Depressed: A Hunger Games Story

Chapter Eight: Katniss's Perspective

A blurred, hazy sight started to form in front of Katniss's face as she regained consciousness. Feeling came back to her and she could sense she was lying on a hard surface... floorboards maybe? Why was she on the floor? It was only after her hearing became normal and a soft mew sounded that it all came flooding back and bought tears to her eyes. Here she was again. Woken up, on the kitchen table, recovering from yet another drug-induced sleep, yet another injury, though, to be fair, it was the first self-inflicted injury, which was new. Not good, but a new experience. Awake in this sorry excuse for a life.

Katniss let her eyes open and wasted no time in sitting up, locating Haymitch and collapsing into his arms for a hug. It would probably really confuse him, but at the moment, she didn't care. He was the only person in the world she wanted to comfort her at the moment.

It took Katniss an undefinable amount of time before she let go. Might have been a minute. Might have been an hour. But eventually she did, and turned to face her mother as well. Determined to be strong, determined to stay calm, but the second she met her eyes, Katniss crumbled and her knees gave way, and luckily she fell onto a chair behind her, because the tears that had been clogging up her eyes finally fell. For a moment, she stayed there crying, and then she felt her mother embrace her and pull her into their first hug since... a long, long time. Possibly she'd hesitated because she didn't know how Katniss would react. She didn't know that she needn't worry about that now – Katniss was too numb to do anything but cry. She had no energy left for panic attacks and screaming. But it seemed she'd never be able to stop crying again.

She relaxed into her mother's embrace until the tears stopped falling and her face was a damp mess of salty tears, dried makeup she'd never removed and snot, all mixed up together in a wet mask. It was disgusting, but no more disgusting than she'd been feeling recently. No more disgusting than her. Now her appearance matched her inside.

Looking down at her arms, she now realised she had matching wounds on both arms. One, the old scar from the knife wound Johanna Mason had given her, and the self-inflicted one Katniss had given herself on the other arm, still hidden under a recently changed bandage. Great. That reflected the trauma of her life.

"Katniss," her mother said, and, though it took a while, they eventually were able to make eye contact. Katniss's grey Seam eyes meeting her mother's blue. The same blue as Prim's. Prim, who'd just haunted her, blamed her for her death...

But no more tears fell. Katniss kept her composure, but she found she didn't have to hold quite so tight to it. Strangely, now that the meeting was out the way, she felt much stronger than before. Her mother was here to help. She didn't blame her for Prim's death. She didn't mind that Katniss would do anything to get past her grief, as long as she could be there to comfort her. Suddenly Katniss felt a stab of guilt. She'd been so consumed in her depression and grief to spare even a thought to her mother also going through their loss at the same time.

But it was too late for apologies now. So she stayed quiet until she couldn't any longer. It was time to get with the real world, and escape this world of depression, if only temporarily.

So, Katniss pulled away from her mother and sat up. "OK. I'm OK." But the other words she wanted to say were caught in her throat and she couldn't get them out. Stuck. Caught in the trap of unsaid words, alongside the last words to all those she loved, that had never been said, because of something or another. Like the words she wanted to say to her father. To her sister. To her best friend before he left District 12 forever. They still hadn't spoken since that time she ignored him because of the parachutes.

"Do you want something to eat or drink?" her mother filled in, and Katniss nodded, finding that that was exactly what she wanted. A week starved, nothing to drink except a lot of Haymitch's liquor... that wasn't healthy.