FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

4.5 catharsis

The light was beginning to hurt Calypso's eyes, even when she had them closed. It never shut off and was so bright she couldn't look up at the ceiling without being blinded. The stark white walls only reflected it, making it seem so much worse. There was no bed, no furniture, nothing but herself and four walls holding her captive. The peacekeepers stopped coming when they first threw her in here, and the only human contact she had was seeing their white gloves slip trays under the door every day. One glass of water and a meal supplement pill.

This was a kind of torture she'd never encountered before, stripping her of everything but her wits and probably, eventually, those too. With no day and night cycle, she'd lost track of the hours and days. She thought the water and pill were delivered at midday, but it could as well have been midnight.

The only entertainment she had came in the form of that screen. In the days following Porter's execution, it replayed randomly several times just to make sure she remembered. It was for her, after all. When her watchers grew bored of that, they switched it to live feeds of Johanna and Peeta undergoing their own tortures: beatings, shockings, questionings about things they had no answers for. Sometimes, they injected Peeta with something and made him rewatch both his games. She couldn't imagine what he was feeling.

But it was quiet now. They'd showed her another of Peeta's interviews and turned the screen off to leave her alone under the bright lights. Calypso curled herself up into a ball and rested her head on her arm, closing her heavy eyes. It was almost impossible to keep them open nowadays.

The deep sound of a beep rang through her ears. She was startled awake before she'd had the chance to truly drift off. It was the same every time and she was starting to suspect they'd stuck her with some kind of chip that could detect her brain activity. That, or someone was watching her 24/7 and having fun making sure she couldn't sleep.

"Oh, shut up!" she yelled, sitting up and glaring at the camera in the corner of the room. The sound stopped. It was like a reward for good behaviour. Don't sleep and don't be punished. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Calypso stood and moved to the corner of the room. The ceiling was far too high for her to reach up and destroy the device. Instead, she removed her clean white shoe and threw it up. The camera was jostled, but it just moved back into place as if it were programmed to track her movement. She let herself crack a little.

"I'm going to gut you like a fish," she seethed, eyes still trained on the camera as she fought to keep them open. "Give me a knife and I'll slice you open. I'll pull out your organs and use them to decorate my walls."

She'd always had a violent streak. It was bred into her. Her father was a killer long before she was born and it was known that death followed the Silva's like a curse. There was power in controlling death, Calypso realised now. It was better to cause suffering than to endure it. She'd spared Maisie her suffering. She'd made Payton suffer. That was balance and she wanted more. For her suffering, she'd make someone else pay.

With a heavy sigh, Calypso gently banged her head against the wall. There was no inflicting pain when there was no one within reach. She just had to bide her time, but she had no idea how much longer she'd be in a sound state of mind to be able to do that. Even a few more days without sleep and she'd be too far gone.

"I'm so hungry," she complained, gripping her stomach and bashing her head harder. Give them a performance. They were probably as bored as she was. "I miss the taste of human flesh. Payton's was delicious, tender meat. Bloody and rich. I miss it."

God, she felt sick even thinking about it.

"The next person I see," she hissed, pointing at the camera. A few stray tears made their way down her cheeks. "I'll make it hurt."