Forbearance • A Cato Hadley Story

2.24

Livia watched as the thick, eerie fog crawled along the ground towards her. She was lying on the ground, rendered helpless. The only movement coming from her was her chest rising and falling at a concerning speed as she struggled to breathe. As she awaited her final moments, she wondered what those she loved were thinking at the moment. She wondered what her father and Chloe were thinking as they watched their daughter and sister on the edge of dying.

Or how Enobaria and Augusta felt as they watched the only girl they each knew as their daughter lay on her back in the worst condition she had ever been in. The blonde wondered if Cato was awake or, even if he was, if he could comprehend what was going on. The teen wished she could have given all of them a hug and tell them how much she loved them just one last time. She wished she had had the strength to say goodbye to Mags before she left life behind.

She wished she could thank Finnick and Lennox for attempting to save her. But she wouldn't get the chance for that. And just as she was sure that the fog would make contact with her skin, something kept it from touching her. It was almost as if a sheet of glass acted as a barrier, preventing the white substance from going any further. Slowly, it rose high up off the ground. After a few moments of the fog unable to travel any further, it was like the invisible force had disappeared.

Just a small amount of the fog continued on its path towards the girl but couldn't go on enough to touch her. In pure relief, the girl let out a relaxed sigh and changed her focus from in front of where she laid to the trees above her. When she looked up she could have sworn she had seen something move on the branches of the trees. But the blonde chose to ignore it, assuming that whatever had been in the fog was just making her hallucinate slightly.

From beside her left ear, a sloshing sound could be heard. As if she was laying next to a body of water of some sort. Lazily, she let her head fall to look at her left. Sure enough, there it was. A body of water, right beside her. Though the feeling of pain and soreness shot up through her arms and the rest of her body the moment she started moving, the girl attempted to crawl over to the water. She moved at a slow pace and reached the water with how close she was to it.

As she made contact with the water, the same painful stinging feeling that she had felt when she was touched by the fog resurfaced, only this time it stung much worse. The girl screamed hysterically as she continued to plunge her hand further into the water. The blonde almost considered taking her hand out of the water with how much pain the contact was causing her but just as she went to remove her hand from the water, the feeling went away.

It no longer felt as if hundreds of wasps were eating her hand or as if someone was injecting an insane amount of poison directly into her veins. The pain was finally being relieved. Realizing that the warm tropical liquid ridded her of the throbbing feeling in her hand, she sunk her other hand into the water, resulting in the same feeling as before.

Begging for relief from the pain searing through the rest of her body, she used her now painless hands and arms to pull the rest of her body into the water. The entirety of her body felt like it was burning every inch of her skin. Remembering the others around her, she called out through the darkness, trying to yell through the pain. "The water! The water helps!" she yelled. The girl prayed at least one of her allies would hear her call.

It stayed silent for a moment before the teen heard a loud splash to her right, following just behind her comment. Quickly, now that the pain of the blisters was gone, she snapped her head to her left to see who it was in case it hadn't been one of her ally's entering the water. The person's screams echoed through the night right after Livia heard them hop in.