This wasn't on her paper; she hasn't even unfolded it yet. The crowd tilts their heads, wanting to be angry but maybe, maybe, having to force it.
"In my first Games, I had an ally named Anika Diaspura."
They don't care. They don't care. They don't care.
"I considered us friends."
As her word spill, she feels Anika standing next to her. Her presence is back. She feels, she hears,everything about Anika.
"Friend come to me with an open heart; come with feet that bleed. Friend come with a mind nor in future or past; come nestle your soul in the now. Friend come neither asking nor giving; come and let us be. Friend trust that I will be your safe harbor; come to one who sees. You were my friend Roma. But we were allies too."
"But we were allies too. And in the Arena, everyone is trying to survive."
Roma can feel Anika's hand on her shoulder. "If your guilt tears at your heart, rips at your insides, you are already forgiven. You've forgiven me. What makes you think Kade won't forgive you? Come sit and belong."
"Anika killed me in my sleep. And I have the chance to come to life again and forgive her."
"They're not going to believe that," Anika says, "explain more. Tell them."
"Grainne was my ally. I believed we were friends. She was the one who chose to save Kade Ruan."
"They're listening. Go on."
"I pushed Grainne to her death. Some say it was persuasion, some say it was by choice. I don't believe either of them. I was convinced that it was for the better. Convinced by Anika."
She sees Mia's eye-roll from her peripheral vision, but she goes on anyhow.
"It was just Kade and me then. It was Kade and me for a while. He was hard to read. He was hard to understand where he came from."
He came from here. The slums of District Twelve, or maybe the high class here- she didn't know.
"We-"
"We were lost children. We wanted to be found. So we decided to play hide and seek." Anika speaks.
"We were just lost kids," Roma copies Anika's words. "We just wanted to go home. Kade said the devil had a hold of him. I didn't know what that meant, but I tried to relate to it with my own life."
"Keep doing him justice."
"He no longer feared death, only where would he go. He said he had sinned so much; he would understand if the Lord sent him to the pits of hell for the things he had done, or so he told him. Or would God forgive him because he knows his heart, knows he was just another innocent soul that allows himself to be persuaded by wrong things?"
Roma can't tell what the audience thinks. They stand there, resting their gazes on her as she speaks nonsense words.
"I-I think I miss him."
The responses are a mixture of emotions. Fake smiles. Real pity. Pure hatred. Roma opens her crumpled paper and clears her throat.
"I wrote what I was feeling about him. I think it's a poem, but it's just- something I thought I could say."
The sun was escaping. The sunset threatening to dip behind the horizon, firstly cascading a prim bombardment of colors that were flung over the sky with terrible alacrity. The receding blue and oranges battled the blackness pushing it away with arms. It shone on the lake below shining its deep depths. The radiant glow scintillated and beamed: the legacy of the sun. The sun omniscient omnipotent left hanging in the crisp air it floated downwards like a deflated balloon.
☠Roma Thorne's Fading☠
Start from the beginning
