(i feel like i've been living in a city with no children in it)

[burnwithus]

Has it really been a year? I wasn’t expecting it to pass by so quickly, not when every day was a battle. But it has to be true, because I counted the days, not knowing why. Something to keep me busy, I guess. Keeping the madness away used to be a priority for me at one point

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[curiously_cora]

"What are you doing?" Coraline asked curiously, peering at Katniss as she clamboured onto a desk and sat cross legged. Pulling her notebook and a flower out of her bag, holding it in one hand and balancing her notebook on her knee Coraline began to sketch it. Making a face as she held the flower, Coraline began to absentmindedly scratch her her fingers and hand as she continued to hold it not realising her hand and fingers were turning a prickly shade of red. "Are you doing homework? Only school's not starting for ages."

[burnwithus]

I have no way of making this look beautiful. My hands are clumsy and my handwriting turns out crabbed and lopsided. I crumple that sheet of paper, reaching for a fresh one, and I'm so intent on it that I don't even notice her there.

When I do it's like looking at a ghost. Except that if the pages in front of me are any proof, Prim's gone and can't be brought back. "I'm not doing homework," I was never good at school, anyways. It didn't matter, in the Seam.

[curiously_cora]

"Well, what are you doing then?" Coraline asked curiously, her face scrunching up as she rubbed her hand a little more insistently. Her fingers tingled but she hadn't quite connected that yet with the rather beautiful flower. "Can I help?"

[burnwithus]

The motion catches my eye and I frown, eyes traveling from her red hand to the plant. I don't recognize it, but it isn't difficult to make the connection. I put my pen down carefully, trying to avoid splotching onto the page but it doesn't work. "Put the flower down. Now," it comes out sharper than I meant it to, but she's reacting quickly to it and I can't help but think the worst.

I'm not a healer, like my mother. But there are things that even I know, and it hurts too much to think about my mother anyways, so I push back the automatic associations that cross my mind whenever someone is injured. Wishing she were here, wishing I knew what to do. Luckily, this doesn't look serious.

[girlsolo]

Kate hates the Compound. It's gray and boring and a magic clothing box, jukebox, and bookshelf can't make it compare to the Sanctuary. She misses the attic (an the library, don't tell Magnus), Biggie's cooking, Sally and Ralphie and the nubbins. She misses her room and her bed, the windows, the nooks and crannies, Magnus's office...

And it doesn't fucking matter. She never should've gotten attached, and she'll just have to learn to lie to herself again. Learn to believe none of it matters. She's still got everything she needs to survive, so she needs to stop whining.

"Suck it up, Freelander," she mutters at herself, passing through the rec room. Suck it up, or she's going to end up scrapbooking, journaling, or pouring her heart out on Will's couch.

[burnwithus]

There's so much that I've already forgotten. Details that wouldn't matter to anyone else, but that I can't let go of. What the boy from District 1 looked like, the one that I killed. I skip over him for now. I hear her come into the room, but the fact that she's talking to herself doesn't even rate high in my mind.

I barely look up from the page, still trying to remember the exact shade of Lady's coat and the way Prim looked with her arms around the goat. With the days blurring into each other, it's no surprise that I've forgotten.

The idea is terrifying.

[girlsolo]

The girl with the journal or the scrapbook catches Kate's attention mostly because she's not talking, not looking, and there's a self-protectiveness to the set of her shoulders that Kate recognizes. She recognizes the don't fuck with me in her face, too.

She passes by, closer than she would normally, the same instincts that have kept her alive for years guiding her toward this girl. She doesn't sit down, doesn't wave, doesn't intrude, just offers a quiet, "Hey," and a tip of her chin, when she's near enough not to have to be loud.

[burnwithus]

One year ago I made a vow to hate those monsters that called themselves human beings, even if I was one myself. On the island, it almost worked. For a while. But then people started creeping in, people with kind smiles and words. Kind people are the worst, and I almost want to hate them the most even though I can't.

She doesn't look as innocent as the rest of them, though. I square my shoulders, tense. She's too close and I don't like it one bit. Even here on the island, I expect to hear the sounds of gunfire every morning. Something this good has to be taken away sooner or later.

"...What?" it's unfriendly and I know it. And even that hasn't been enough to put most of the islanders off.

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason's never much cared for the Compound, but since getting reacquainted with his coffin he likes it less than ever, the thick concrete walls too close and the lights too bright. He gets in and out as fast as he can, but today he stops in the rec room on a whim, wondering if he'll find Lux hard at work again.

He finds Katniss instead, doing something he's never before seen her do, and Jason pauses in the door, his last step deliberately loud so as not to startle her. "Journal?"

