My eyes are fixed on the hole in the world where Gale used to be. My heart is somewhere tangled in my throat.
No, I think, This can't be. This didn't happen. What just happened?!
"Gale!" I scream. I think, but I can't hear my voice. "Gale! Gale! Gale! Please! No! Gale! Gale! Please! No!" I can't lose you. My mind races. I can't lose you!
My hands fly to the ground and I violently push myself up. My legs scatter beneath me until I found the ground.
"Gale!" I scream again and again. "Gale!"
I'm out of touch with reality. The world is moving so slowly. I can't hear a thing. I try to make sense of what happened. But my mind is moving both forward and backward. I'm flooding with worry about all the possible outcomes and at the same time I try to figure out what just happened. The thoughts collide and nothing makes sense.
Please be okay, please be okay.
Where did that cat come from? How did Gale know?
Please be okay. Please.
I start running towards the cliff's edge and see blood smeared on the ground.
That's from the buck, right?
It's too far from the deer. It's not his blood.
Then is it his blood?
Please don't be Gale's blood. Please don't be Gale's blood.
Why did he try and save me? Why does he always have to try and save me?
Tears stream down my face as I realize I might have just lost my best friend. No. Not my best friend. Gale is the most important person in the world to me. My mother and Prim, they are family, but there is no one closer in the world to me that Gale. No one who's done as much for me as Gale. We know each other better than we know anyone else. In better ways than we know anyone else. He's not just my best friend, he's my soul mate. I love him, and I can't imagine a world without him. I can't imagine a world without him knowing this.
"Gale," I cry as I approach the cliff's edge. I barely stop myself in time to not go falling over the edge myself.
I might as well, I think, if Gale's…
Don't think that. He's not…
Dead. The word hits me harder than a stone.
You can't be dead, I think angrily, I can't live without you! I don't know who I am without you! These words tear through me like a bullet, ripping at my insides. I feel like I'm falling apart. Like every atom is crumbling and I'm going to implode like a star.
Please, Gale, you can't be dead. I can't live without you! I love you!
The words and the thought explode from me as if somehow they can move faster than time. Reach back to before this happened. Let Gale know. Maybe change what happened.
How can I have been so stupid to have not realized this before? How could I have wasted so much time? Made him go so long without him knowing?
"Gale!" I scream. I prepare myself for what I might see as I look over the cliff. I take a deep breath and gulp as I peer downward.
"God, no. Gale"
He is laying about ten or fifteen feet below me.
Surrounded by blood.
YOU ARE READING
Into the Woods
Fanfiction"We could do it, you know." "What?" "Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it." After Katniss returns from the Hunger Games, she must confront the consequences of her actions, and when its obvious she's failed...
