Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

System Failure

Hello people. Whoever reads these, anyway. I'm not really sure what this 'Chapter' is, but I would call it more of a whole sequel than a chapter. This is from Kamalyn's POV and I'm sorry for not updating or anything in a while, the Jonen thing kinda lost me and I wasn't into it, plus this took me a month and a bit to write. We had to write a monologue for drama and mine was obvs based off of this, and then I continued it.  Yay. 

Damn it's been so long since I wrote an author's note

A flash of light. A rumble, a boom. An explosion. A fire, like the one raging through the forest back in the arena. More explosions. Smoke, fire, a voice, echoing in my ears...

"Wake up! Kamalyn, wake up!"

My eyes snap open, and I find myself in the warm comfort of my hospital bed. Jake is leaning over me, shaking my shoulders to wake me.

"Kamalyn, are you okay?"

"Yes. Just had a bad dream, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

I sit up and look around. The same hospital room, the same bed. My leg is still bandaged from when Iris stabbed me back in the arena. Something makes me feel like it will never heal. That I'll be crippled for life, or that I'll die at age 15.

Jake stands up to leave, giving me a sense of urgency to tell him about my dream.

"Wait, Jake, don't go. I have to tell you something. About my dream."

"Okay," He sits on the end of my bed and stretches a hand out to hold mine. I snatch it away. Jake doesn't deserve my affection. Only Benedict did, but he's dead now.

"I- I had a dream. At first I thought it was just memories from the arena, but now I realise it might be something else. The world was burning, I was running from explosions, from a fire, from the tick tick tick of bombs about to go off. Then it seemed I was running in space, in the clouds, watching the earth burn. Watching the planet die. Grey smoke clouds like the ones from the explosions covered the planet, every tree and bush burnt to a crisp. All the people dying, every 100 deaths symbolised by a cannon and a ticking clock on the wall. The sound was loud and echoing, a constant reminder of deaths and destruction. Of the past. It felt like the entire planet was burning from below, like a campfire had been lit to kill us all. Voices echoed, not speaking clearly. I dropped back to earth, but I wasn't alone. All the faces of everyone I killed rising out of the fire, out of the smoke, chasing me towards the desert. All the faces becoming people, chasing me into a huge black hole in the earth. Iris, Rift, Nikki, Titus, everyone, fire people. More explosions, smoke, then your voice in the background, shaking tremors rocking my shoulders, and then, and then..."

"It was probably just memories from the arena, as you said. Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep, you need to heal for the victory tour."

"Jake, I can't rest. Not after this."

"Why? It was just a dream."

"No, this time I think it was real."

***

Jake left about an hour ago, nobody has visited since then. Now I'm bored, as always, confined to my bed with nothing to do except stare at the blank wall and pick at the scar on my forehead. At least Iris gave me something to do in the period of nothingness, days where only emptiness fills them.

I'm itching to get my hands on a knife again, to throw it at the wall, at a target, at a person, at anything. As long as I can have my knives back, everything will feel the same as before. At least, to an extent.

23 children are still dead.

I'm still alive.

But Benedict is dead, everyone is dead, six at my hands. Memories of death and destruction will forever plague my thoughts. I'll never be free, my mind will always be trapped in an arena of its own.