[burnwithus]

I hear him coming. He doesn't think I do, I can tell by the way his steps grow louder when we both know he can move more quietly than anyone else. I look up from the page, still trying to picture the exact shade of sea green that used to be Finnick Odair's eyes. Wishing I had some paint to put on the page so I could lock the color into my memory.

"No," journals were where people wrote about themselves. There wouldn't be anything to write in mine, anyways. Today I woke up and went hunting. The same nightmare. No screaming, this time. My neighbors are finally getting a break.

"Can you draw?"

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason grunts, considering this as he slides into the seat across from her. "I don't know." He used to sketch out his plans, buildings and blueprints and the placement of bombs. He got by okay, but he couldn't say that he's good, and unpracticed seems the same as unskilled in this instance.

"Probably not. Why?"

[burnwithus]

It wouldn't matter anyways, I tell myself. Jason has never seen the things I want to record. He wouldn't know what I was talking about. And this feels like something I should do alone, now that Haymitch is not here to help me and Peeta is not the same. It won't look pretty, because I don't have an eye for beauty like Peeta does, or Cinna did, but it will work and that's what counts.

I hesitate before explaining to him. But trusting him is something I do on instinct now, even if I don't know why. "I'm making a
book. Writing everything down so I won't forget."

[halfscarlet]

Though school had yet to start (sign ups hadn't even begun yet), Billy had an idea of the classes he wanted, and when not hanging out or being distracted by Tony, he spent his time finding books on subjects that interested him, slowly building up what was going to become his study in his extra room in his new home.

He'd been poring over a physics text, trying to figure out if it was worth taking more classes for. It seemed hard, but maybe it would be worth it, on some level - he still admired Tony Stark and Reed Richards, no matter what they've done in the past.

Having had enough of text books and with his ass numb from sitting so low in his seat, Billy packs his books up and slings his backpack on, not noticing Katniss until he walks toward her on his way out. He slows to a stop, wondering what she's doing, but not nosy enough to attempt to look over her shoulder. "Hey."

[burnwithus]

There are always people in the rec room, I realize, even though I haven't spent much time inside of it. This was the wrong place to write these things on an island full of nosy people. Either way, I stop in the middle of a description of Boggs' gruff smile, pen clattering to a stop on the desk.

"...Hey," Billy's persistent. I know this from the past, but I'm not sure I care, somehow. He's good enough company, and he's not as nosy as some of the island's other residents. It could be much worse.

[halfscarlet]

Though he isn't invited (and invitations from Katniss are few and far between), Billy sits in a nearby chair, keeping his bag on his shoulder just in case she asks him to leave. "What're you up to?"

[burnwithus]

"Making a book," my handwriting is messy and cramped from holding the pen for too long. Prim always was the daintier of us when it came to things like this. And that hurts, because it's a reminder that every detail in my life will somehow always remind me of her. Suddenly, I don't feel so talkative anymore.

Part of me knows that I should respond with the same question, because that's how I'm supposed to show interest. It's how conversations work, how people interact with each other. But I've just ony started to tackle my loathing for us as a species, anyways. "How about you?"

It's painful and I know it. But Billy's the one who always seems to want to talk to me for reasons I can't explain. He's the one who started this conversation, not me.

[radical_cowgirl]

"Boar girl."

Edward appeared at Katniss' shoulder, looking over at what she was doing. She couldn't remember the girl's name, but Edward rememberd the boar. The boar had been fun. Messy. Bloody. But it was new and new things were fun things in Edward's book and that meant the Boar Girl was a fun person for Edward.

[burnwithus]

I remember her as the little girl who helped me "peel" that boar. Not many people cared about where their food came from, and if they did they liked to avoid the messy, difficult part of it. Besides, there was something that wasn't quite normal about her. It's not like I can talk, either, so I don't mind.

"I don't have any boars today."

[radical_cowgirl]

"Edward doesn't mind." She came around the side of the girl and watched, sitting quietly. Well, quietly for Edward, which meant a lot of shifting and foot swinging as she tried to figure out what Katniss was doing. She looked so serious. Serious and a little sad. And people shouldn't be sad. Not if they could help it. But maybe....

"Can Edward help?"

[burnwithus]

She's not the first person to ask me that question today, but how can I accept help from people who didn't share these memories? I won't tell her, either. I'll let her be a kid for a little while longer, for everyone in Panem who didn't get to be.
I shake my head, casting an eye down at the page before I cover it up. "Not for this. I have to do it by myself."

I'd ask Peeta, if I could. Whether he's still angry with me is another story.