You Won't Drown: A Hunger Games story

Chapter Seven

Annie POV

I wake up strapped to a cold metal chair, restrained by my wrists and ankles and waist. The pale, flimsy, white dressing gown I've been put in does nothing to help with the chill in the room or the chill in my bones. I'm not sure how long it's been since I was last awake; the Reaping could be in a week, a day, even an hour. I just can't be sure. My heart rate skyrockets at the thought of facing my death at any second. There probably wouldn't even be that much warning, just a quick announcement, the loudest bang I've ever heard, and then simply...nothing.

This is the same room I was in earlier, the one where I froze to the floor after I heard Finnick die. Now that he's dead, there's not really much of a point in fighting this anymore. Eventually they'll kill me and then I'll either be faced with oblivion or I'll get to see him again. Either scenario would be better than this half life hell that I'm in now. No, I'd much rather be dead than a prisoner. At least then, they finally couldn't get to me anymore.

What would it be first? Tracker jackers? Drowning? Electric shocks? Jabberjays? Fire? Smothering? Suffocating? Hot coals? My mind thinks up so many options, each more terrible than the last, and it quickly gets hard to keep track of them all. From what little I know, the Capitol can be creative with its punishments when they have their nearly limitless resources readily available. Whatever it is though, the tiles and the big drain in the middle of the floor both convince me that I'm somewhere they can quickly clean up my blood. After all, it wouldn't do to have appearances be damaged.

They're likely waiting, and watching from off to the side somewhere with little security cameras, taking their time to let me work myself into a panic attack. So far, I'm ashamed to admit that their strategy is working. The anticipation is making this whole thing a million times worse, especially since I don't even know what this thing will be. All I can guarantee is that it's going to be painful. My nerves would more than likely betray me at some point and that's when they'll strike. Desperately miserable and nervous people are the easiest to manipulate, after all.

Taking a deep breath, I do my best to relax my body and mind. The more put together I can be when they come in, the less likely it is that their tricks will break me. All I had to do was stay strong, stay strong and keep fighting. Just keep fighting until...

Interrupting my thoughts, a door on the other side of the room creaks open, revealing a tall, thin woman dressed in an immaculately pressed white lab coat.

"Good morning Miss Cresta. How are you doing today; I trust your stay has been satisfactory so far?"

Her smile is too big, her teeth and lab coat both too eerily white and shiny. Just like everything in the Capitol, she's unnatural, fake. She doesn't care what I say, what I do, I'll be trapped here either way, helpless as she experiments with all sorts of different ways to torture me.

"It's morning? How long have I been here?"

She frowns, tutting for a minute. "Hmm...this simply won't do, my dear. Even for you, this simply won't work if you're already this addled. Then we wouldn't be able to have nearly as much fun, you and I. Tell me, you do want to have fun, don't you?"

Fun? She must be even more off her rocker than I am; either that or I've been here so long that the definition of fun has been changed to mean torture. Either way, whatever this fun is, I doubt I want to be a part of it, although I know I won't have any choice.

"What I want is for Finnick to be alive but since that's not possible, I'd settle for you going to hell," I mutter under my breath. There are few things I hate more than being patronized and with nothing left to lose I don't see any point in keeping that fact to myself.