching too; just like I was searching for some familiarity in the mess, he was looking for comfort from somebody who could barely remember his crime. Or more importantly, who they were that he’d put above his own survival. I was in no position to forgive him- I was in no position to tell him what he wanted to hear.
 
It was clear I’d already sabotaged the one solid plan I had come up with when I doubted TR, who's face I could no longer picture in my mind. This would give me nothing but questions, and perhaps unhinge my friend even more if I continued to pretend that I remembered the moments which brought us together.

"Who do you mean by ‘them’? Who did you have to warn?" I asked softly as I glanced down at my hands. Peeta already looked so exhausted; that made the overbearing reality that he would now carry the burden of my problems much worse to rationalise with. It was hardly fair; none of this was fair.
“What do you mean? Lorna our friends, Fin-“

"-Peeta, something has happened to me. Something terrible." I stressed as I desperately watched the once almond ring in his eyes fade impossibly more. "I lost myself- I can’t remember anyone, or anything living before the Hunger Games. It’s all so foggy, and when I try to think about any- anything other than those people. I just can’t. I can barely remember the people who helped me in there. Just the dead. . . and this.” I couldn’t admit to my crimes. I could barely lift my pristine white shirt to show him the scar that I assumed he already knew was there.

Was it heart-breaking that this was immense progress? The fact I remembered the Games, and those that I’d destroyed, was the most progress I could ever remember achieving in one night. But it seemed this progress came at a price. As I tried to recall the rest of what I’d remembered, it came out much hazier than before- almost like somebody has erected a wall of ice in between me and the mental notes I’d been relying on. The allies, the scents, the tastes of anything not directly to do with the dreaded Hunger Games had been sacrificed for absolute clarity on those weeks on what I’d done with those weeks in an arena.

It was pure luck that once I'd seen his face, Peeta Mallark's existence was reminded to me.

“Then it’s a little cloudy. But . . . I remember that interview with you before Snow took me away! And something about a wrong side. I think-” For a moment, I failed to find the right words that would tell this boy that it wasn’t my faut. That I had no control over the things I chose to remember.

“I think I messed up, but I don’t even know who it is I need to apologise to.”

Sympathy looked tragic on him. It was a sympathy that made me feel like a baby bird who’d failed to fly; like a liability that had done just as well as anybody could’ve hoped of her under the circumstances. But he was in these circumstances too. Peeta had kept himself in control, and still resembled the boy that flashed across my mind if I delt with the aches a little longer than was necessary, despite the grimy tint to his skin. But I was fine. My hair, that the baker hadn’t taken his eyes off since he recognised my presence, was the only change, and it was still as well kept and pure as it would’ve been if I hadn’t been imprisoned in a singular room for months. My skin was still pure, and my intentions could remain consistent if it wasn’t for my own damned confusion. I was trying to find an excuse for something that was inexcusable.

"You don't remember Finnick?" Peeta talked slowly.

"No. I know that I know that name somewhere but-"

"-What about Lillian?"

It was well within his rights to ask. I knew that, but I also knew that with each new name it sent a shock that resembled being plunged into ice-cold water on the scolding summer’s day. Bu how was he to know? I’d never told him.

" I know I come from a District." I stated, desperately trying to redeem my mistakes as I unintentionally glided from his face to the crack in the concrete behind him. "Do you know which one? Or anything at all about it?"

"You came from District 5."

That time the shock was instant. I could feel the lightning that rocketed across my spine as pictures of my District came back to me in a slideshow of buildings and sounds. I could see the many power plants that pushed white smoke into the air throughout the seasons and the small hints at a forest in in the blank space between blinks, while the main town flashed in and out of focus. There was a beautiful square filled with polished stone and little shops, then a building partly destroyed where everything was covered in mud and a chaotic blend of metals and wood. I remembered that I was there once. I remembered that I adored the broken mess of a roof more than the intangible safety of bricks.

"Power." I mumbled. Although I was thinking out loud, Peeta nodded his head to ensure I was convinced by my own memories. "Peeta, are you ok?"

I wasn’t watching him anymore. I didn’t think anybody was truly watching Peeta anymore, now that his arms had turned into bones and his face was ripe with purple marks, but it seemed like he was more aware of that than I was. He had let his sympathy drop into despair, and had given himself permission to guard the parts of him that my new form shouldn’t logically be allowed to inspect. He had remembered what it was like to be cautious, and yet he gave me everything I’d asked for anyway.

"When you disappeared, we spent days screaming for them to bring you back. At first, they didn’t really care, but after a day or so, they stood and laughed at us as we clawed at the floor and tried to get the attention of somebody in charge. But after a couple of days I think they’d gotten bored of us, and began to take things each hour we made noise. It started with heat, and then food, and then eventually, they stopped bringing us anything at all. But Johanna- she didn’t ever stop. She thought they’d killed you, and she couldn't live with it. When they took her away too, I thought she’d be next.”

He was crying. Silently sure, but his cheeks were strained enough for it to look ridiculously clear when the door opened and a Peacekeeper allowed the light from the hallway to show me the cowering form of a friend. He’d pushed himself into the corner in the hopes of falling into it, but instead, the wall just pushed against his bones until they were crying too. I had no time to comfort the boy like he’d comforted me. I had no time to reach out for his hand and feel what it was like to touch real skin instead of a glove; the Peacekeeper was adamant about keeping to his timed schedule.

"Time to go." TR730 commanded as he kicked the bloody sheets towards me.

“I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Just hang on a little longer.” I promised the boy, who had returned to the silence I had found him in as I searched for the fabric that would grant me an escape. I wasn’t entirely sure if I could do it- hell I wasn’t entirely sure I knew where home was- but it felt like the only thing I could say to stop the onslaught of tears. He deserved the tears to stop; Peeta Mellark deserved everything that was left in the world for his kindness.

••••••••••
2017 words

I don't think y'all ready for What's happening next.

EDITED: 30/5/2019 @15:11