Pyromania | The 60th Hunger Games

TWENTY

Quiet.

    I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it. Even when my bleary consciousness catches on the shuffle of clothes and a steady beep, it’s still so incredibly quiet.

    My body is colder than I could ever remember it being but when I moved my arm, the coldness slithered away and hit the ground with a wet thwack. I want to open my eyes, see what it was, where I am, who I could trust. There was someone next to me. I can sense them, the heat of their body on the cool patch of my arm now exposed to air. But, when I squeeze my eyes tightly, they won’t open.

    “Terra.” That’s me, I’m Terra. My name is Terra. “You’re safe,” the voice tells me, gentle and kind, “go back to sleep.”

When I wake up again, it’s my eyes that wake up first.

    They don’t look anywhere, don’t see anything or recognise anything. They simply rest open until my consciousness catches up and brings the room into focus.

    At first, I didn't recognize the woman next to me. Her hair, vibrant and golden, her skin pale and clean. Nothing like the people I’m used to. Not sunburned, or grimy or spattered in dry blood. She’s clean, a breath of fresh air in this strange, confined, concrete room. Her smile is sad, not the triumphant one I would have expected when we first met, which is likely why it took me longer than I cared to admit to recognize Lys.

    “Hi,” I try to say, my voice catching in my throat and forcing me into a coughing fit. She helps me sit up, holding a glass of water tightly in one hand and cautiously resting a hand on my hot skin to steady me.

    “Drink,” she says, “they’re trying to rehydrate you the best they can but you should drink.”

    As she says that, I notice all the tubes in my arms, the bandages on my torso, ankle and back. My whole body is stiff and my throat struggles to swallow the water. I drain the whole glass despite this, tipping back the glass of my own will as though I had never drank water before. When I slump back on the pillow, Lys takes up a damp cloth from the bowl on the table beside me.

    “I wanted to wash your face, but they said you could be volatile and to wait for you to wake up.”

    “Is it bad?” I can only imagine the state I’m in. She grimaces, holding up the cloth.

    “May I?”

    I nod, shutting my eyes as she takes my chin in her hand and gently drags the cloth over my face. It’s rough like the gravel on the mountainside, scratching at my face like the twigs in the dirt, I shut my eyes tighter as the water runs down my face as sweat once had. My skin starts to crawl and I pull my face away from her hold. I shake my head, looking away from the bowl already stained a dirty red colour.

    “I’m sorry,” I say, “thank you.”

    “It’s okay, Terra,” she takes my hand and I let her squeeze it when I realise that gesture didn’t bring up any memories I would rather forget, “do you want to talk?” Maybe I should talk, but I fear what I might say. What venom may leak from my lips the more I think about the events she won’t even bring herself to say. I shake my head. If I do talk, it won’t be to her or in the Capitol. “Do you want me to go?” Hesitantly, I nod, realising that I do want her to go. Lys, with her golden hair and clean skin and Capitol accent. Yes, I want her to go. “Do you want to be alone?”

    That question catches me off guard. I know loneliness well, how it feels to be lonely, the only person around. But the sudden realisation that I was truly, really, alone now. Far from my parents, from Martial, hell, from Gemma and Sly. No, I shake my head, I don’t want to be alone at all.

    As Lys leaves the room, I try to bring my knees up to hug but it creates a stiff, stabbing pain in my abdomen.

    Sitting back against the headboard, I rest the pillow on my legs and lift the clean white shirt I had been changed into at some point and tentatively touch the bandage on my hip. It would scar, my ankle would too, a constant reminder of Martial. I began to cry, heavy, guttural sobs. I would never see him again, my last memory of him bleeding out for I-don’t-know-how-long and me selfishly falling asleep.

    My heart aches, the sobs tear apart my throat and rip through my body. I hold the pillow close, biting down on it to stifle the sound as snot dribbles from my nose.

    The door to my room opens and I can hardly see through the tears who the two people are that approach me. I try to silence my cries, wiping my eyes, but the second I see Trix and Gia watching me with faces full of remorse and knowledge, I break down again. They climb onto the small bed beside me, encasing me in their embrace while I cry until I’m certain I’ve undone all of the work to rehydrate me.

    A hiccup interrupts me and Gia holds up a tissue box for me to empty. Trix, tutting at the cloth Lys had used, produces her own cotton cloth and puts the bowl in her lap and dabs the soft cloth on my face.

    She washes my face in small circular motions, massaging my burnt skin as she washes away the dried blood and dirt that had clung to my skin for so long. I try not to imagine how it feels to relive the games, for them to have spent the entire time keeping track of what happened and cavorting with potential sponsors to keep us alive. At the end of it all, it only took two sponsors to ensure my survival, one of which had been Martial’s.

    “Thank you,” I say quietly, leaning forward as well as I could to let her wash my neck and the back of my shoulders.

    Neither of them say anything back. It was a thank you bigger than any of us could really know yet we all understood perfectly. Lys’ thanks was for a gentle hand, but for my fellow victors it would always be something only we knew and could never speak aloud.

I know that I would always thank Trix and Gia. Every time I saw them I wanted to shower them with thanks because I knew that, without them, I couldn’t have survived. But, I let myself indulge in the selfish pleasure of having outlived the other twenty three tributes.

    After three days in the hospital, I returned to the tribute centre, where I spent another two days parading the common area on crutches with Trix and preparing for the victor interview. She was more in her element without the anxiety of the approaching games. We didn’t speak about them, about Martial or the lighter that was likely still lying on the mountainside if they hadn’t deconstructed the arena yet.

    Gia would tend to my wounds, changing the gauze and applying salve without a single reference to their cause. And, though I knew Caesar would ask about the games, I believed I could hold myself together for half an hour.

    Both of them warned me to keep my anger in check. There would be a time and place, when we go home, where we can break as much as we like and curse President Snow at the top of our voices. But, the interviews, the victory tour that would keep me occupied for the majority of the next year, were no place for anger.

    Remorse- yes. Hurt- yes.

    I can be emotional in this interview, just not negatively towards Panem or President Snow.

    This, of course, festered more anger. But I had to learn to live with the anger, it would be a part of me as the scars would be too. As the games and the train and the tribute center would all be a constant in my life from this day forward. And, while I could sit on my anger for the rest of my life, resent the games for existing and myself for volunteering, I would also take every opportunity to show my gratitude to the three women who I must have hurt the most: Gia, Trix, and my mother.