Fanfiction

Her arms are wrapped around me, warm and familiar, while my world falls apart. The wind has taken control of my hair, sending it dancing over my face and crawling against my mother's chest.
The waves crash against the small boat with so much force I feel like they try to swallow it. Drag it into the depths of this sea and take us with it.
I turn my eyes to the faces around me. Frightened little children holding on to their parents or older siblings. A woman holding her toddler. He can't be much older than three. The grown-ups look like they're made of stone. Ready to be the crosses for our graves in the deep water. They knew. When we stepped onto this floating graveyard, they knew we might not get to our destination. That we could become food for the sea. A sacrifice to the blue. Turn it red.
"Beatrice. Beatrice, are you okay?"
"Yes, mom."
I'm going to die. Six years old and I'm going to die.
"Caleb?" I ask. My voice is tight, unwilling to give away my fear.
"Yeah."
"Can you tell me a story?"
"You can't ask--"
I look him in the eyes, pleading. This one time. This last time.
"Fine. Once upon a time--" he begins.
The women with the boy in her arms starts a story too, and I tune Caleb out and turn to her, hungry for new material. The Abnegation rarely tell stories, but Caleb  used to sneak into my room when I couldn't sleep. When we still had a house. When we were still safe.
The woman talks quietly first, but I manage to catch the words.
"Once, when dragons still lived in the sky and kings still ruled our lands, a boy was born. His father and mother were poor..." It's a folks tale, old, retold over and over by the fire. Whispered into small ears. A tale of a hero.
The wind howls harder and fear finally overcomes me. I hold my mother tighter, my skinny arms like a cage around her waist. Tears stream down my cheeks.
"Mom, I don't want to die."
Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it.



Prim is still holding my hand, but her grip is slacking with every passing minute. The Mockingjay is working her way across the world, away from the war. No one knew I'd be able to slip away with Prim and my mother. I can imagine Plutarch and Coin now, wondering where I've gone. What their precious firebird is doing at this very moment.
Dying. Dying is my answer.
My mother's precise hand lays on my shoulder, still quite strong. She's not as young as Prim. She hasn't spent her youth as hungry. I felt bad about taking her with me, but I didn't trust her in a fight between Coin and Snow. The last thing we need is another Peeta. Gale didn't want to come. He wasn't afraid. He wanted to kill Snow for me. For 12. I didn't want anything else than Prim. She had to live.
Her fingers continue to relax.
I should've never fled 13. I should've never stepped into this stupid truck.
But maybe it's better this way. The girl on fire, the raindrop, and the healer. All suffocating together.
"Katniss?" a weak voice asks me.
"Yes, Prim." I sound nearly as badly as she does. My lungs have met with too much smoke over time.
"Can you sing?"
I miss our mockingjays. This driving coffin has only one.
"Deep in the meadow
under the willow
a bed of--"
My voice falls away. I fall away.
I feel Prim shaking my shoulder, my mother bursting into tears.
I'm sorry you have to watch me die, mom.
There's no light to see by, no fire to ignite me with.
The last thing I hear, of course, is Prim.
"No, Katniss! No! You can't go!"

Gus held me tightly.
Two cancer survivors who had healed through miracles. Their healthy daughter just ten years old. What got them killed? A freakin' thunderstorm. That's what got them killed.
Olive held me like I was the last thing that tied her to Earth.
"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend," I said with a weak smile.
Gus laughed. He pulled out his authentic Augustus Waters voice, the one that made you love him before you'd even turned around to take in his natural incredibleness, and screamed so loudly the whole ship would be able to hear, "all losses are restored and sorrows end!"
A nervous giggle escaped me, one I'd once used for too short skirts I'd had to try on.
Even we apparently couldn't make this situation less horrible.
I kissed Olive's soft brown hair and spinned her around to face me.
"Did I ever tell you I loved you?"
"A million times." She choked on the words like they were gravel in her mouth.
"I'm going to tell you again."
Augustus took her free hand and squeezed it encouragingly.
"We should've taken our rubber boat with us. I feel like I'm on the Titanic."
Nope, we didn't change.
Olive didn't cry. She wore our flesh and was filled with our bones. So she recited a poem. The one from her birth card. (The last part was obviously not on her birth card.)
"so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

so much depends
upon

a wooden
boat

without the yellow
rubber boats

now we all
need to swim."
"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man," I said to Gus while the waves grew higher and higher, "but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices."
"I hope she likes hers," he said to me.
Olive turned to me and her father, smiled at us. A broken smile. But her words put it together.
"I do, Augustus. I do."

I don't usually write any fanfiction, but this felt important to me.

After posting this message. I realized the following part contains spoilers for Allegiant, Mockingjay, and the Fault in Our Stars. I'm so smart...

So you may ask yourself why I'm killing (or re-killing or pre-killing) some of our favorite characters.
If you hadn't noticed yet, in these three pieces I have put some beloved book characters in the place of dying refugees. I thought it'd be interesting.
One of my teachers wanted us to look at the photo of the little boy from Syria. The class was silent for five minutes and then we went on with our lives. And that got me thinking.
We all find this super sad (of course) but we don't really weep for the cruelty of what's actually happening here.

This happened for months every other freakin' day.

Following picture might be disturbing to sensitive readers (even though you all already saw it).

Getting back to your rational question: Yes, I killed (pre-killed/re-killed) Tris, Tris' mom, Caleb, Katniss, Katniss' mom, Prim, Augustus, Hazel, and Olive. (I needed a parents perspective and a name. No judging.) Now I'm not saying you cried reading my crappy fanfiction that makes no sense whatsoever. (What was I supposed to say: "The Erudite decided it was better to attack before Tris would become badass."?) But imagine Veronica Roth's magical fingers had touched my keyboard. Imagine Katniss had really suffocated in a truck with seventy other people. Imagine there had been a medicine that put out the Christmas tree in Gus' chest and then this would have happened.

We all cried buckets of tears when Tris died. I sobbed myself silly when Prim burst into flames. We were all irreparably broken after reading tFiOS's beautiful last page. But when we hear yet another boat has sunk, I feel like we don't really think about what those people go through and how their last moments looked.

Now I'm not going to force you to sob in your pillow every time another two thousand people have to walk 200 kilometers on foot with pregnant women and toddlers, but I think awareness is one of the most important steps in solving a problem. (I also really wanted to try and write some fanfiction...)

Side note: This blog is not very popular (duh...), but I got a very pleasant surprise lately, noticing a lot of page views from the Ukraine. I don't know where it comes from (I have no friends and family or any connections in the region), but it totally made my day. So a special thanks to whoever is reading these posts. (: