lyra felt cold. it was strange knowing you'd forgotten something big. something so big that you could see gaps in your memories. she could remember waking up to the sun with someone's arm around her waist. she could remember going swimming with someone warm. she could remember comforting a blonde. she just couldn't remember who.
"what-?" she muttered, a hand pressing against the throbbing pain on her forehead. when the pain lessened slightly and lyra removed her hand, she looked down to see dark crimson blood coating her palm. frowning at the sight, she began looking around the room she woke up in.
all of a sudden, a loud banging sound resonated through the walls, shocking the blonde as she rushed up from where she was left to lay on the floor. "how typical of the capitol to have fancy fucking cells!" a female voice yelled to the right of lyra. "lyra! finnick!" she then yelled, hoping there wouldn't be an answer.
lyra felt something when she heard 'lyra' thinking it was maybe her name [of which she'd just realised she couldn't remember]. "umm..." she thought before raising her voice an yelling back. "i think- i think i might be lyra!" she then heard footsteps getting closer to her before a face made an appearance between the wall and the pillar connected to the front panel and door. the walls, floor and ceiling were an off-white colour, nothing else in the room except a slightly dim light. it was cold.
the gap between the pillar and the wall wasn't big enough for anyone over the age of a few months to fit through but the blonde could see part of a woman's face. she had brown eyes and hair, a few cuts on her face and a healed scar underneath her right eye. "lyra? hi, hey sweetheart, are- are you okay? is finnick here to?" she rushed out, extending a hand through the gap.
"i- i don't- you know me? who's finnick?"
"yeah it's johanna, you..." her small smile faded and her eyes widened in disbelief. "you don't remember me? no- you don't remember finnick?" she asked the second question as though an answer other than 'of course i know him' was impossible.
"i'm sorry, i don't think so" lyra began to panic "why don't i remember you or- or my family or what- who's finnick- i don't know what's happened!?" her breath picked up and her hand pressed against her heaving chest.
"okay lyra, take deep breaths for me. i'll explain everything" johanna promised, grasping lyra's hand tightly after she wandered closer to the gap. "tell me what's the first thing you can remember. the farthest back you can go"
lyra thought hard, sorting though her few memories and thinking as far back as she could "i remember a baby..." she hesitated "he's blonde and a woman holding him. i think she just gave birth or something, she's in bed"
"and that's the first thing you remember?" johanna asked, getting a nervous nod in reply "dammit! okay, that's bad" lyra was supposed to remember things before the injury. she wasn't sure if she could do this. the way she looked at it, she was the only one who could help lyra remember and if that wasn't the biggest responsibility she'd ever had.
"what? why?"
"that's- that was your little brother. you were- you were eighteen then. that's after you met me, finnick, after your games that's-"
"what games?" lyra tried to focus on the task at hand but it was cold in the room."i'm freezing" she huffed out, rubbing her hands together
"the hunger games" joanna ignored her comment, agreeing but now wanting to veer off of the subject.
lyra doubted that she'd ever felt as clueless as she did in that moment. johanna spoke of these 'hunger games' as casually as one would the weather, as if someone would have to be insane to not know what they were "what are the hunger games?"
"just- keep going, what else?"
"then swimming" she elaborated, eyebrows furrowing as she thought hard about any memories she had left. why couldn't she remember. "by a dock or something and someone else was there. then the same person i think hugging me, he's blonde as well. then a boy crying, i can't remember his face though. a woman crying, she's saying something about snow?" she mentioned the last sentence questioningly.
"that's me..." johanna whispered to herself, a grin appearing on her face. "ly! that's me!" she spoke up so that the blonde in the room adjacent could hear her.
"really?"
"yeah, yeah, you got it! keep going!" she encouraged.
"uh... you again i think?" the blonde woman shivered from the cold. "sorry, im cold. you're calling me 'sunshine' and you're- you're braiding my hair?"
"yeah that's me! that was your birthday last year, i actually got down to district 4 for the day" the dark haired woman let out a genuine laugh at this, a laugh of pure relief. she remembered her a little.
"right... i- i don't think i remember anything else" she hesitantly admitted. she saw johanna's shoulders tense, her lips pursed together while she looked at lyra with slight disappointment. "it's so cold in here" she tied to break the tense atmosphere.
"dammit, lyra! i know!" she snapped after hearing her mention the temperature for the third time. why was she dead set on commenting on it?
"i'm sorry, it just came to mind" she looked down at her feet sadly, annoyed that she was already annoying her new friend. or old friend she guessed.
"yeah, three times!"
"no, just now" she argued back.
"lyra, stop being stupid!" the district seven woman snapped once again, she wasn't in the mood to deal with one of lyra's childish games. "you don't forget shit that fast!"
"johanna, i just said it then, that's once!"
"i don't know... lyra do you remember telling me about a baby? a- a blonde one?"
"how do you know that?" she muttered, eyes wide and confused on how she'd know that "i didn't tell you that"
───── authors note !
hi! i hope you liked this chapter, i have sad plans so brace yourselves i guess? this book is going to be updated super slow because of exams and the fact that i'm into writing my other fics atm (coriolanus snow, tim bradford, ect.) so bare w/ me 💋
hope you enjoy anyway and thank you for reading <333
please comment and vote 🫶🏻 byeeeeeeeeee
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