Blindness.

There's nothing but darkness surrounding me. Nothing but an inky blackness that won't go away no matter how many times I blink or scream or slam my forehead into the trunk of a tree. There's nothing but fear in my heart as I dug my nails into the branch I'm perched upon, with the wind whipping my hair and stinging my cheeks. The smell of fresh air does nothing to calm my racing heart as I inhale and exhale, trying but failing to calm my nerves.

Darkness.

It didn't matter now. Everything else. Nothing mattered besides the fact that somehow, someway, they had taken my sight away from me. I still had eyes, I could still blink as much as I wanted to, but somehow I couldn'tsee. Suddenly I understood how Corradhin had felt after rescuing me from the hybrid Fly Traps, now knew why he had acted the way he did after he had lost his sight. It was terror he had felt, the same terror I was feeling now, sitting somewhere high up in a tree without the use of my eyes, clinging to the trunk so that I wouldn't be swept away by the wind.

Corradhin.

The very mention of his name threatened my lips to let loose an animalistic cry of grief that would be heard in all of Panem. His cannon was the last thing I heard before I had passed out from blood loss, still huddled next to Anastasia's corpse, and I remember feeling a wave of shock and nausea wash over me as I slipped away into unconsciousness. Now, everything came rushing back from the depths of my mind. From the first time we shook hands on the day of the Reaping, to how he had saved me from the Fly Traps, to our kiss in the woods. I remembered it all – from the way his dark brown eyes blazed with fire and determination for his vengeance, to the way his lips had moulded against mine amidst the smoke and fire and the shaking of the earth underneath our feet that day.

Love is blind.

Could our kiss be even classified as love? Nevertheless, I was blind then when I kissed him, because I didn't believe that his heart still lay with Beckett after all this time. I kissed him out of my own selfish desires, because he was the one – the only one – that could really understand my heartache and loss of Anastasia. Yet, even now, after his death – I still could not tell myself honestly that I regretted that kiss. Perhaps I still even felt that little twinge of jealousy and hatred for Beckett in my heart, I could not be exactly sure. What I was sure of was that Corradhin Cole was dead. And even though he never loved me like he did Beckett, it didn't help the fact that there was a hole in my heart that nothing could ever fill.

Trust is blind.

My abdomen still throbbed painfully with every move I made, though I had no idea how I was still alive. Instinctively, I glanced downwards to look at the wound, only for a bitter disappointment to arise when I realised once more than I could not see. But Anastasia's electric blue eyes were stunningly clear as the memory of our fight once more resurfaced in my mind. Anastasia, appearing like a ghost through the trees. Anastasia, welcoming me into her open arms. Anastasia, how she stabbed me with her dagger, her irises no longer kind or loving as she whispered in her angelic, sing-song voice, "I like hearing you scream."

Her eyes. I could still see her eyes and how they gleamed in my darkness.

Blue. Electric. Beautiful. Bright.

I remember every detail. The blood coated under her nails as she scratched my face, the deadly silence from the absence of the wind. How her eyes, her beautiful eyes, had pleaded with me to stop and let her go as her body convulsed under mine. I recalled the cold harshness of the silver chain gripped tightly in the palm of my hand, how the purple veins in her neck had stood out as I choked the breath out of her. How I killed my own sister, the sister I loved.

Anastasia.

Your eyes will never shine again.

It wasn't easier because she was a mutt. I felt her smooth skin as we embraced; I touched her strands of brunette hair. She was no mutt to me. She was alive and breathing and with me. I could see it in her eyes. I could see into her soul and her heart through those two pair of blue irises, and in that moment there was nowhere else I'd rather be. I trusted her, but she let me down.

All men must die.

The wind was still howling in my ears, mercilessly swaying the branches and leaves. Every second I spent up here I knew was a risk – but there was no way to climb down, to somehow escape from my prison in the sky. I could feel the biting coldness on my skin, could feel the pain from my wounds, and there was nothing I could do about it but breathe. Despite the fact that everything was engulfed in a cover of darkness, I still forced my eyelids to close, pressing my cheek against the rough bark of the tree trunk. Once more, my mind drifted, this time to the hallucination had been a taken me up to Cloud Nine.

Anastasia had been there too. The real Anastasia. The one that laughed and dared me to race towards her house, hair flying in the wind, her bare feet skimming along the grassy ground. And I had seen Corradhin at the dinner table, alive and well and talking with Beckett, Bellona listening in. Danel and Amelia were there also, and so were Steve and Reed. However, the most important people there were not my friends or my allies, but instead my family.

Calviouys Juerlia was there, and a soft chuckle escaped my lips at the memory of Reed trying to stab Cal with his fork. My father was there, George Alurai, and even though I had not spoken with him during my dream, the contented smile on his face as he gazed at Maria Juerlia in adoration spoke volumes. Maria Juerlia was there, and I remembered how she smiled at me in a motherly way that I had never previously experienced, how she said, "We're glad you could be here with us today."

Lastly, there was Ana. Oh, gorgeous, sweet Ana whom I'd never got a chance to properly know. Her life and spirit were stolen from her as I watched, helpless, from my home. Ana with her melodic laughter and her sparkling eyes, which I could still see even when blind. When I awoke, it was like being transferred from heaven to hell, with the panic and fear blooming in my chest as I screamed for her to come back, to come back to me.Then all at once the painful truth collided into me with the force of a freight train. Anastasia Juerlia was dead.Just like Corradhin. And eventually, me.

Courage, dear heart

For love is not a victory march

For blood has been spilled and

Death shall claim its victims.

My time was coming. I knew it was. Death had claimed twenty lives already, and it wasn't ever going to stop taking more lives. As I stayed up on my branches, listening to how the wind screamed and howled in my ears, there's only one name going through my mind.

Anastasia.

"Anastasia," I spoke aloud, the first word I had uttered in a long, long time. The word, that one precious word, flowed out from my lips and into the wind. I knew the wind would carry her name through the clouds and through the skies, to the moon and stars and sun – letting my sister's name echo throughout Panem. Let them hear. Let them remember.

I exhaled once more, heavily this time, and slowly, slowly, I removed my hands from the trunk of the tree. With no support from my hands, no grip from my fingers – the only thing keeping me from falling to the earth was sheer balance. The air was fresh, crisp, and light, and once more I inhaled, feeling the moist dampness through my nostrils. It was like a great burden had been taken off my shoulders.

Courage, dear heart

For love is not a victory march

For now, I'm only singing

A broken hallelujah

"Anastasia," I said it again, and this time I opened my eyes. There was still nothing but darkness, but as I let myself fall, I thought I saw the briefest flash of a pair of very bright, very electric blue eyes.