The 53rd Hunger Games- Two Words

50. Healed

Quickly, I check the room for anything else I am to take home. The search yields nothing. I am gathering the axe case and clothing in my arms when I see who it is standing in the doorway.

I forget how to breathe.

Everything in my arms falls to the ground.

He does not flinch.

Impossible.

He whispers my name in a voice I know, a voice I know so well.

"Eunia."

It is Hadrian in the doorway.

For a moment I am frozen. How? How can he be standing in front of me?

Tears well in my eyes. It cannot really be him! This is Tule's work! She must be trying to make it better, trying to give me a replacement. Or is it one of President Snow's cruel jokes?

"This isn't fair!" I sob at him. "You're dead!"

He is! Dead dead dead dead! He died in the arena. I saw it.

He comes over to me, stepping over my axe and clothing. To try and comfort me. I won't let him. This is not Hadrian!

"Don't touch me!" I scream hysterically, losing it completely. "Don't you touch me!"

I hold my hands out in front of me. I can hardly bear to look at him.

"Eunia. I know you remember. I'm Hadrian."

How can he? How can he say my name like Hadrian did! How can he call himself Hadrian?

"Don't touch me!" I repeat, screeching it as loudly as I can. His arms reach out. I shove him backwards. Hard.

"No! You can't!" I sob. "You can't! You're not him!"

Because he isn't, he isn't, he isn't my Hadrian. The dead cannot be raised. They stay in their coffins under the earth.

He tries again to embrace me, but I push him away once more. This time he doesn't catch his balance, and stumbles back over my axe case. I barely hear him.

I am tempted. Tempted to humour myself, tell myself that this boy really is Hadrian. I cannot! No, I can't taint the precious memories I have of him with this fake! I didn't want to accept my axe; why should I accept another of President Snow's vile gifts?

Though it is funny, how the Capitol has made him resemble Hadrian so. Funny in the way that you only find it funny if you are hysterical.

The boy has the same eyes. He is the exact same height. The same voice.

It is heart wrenching. The pain before was nothing compared to this. It is as if, all at once, I am being shattered. As if I am as flimsy as glass.

And I am that flimsy. I am now as I sit on my bed. Head in my hands. My hair hiding everything. Where is Tule? Wade? Haven't they heard me? Won't they come and take this boy away?

The bed sags under the weight of another body. It is him!

"Get away!" I yell. "Get away from me!"

The choking-sobbing noise that almost resembles laughter makes it so you can hardly hear what I am trying to say. It sounds like shards of glass are stuck in my throat.

"No! I'm not some replacement, Eunia. I'm Hadrian. The Hadrian you knew in the arena. The one who sat and held you while you cried on the ground floor of this building at six-thirty in the morning on the day of the interviews!"

His voice is thick too. He is an excellent actor. How could he know this? Our meeting wasn't aired, of course. There must be cameras down there. This boy will have been shown every piece of footage, will have been trained to act exactly like Hadrian.