A Second Chance - A Clato/HG Story

1. WAKE UP

Hello all! Welcome to my new story! I hope you guys enjoy this, I think it's a very fun and interesting concept!

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Clove woke up with a horrible pounding in her head, and white lights shining into her eyes. As she blinked awake, the acrid smell of rubbing alcohol filled her nose.

She was in a room. A sterile room, laying on a metal gurney. Wait, no...

Immediately, Clove felt her hand fly to her head. Her breathing sped up, the lights seemed to blind her, and the pain got even worse. No, she wasn't supposed to be here... just moments ago, she had been...

Clove let out a scream of agony as a sharp pang in her head made her vision go dim and her fists clench.

No, this was all wrong. She was supposed to be gone, shipped back to District Two in a wooden casket. Not in a strange room, alive as ever. She swore that just moments ago she lay dying on the ground in the arena.

As allll these thoughts swirled through her broken mind, the door to the room swung open and Clove heard the patter of shoes enter before she lost consciousness.

When she woke up this time, she was no longer on a metal gurney. She was in a bed, covered by a soft blanket. Clove turned her head, taking in a vase of flowers by her bed. They were dead. Likely they had been placed there a while ago and not been bothered with since.

Clove ran a hand over the left side of her head. She was met with smooth, solid skin and her brown hair curling between her fingers. There was no pain. At least, not at the moment.

Clove sat up in the bed, studying her surroundings. A small hospital room, with a bedside table and connected bathroom. No furniture, starkly empty.

To her left arm, an IV was connected. Clove pulled it out promptly. She was wearing a loose, paper-like garment that fell to her knees.

Tentatively, Clove placed her bare feet down on the tile floor. It was cold, a welcome shock to her groggy state. It felt as if her mind was stuffed full of cotton, and the sensation made her nervous, wary of her surroundings.

She almost fell back onto the bed when she stood up. A wave of Nausea and headache greeted her, but Clove ushed through it, desperately wanting to reach the bathroom. Itw as only a few paces from her bed, and she was able to stagger to the sink, where a mirror was positioned over it.

When she looked at herself, her appearance was virtually unchanged. Her hair was loose, falling down her back in a dark sheet. She was clean, with no traces of blood or grime anywhere on her body. All previous cuts and scrapes were eliminated. But most shocking of all, her forehead was completely unscathed. Clove once more ran her fingers across her temple disbelievingly.

It was at that moment that she heard the door open. Senses on high alert, Clove smashed her fist into the mirror, sending shards of glass flying everywhere as her knuckles began blossoming with fresh blood. She fumbled for a lomg, sharp piece of glass, holding it up to the face of her visitor threateningly.

The intruder was a slight woman with a bob of white hair, in her sixties maybe, witha thoroughly terrified look on her face. Her watery blue eyes dropped to Clove's knuckles, dripping blood onto the broken glass strewn on the tile floor.

"Put it down," the woman commanded, but Clove refused to loosen her grp on her weapon, still asxsesing the situation. She was in an unfamiliar pplace, alive somehow, faced by strange people. She was not going through it without a weapon.

"My name is Veronica Sartorious. You're in the Capitol," she says very slowly. "We're here to help you."

Clove lowered the shard of glass slightly. The Capitol? Well, that explained some things, like the strange hospital rooms and the odd-looking woman, she supposed. But why was she alive?

"Why am I here?" she croaked, her voice sounding rough and unused.

"I will explain if you put the glass down and lay on the bed," Veronica offered, motioning towards the bed. "I promise, we mean well."

Finally, maybe partly due to the wave of exhaustion that suddenly took hold of her, Clove gave in. She dropped the piece of glass, and watched as Veronica stepped back tentatively, giving her room to return to the bed.

Clove wiped her bloody hand on her white hospital gown, creating an unflattering red stain on the crisp material. She watched Veronica closely as she settled back down on the bed.

"Good. I'm going to need to hook you back onto this IV. You need fluids," Said the elderly woman, delicately taking Clove's arm and re-inserting the drip.

"Tell me why I'm here. Clove repeated harshly. "I died. I'm sure of it."

"I know it's confusing, but, no, you did not die." Veronica checked Clove's eyes, nose, mouth. "You were kept alive per the orders of our gracious President. I'm sure he will explain it in more detail than I myself."

This information caused yet another turn of her stomach. She had been...kept alive? For some reason the idea made her angry. If she had died in the Games, she should have stayed that way. In fact, the notion that she could be alive right here in this room was a disgrace to everything a career tribute should stand for. But she remembered something then, something more important than her own failure.

"Cato!" she blurted, and Veronica shied back in surprise. "Cato. He won, didn't he? He beat the girl from Twelve?"

Clove could immediately tell from Veronica's resigned expression that he had not. Her mouth went suddenly very dry, and she wished for a tall glass of water to wash it away.

"Where is he?" She demanded.

Veronica gave a shake of her head that sent a cold chill down Clove's spine. She leapt from the bed, once more dislodging her IV, and broke into a run, slamming her full bodyweight against the hospital door. She burst out into the hallway.

Something was horribly wrong here. The smell of antiseptic burned her nose as she dodged nurses and security, wanting nothing more than to escape the walls of this unnatural place.

Something yanked her backwards, and Clove shrieked in protest as she was wrestled on her stomach by hospital security, her hands cuffed behind her back as an unbearable weight kept her glued to the ground. She squirmed under the weight, but it wouldn't let up. She was trapped, cheek pressed against the cold floor.

Clove was aware of heavy footsteps approaching her. Her breathing came fast and shallow, full of fear and adrenaline.

And then, a voice that seemed to send her skin crawling.

"I see she has woken early."