Rising Rebellion [#3]

Chapter 17 - Captivity

He opened his eyes to a dark cell and heavily pounding head. As he looked at where he was, he couldn’t tell the time or where he was. The cell was so dark that he could barely see his hands in front of him. What he did notice was that his golden bracelet was missing and replaced with others. They weren’t chained, but they were tightly fitted to his wrist. Obviously he had been stripped of his quiver and bow, and they had also bothered to take his artificial leg. Not that he needed it now anyways. It was practically broken right at the end of his time in the Arena.

He was in a cell, as mentioned dark, but also humid. The kind of humidity one could easily puke by. The light in the cell was nearly non-existing as he noticed he put his hand in a pile of something. He could barely see what it was. The only thing he could say for sure was that it was thick and not something one would want to drink. His thoughts then went back to the hovercraft that picked him and others up. Whatever hovercraft that picked up Katniss, wasn’t from the same sort of people as the one who picked up John, Sylvia and Peeta. He took to the back of his head as he remembered that the moment he lifted his head in the hovercraft, someone knocked him right back to unconsciousness.

Wherever he was, he was still in the Arena-uniform and all of the hazards that had left its mark on him in the Arena were still noticeable. Nothing had changed really. He was just in a different kind of hell, he thought. His skin was itchy from the blisters, worn out by falling over the edge and his shoulder was very sore from the monkey-mutts. Not much had changed. As his thoughts calmed down around that fact, he then remembered Sylvia and Peeta. Where were they? He remembered they were all picked up by the same hovercraft. They had to be here somewhere. President Snow had probably ordered his men to keep John, Sylvia and Peeta separated. No better way to break them down than to keep them separated right?

As he thought about what they then wanted to do with them, only one thing came to mind: the rebellion. John and Sylvia had something to do with all of this: the extraction out of the Arena. They knew things that the President would be interested to know, but at the same time they didn’t. In fact, there was lot that John and Sylvia didn’t know. But what about Peeta? He knew even less. How was Snow going to use him in the middle of all this? In the middle of his thoughts, he was interrupted by the sound of a turning key. Two peacekeepers entered the door and walked up to him. John put up his hands as if to brace himself. “Good, you’re awake.” One of them said as they dragged him down the hall and into what seemed like an interrogation room. As he was thrown on the floor and the peacekeepers exited the room, a bright light hit John in the face. He could barely make out a figure sitting behind the light as he sat up properly.

“That was quite a dramatic turn of events, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Wintergreen?” A voice then spoke out. John took a deep breath as he recognized it the moment the person spoke. “I hope they weren’t too dramatic for you.” John answered as he then heard a loud bang on the table behind the light. The light was steered away from him as John could then see President Snow’s face. It was not a pleasant one. Not when he had lost the one thing he feared the most: Katniss Everdeen. “Oh, I will assure you, Mr. Wintergreen, they will not be as dramatic as your experience in here. This must all have been a part of a plan…a rebellious plan, right?” He then asked. John looked at him for a moment as he could see that the President was desperate for answers, answers of the kind that John in fact did not have.

“Tell me, President Snow, you’re not that comfortable with what’s happened, are you? I mean, you always enjoy knowing every detail of every victor’s life.” John then asked rather smug. The President snorted at him lightly. “Oh, don’t you worry, Mr. Wintergreen, I will find them.” He answered as he was walking a few steps closer to John. “And how is that? How are you going to find those who got away…uhm, oh yes, Finnick, Beetee, Katniss…” John said, but this time he was paying severely for it. The President pushed a button that sent electrical shocks through his entire body. After the first round, John was lying in foster-position, trying to recover from the after-effects.

As he calmed down, Snow threw something down in front of John. It was the bracelet. “Every move you did in there was motivated by this. I know it was. I know that Haymitch gave this to you and to Sylvia and then his own to Finnick Odair. You were all a part of it. Now, you’re going to give me their location and their allies.” Snow said as he sat down on a chair pulled up next to the table. John grabbed it and then looked at Snow. “We’ll be in here in a long time then, Snow…it’s okay that I call you Snow, right? Considering we’re on…” John then asked just as smug as earlier, which again earned him shock through his entire body. “…last names.” He managed to finish in a cramped breath. “I thought you learned the first time that every wrong or sarcastic answer and I will hurt you, emotionally or physically. Whatever you went through in the Arena, is nothing compared to what I’ll do to get the answers I seek!” Snow said as he rose up from the chair.

John managed to pull it together as he held on to the golden bracelet. He looked at it for a moment before he looked up at Snow. “Why don’t you just kill me already? You know I won’t give you the answers you seek that easily.” John then pointed out. “Like I said, Mr. Wintergreen, I will hurt you far deeper than anything you’ve ever experienced before. Remember, I don’t have to hurt you physically to get you talking.” Snow warned him as he walked over to the peacekeepers in the room. John heard him requesting them to move John to another cell. “Until next time, Mr. Wintergreen…” Snow then said as he left the room and the peacekeepers came picked him up by his arms.

John didn’t understand why he wasn’t brought to the cell he was in earlier. Was it just for him to wake up, or was he being sent to a worse cell for his attitude with Snow. Without an artificial leg, John couldn’t really try to keep up with the pace of the peacekeepers. They were dragging him after his shoulders and his legs were just being bruised by each trip. Even though it irritated him a little, it wasn’t worse than the blisters he had experienced in the Arena. Deep down he felt like nothing that Snow could do at this point that had the possibility of being any worse than what he had already been forced to endure. But of course he was proven wrong as they stopped to open the door to his new cell. This was all planned. Snow had been planning this for a while.

The peacekeepers threw him inside the cell and then closed it behind him. John was forcing himself up on his four limbs as he saw that he had two companions. The first one he saw was Sylvia who was barely conscious. As John looked over at the other one, he saw a girl lying down, barely breathing. But there was something familiar about this person. As he got a little closer, it hit him.

“Marge?”

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Author's note:
So I've been feeling like ALL the chapters up till this point, have been transition chapters, because these last chapters of Rising Rebellion, were the ideas I had all the way from the start. It's gonna be a little brutal, and there might be some fault language and stuff.

This is a part of the story that I had to make up without anything to lean in the original books because we don't get to really hear about the conditions and what happened in the captivity in the Capitol. I hope you're as fascinated as I was when writing this :)