Sunshine - A Hunger Games Story

22| Sweetheart

As my eyes open, I am met with a dark room, illuminated only by a large screen on one of the walls. The screen shows a lush, green forest. I feel my heart rate pick up. It takes a second for me to realize why I would be nervous. The image is supposed to be soothing and gentle but makes me nervous. Then I realize the resemblance of the underbrush, the grasses, and the tall trees to the arena.

I tear my eyes off the screen and look at the door.

It's shut, the hall lights off in whatever building it is that I am in.

I feel weak. Like all of my energy has been sucked out of me. My throat is dry, my stomach is empty, and my grief seems to have taken control of all my other emotions. At least I feel physically better. Better than I have in a long while.

My right hand instinctively goes to my left wrist, seeing what happened to my injury. My hand grabs my forearm, but instead of a wrist and hand, my arm ends in a stump. I look down alarmed and am met with the same as I felt. My left arm ends two thirds of the way down my forearm. There are no bandages or wrappings around the stump. There are only two white scars where my skin wraps around the end of the arm.

As I look at my arm—or lack thereof—my eyes drift up to my boney arms and to an IV attached to my arm. I look half dead.

My thoughts are interrupted as the door is opened.

Humphrey Stewart enters my room, closing the door behind him quietly before walking over to me and giving me a hug.

I expect to be weirded out by the hug. After all, someone that I have barely ever talked to is hugging me for an awfully long time. His beard is tickling my back, his shirt is scratchy against my cheek, and the hug forces me into an uncomfortable position.

Instead, it feels comforting—relieving, actually. After a month of being in constant danger and the absence of familiarity, a simple hug causes me to melt into the man's embrace. Before I realize it, I am crying into his shoulder.

"I didn't save him. I couldn't..." I say to him after my crying fades out.

"Shh, I know. I've been there, we all have. You just have to keep making it to tomorrow." He pulls back from the hug. His eyes scan across my face, trying to read my thoughts. He brushes the tears off of my cheek. "Here, take this." Humphrey hands me a glass of water and sets a packaged nutrition bar on my lap. He then takes a seat in one of two chairs in the room.

I take a long sip of the water. And then another. When the glass is emptied and my thirst is quenched, I place the glass on the bedside table. Then, I open the bar (with my teeth seeing as I can't use both my hands) and take a bite.

Humphrey seems to sense my unasked questions and he starts explaining. "After you won they had to take you straight to surgery. The bodies were each sent back home for a funeral." He pauses for a moment, looking up at me to see if I'm still okay and then continues after seeing that I'm not breaking out into tears. "They couldn't save your hand, but they've already got you fitted for a prosthetic. In the morning the capital doctors will give you a final check-up and give you the prosthetic. Then you will be released and sent to Jasmine where she'll make you look pretty for your interview with Caesar Flickerman. After that it's the victory banquet, all the victors and mentors of past hunger games will be there as well as all the fancy capital people that are rich enough to earn an invitation."

He takes a breath before he continues. "Everything after that we'll deal with when the time comes." He looks back up at me with sadness in his eyes. "You did good kid. Get some rest before tomorrow, you deserve it." With that, he leaves.

The next morning I am woken up by a nurse flicking on the bright lights in my room. She pulls up her clipboard and starts reading off of it to herself before coming over to me with a tray pulled behind her.