The 55th Hunger Games

Chapter 28

        Warm. I am so warm. The pillow is soft beneath my head, the blanket around me enclosing me in comfort. My eyes are closed and have no desire to open. I am at complete peace.

        The illusion is shattered when my brain wakes from its dreamy state. I do not try to supress the groan that escapes from my lips as I remember. I bury my head into the pillow, wanting so much for this pillow to be mine back home, to open my eyes in my tiny dusty room with Cole beside me. But I know even before I open my eyes that this particular hope will not come true.

        Eventually I pick up the courage to roll over until I am facing the ceiling and open my eyes. Above me is a stark white roof. I tilt my head until I can see the rest of the room. It is just about completely empty with the exception of the bed I am lying in. There is not even a window in the room which makes me panic. But the worst thing of all is that I am all alone. In fact the room is eerily silent around me.

        On my arm is a piece of tape, hiding the needle which I can vaguely feel inside me. I feel an overwhelming urge to rip it from my skin, but decide against it.

        I lie there for a while longer and remember the trumpets that blared and the voice of Claudius Templesmith announcing my victory. I remember clinging to Aponi's empty body and the ladder which swooped down from the hovercraft and froze me in place, lifting me up, away from Aponi. I remember the clean white room it brought me into and the heavy surge of panic which attacked me. I try to remember what followed after, but my memory comes up blank.

        Then I begin to cry. 'Aponi is dead,' I realise. 'She is dead!' After everything we had been through together, suddenly she is just gone. Is she waiting for me at the old oak even now?

        Now as I lie here, the games do not even feel real. They feel like nothing more than a dream. Maybe soon Marigold will come in and haul me off to the games which have not yet started, and I will have to live it all over again.

        My mind is foggy. I can hardly put things together. Throughout the day I slip in and out of consciousness, drowning in a pool of complete misery, wanting it so badly to end. I wish I had someone to talk to. I can't stand being alone anymore. My memories are eating me alive. Cole's band is gone too, and I am left without even that to comfort me.

        My dinner arrives with one of the silent Capitol attendants. I get a bowl of thick white soup and a warm drink. It's not exactly a feast, but I find I only finish half of the soup and most of the warm drink. I suppose my stomach is very small right now.

        The meal is strangely satisfying to consume and I don't quite know why until I realise that my throat no longer hurts. It is healed, just as it was before Sapphire strangled me at the feast. I suppose the tracker is now out of me too. When I look at the arm they had injected it into I see a very faint scar. There might be no mark there later.

        The drugs being pumped into me allow me to sleep easily without dreams. But when I wake the next morning I immediately remember the dream I had had in the arena -the one I had told Aponi about.

        "Mahamari was the shadow." I whisper to the white roof above me.

        So my dream, in a way, had come true. Except as I watched Aponi die her eyes had not been full of betrayal, but of peace. Still it hardly matters. I am responsible for her death. I keep trying to imagine how things could have gone differently -how I could have saved her.

        Maybe if I had not felt the need to examine the carvings on the blow pipe, everything would be ok. But would I have sentenced Aponi to the same misery I am suffering from had she been the Victor? Of course I would have. I would never wish this upon her. Not in a million years.