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FLASHBACKS COME AND go for Cora. Normally, she's pretty good at trying to forget about everything, pushing all memories of the dead tributes in her Hunger Games from her mind. Even if their faces sometimes hauntingly appeared like ghosts in her dreams, Cora thinks she's pretty good at blocking it all out when she wakes up. But mostly, she's good at pretending and acting like she's okay, acting like she's completely unaffected by everything she was forced to endure, acting like she's still not a scared, little girl inside. And fuck, Cora must be putting on her best performance yet right now.
Her trembling fingers are balled up into a fist as she purses her lips, wishing for nothing more than for the ground to swallow her up whole. All of a sudden, the sheer amount of people around her don't make her feel protected anymore but trapped. She feels stripped down, as if she has just watched her raw, true self come alive from the dead - and no amount of shutting her eyes and ignoring it can change it.
Now Bellamy and everyone else has seen it - the reality of what Cora had done to save herself, what it took to be a monster. Anyone who watches her Games back would see the way she swung her axe like it was nothing more than a feather, as if it was the lightest thing in the world, as if it didn't take Cora ripping her own humanity apart to be able to tear the life away from another.
All these racing thoughts, all her overwhelming feelings of guilt and horror, all the flashbacks to a past Cora had tried so fucking hard to not think about, have slammed into her like a hit-and-run truck, leaving her completely breathless.
Cora's barely moving, struggling to walk with the crowd trying to flee the scene as fast as possible. They all move in the same beat, footsteps thudding against the ground but Cora is stumbling and out of sync, unable to keep up.
Suddenly, she feels a tight grip on her arm and she looks up to see Bellamy, an expression of sympathy mingled with concern on his face. He doesn't talk to her, his jaw tightly clenched shut, but the burning rage in his eyes speaks more to her than words ever could.
Cora understands perfectly. I'm sorry. They're so fucked up for that.
Normally, such a close touch would make her flinch and recoil in disgust, but Cora finds herself being grateful for it as Bellamy steadies her and expertly leads her through the cramped market. She could've easily been taken victim to the swarming crowd stampeding to escape the Drain, like a tide engulfing the sandcastles on the beaches of District 4.
Oh, how Cora wishes a real tide would take her now.
How freeing it would feel, how relaxing it would be to finally let go of all her baggage and lay still in the cool water as it lapped against her skin, taking her far, far away from everything. The sun would beat down on her as she floated and bobbed down the sea, appearing to be nothing more than a small pinprick in an expanse of azure, blue water. She wouldn't be Cora Snow, about to be Reaped for the Quarter Quell, nor would she be Cora who was attached to her grandfathers contract, or a Victor of the Hunger Games, or even the Presidents granddaughter. She would just be a nobody, a nobody stupidly letting the waters take her until she was nothing more than a corpse found at the bottom of the seabed.
