Author Games: Renegade | CLOSED

SF Entry - Luna Jordan

What made people special? Luna wondered as she trekked around the lush, dense forest scenery. The sunlight streamed brightly through the canopy of the overhanging trees, bathing Luna in a warm glow. She smiled a little at the warmth, but her smile was short-lived as the names and faces, one by one, popped into her mind. Jasmine. Popsicle. Amber. Aime. Vix. Skye. Gus. All the people she'd seen die in her short life. All the people she failed to save.

She swallowed, taking in a shuddering breath, and continued walking onwards. Her boots crunched on the ground, snapping twigs and dry leaves in the process. What made people special? She mused once more, brown eyes raking the everlasting green scenery around her.Their talent? Their looks? Their personality? Their...history? At the last suggestion a soft, melancholy chuckle escaped her lips. "That would make me special then," she clucked her tongue, talking to no one, and sighed. "My history has been nothing but death, death and more death. I'm like cursed or something."

Luna waited for a response, but the only sound that graced her ears was the gentle whistling of the wind through the trees above her, and she dropped her eyes downwards. "Damn," she spotted a large boulder and hurried over, sitting down on the jagged surface and buried her head in her hands. "I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I should never have come on this." As she spoke, voice hard and unforgiving, her voice crescendoed higher and higher until Luna was on her feet once more, viciously kicking at anything nearby. "Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!" She was on the verge of tears, with her eyes and throat burning painfully with unshed tears. "I let them die! They died because of me! I was there, every time, and I didn't do anything!"

All at once, suddenly, she just couldn't hold back her tears anymore. Dropping to her knees, Luna Jordan buried her head in her hands and began to weep, unashamed, pouring out her grief into the air. Here, no one could hear her – not Mai, not Berenice, not Neha, the only four remaining group members that were left. Here, she could rant and rave and scream and cry all she wanted, letting the floodgates to her heart open where she could finally express her fear, sorrow, and guilt that she had been hoarding in her soul for oh so long. I killed them, she thought miserably. Me.

That was the reason why she had left the group in the first place. In the morning, by the light of the rising sun that was barely peaking over the horizon, Luna had packed the little she had brought and left while everyone else was still sleeping. Cursed or not, one thing was perfectly clear – wherever Luna went, death followed.

She had her eyes set on the gleaming walled city in the distance, the Capitol of Wattpanem, and there the initial plan was to meet up with the rest of the rebels at the main base. But somehow, Luna had allowed herself to stray off the path into the deeper part of the woods, letting herself breathe in the crisp, fresh air and hear the chirps of the crickets and the rustling of water in a stream. The sound of rushing water awoke a memory deep inside her. A memory she would rather not relive...

"Jasmine!" Glitter was no longer sulking, instead she was standing up and waving her arms frantically at the river's edge. "Oh my god, Jasmine!"

Luna looked, just in time to see a flash of pink-and-purple hair disappear beneath the waves.

She didn't think. She forgot about Glitter, she forgot about the fact that she couldn't swim—she forgot everything expect for Jasmine thrashing in the waves. Inhaling sharply, Luna Jordan took off at a running leap and dove right into the surging, pulsing, water.

She shuddered and tried to block the memory, but it just kept coming. "Jasmine," the name of the first death she had witnessed, the first name of the many that she had failed to save, tolled off her tongue in a whisper.

"Luna!"

One voice, one shout, one name. It was enough to send slivers of fear down her back.

"Luna!"

One voice, filled with urgency, laced with uncontained fear. Glitter's voice.

"Luna, she isn't breathing!"

Two voices, one choked and weary, the other high-pitched and nervous, blended together in the cool morning air. Two voices, wailing by the riverbank as they tried in vain to awaken Jasmine Porter from her everlasting slumber. Two faces, streaked with tears that despite Luna's best efforts, Jasmine did not survive.

The forest around her was bristling, full of life, and this scared Luna greatly. For it felt like whenever she brushed against a leaf or her skin connected with a flower, it was like she had sucked the essence of life from the plant, and it withered and died around her. She had blinked, startled and surprised, only to discover that the withering plants were only a fragment of her imagination, and that Luna was not the Grim Reaper. Still, the experience jarred her, and she kept well away from any bush or tree.

Then there were the recent deaths. It was like death followed her around like the darkest cloud, taking away the lives of tributes every day. Popsicle. Amber. Aime. Vix. Skye. Gus. She remembered their faces, their voices, their smiles and frowns – and the memories came flooding back. How Popsy had hideously aged backwards from the effects of the syringe they had found in the forest. How Gus had died with his mouth parted slightly in one last scream of terror. How Skye lay in a pool of blood, still and unmoving.

Her mind wandered back to Jasmine, where it all began.

Luna Jordan would never forget that day.

It was in that day when:

One soul, had faded from life in her hands.

One heart, had broken in two forever.

It was the day she had failed.

And Luna had failed every time since then. She'd always failed. She never saved anyone, never helped anyone who desperately needed her.

Her knees began to ache, and as her puffy red eyes cracked open, Luna saw that she was still kneeling in the grass amidst the rocks and stones and dirt. Slowly, stiffly, she stood to her feet, gazing around at the scenery around her one last time before diverting her eyes towards the gleaming silver walls of the Capitol. As the light morning breeze tossed her tangled mane of golden hair, Luna cracked a tiny smile. She knew where she was going, and she knew what she was doing. She was going to go to the Capitol, and there – hopefully – she would find light among her darkness.