Pure Torture: a Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 21

Katniss

"We've got young blood, can't destroy us, we make our own luck in this world." -Bea Miller

When I wake up, the world is a little fuzzy. The blood transfusion is still going on. So is that feeling.
"Hey, Katnip." A voice says.
I remember the name from somewhere, I just can't put my finger on where or when it's from.
I turn my head to see Gale sitting next to my hospital bed.
"Katnip?" I ask, displaying my confusion.
"You don't remember, do you?" He says, sadly.
I shake my head.
"It's just an old nickname I used to have for you. When we would hunt together." He explains, quietly.

I turn my head away from him and stare ahead of me. I try to remember a time where something so simple and normal could have been.
"Anyway," he says, attempting to change the subject, "How are you feeling? The doctors say you should be able to finish the transfusion in about an hour-and-a-half."
I don't turn my head back to look at him.
"I feel like crap." Is all I say.
He laughs a little.
"That's what I was expecting you'd say."
I turn to him and give him a small smile. Maybe I'm not ready to love him, maybe I never will be able to. But I still value his friendship.
"I want to sleep." I say, suddenly weighed down by fatigue and pain.
"You should." He says.

I shut my eyes, trying to ignore the feeling of someone else's blood in my veins. As I'm drifting off, I hear Gale speak.
"I love you." He says, quietly.

I slip off into sleep and don't get to answer.

Not that I wanted to in the first place.
--

When I wake up, I'm hit with a wave of nausea as I watch them remove tubes and IV's from me.

I take a deep breath. Peeta's not here and neither is Gale. There's nobody here to comfort me. I guess I scared them away... They probably remember what I've done to them. I've left them behind and tried to kill them.

I stare at the wall, eyes unfocused, fighting off the nightmares that threaten to terrorize me still in the day. I slip farther and farther into the depths of my mind. I instinctively try to grasp onto a handhold that will anchor me to reality.
"Feeling any better?" A nurse asks.
I don't respond. I'm actually not even sure she spoke. I keep my gaze locked on the gray walls of the hospital room.

Something comes between me and the wall, then disappears and reappears again. It happens a couple times.
"Miss Everdeen?" The nurse says.
Oh. She's been waving her hands in front of my eyes.

I can't pull myself out of my own gaze enough to respond in any way. I'm stuck like this.
"Unresponsive." She says, probably to a doctor.
"What? That's impossible! Why would she be unresponsive? I thought she was doing better?" He asks, exasperated.
"She's been hijacked, brainless." A woman's voice cuts in. I hear Johanna in the doorway.
"Miss Mason, what are you doing out of bed?" The nurse asks.
Johanna being Johanna, ignores the question.
"You do realize exactly what hijacking is, right?" Johanna asks the doctor, almost frustrated.
"We have a theory of it, yes." He responds, formally.
"Well, that's a theory. Let me explain it to you." She replies.

I feel myself pulling myself back up into reality, finally. It must have been Johanna's words that called me back.
I listen intently to what Johanna says.

"Hijacking. Let's just imagine for a second, shall we?" She begins, "Imagine. You're in a extremely terrifying place, filled with people who are working for a man out for your blood. He wants you dead. Imagine, being strapped down and beaten and tortured as you basically hallucinate your memories and change them around. Imagine, when it's over, being thrown in a cell to bleed out. And if that's not terrifying enough, imagine being safe. Imagine being as safe as anyone could be, but not being able to know that. You're never safe from yourself! Imagine, not being able to decipher what's reality and what's just some sick nightmare you had the night before? Imagine hating yourself so much, burying yourself in your own guilt for things you never even did. That's what's going on. That's what hijacking is."

The nurse and the doctor exchange uneasy looks as if they think she's exaggerating or all-out lying.

"She's right." I say, hoarsely. It's the first word I've spoken since I've woke up.
The doctors whip their heads around to see me sitting, legs dangling over the edge of the bed.

"You all think that you can fix me. Like this will be easy and will all just go away with some 'therapy' and time." I say, "You're wrong."

I begin to laugh, almost insanely.
"You think you can fix me? You think you this will totally go away after a month? No." I laugh, "I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life! You can't see that?"

Johanna walks over to the hospital bed and sits down next to me. I keep laughing quietly.
"Thought doctors were supposed to be smart, Johanna." I say. I'm not quiet about it either. I want them to hear it.

"I know! We're both practically insane, but still know more about what's wrong with us than them." She says, laughing.

The doctors are getting mad. We don't care though.
"Miss Mason, you need to leave." The doctor orders, sternly.
She pats my back and gets off the bed.
"Whatever. I've got some Morphling waiting for me in my room. See you later, brainless." She says, exiting the room.

The doctors work silently. I lose myself again, in my thoughts. I shut my eyes, trying to get lost in a big Meadow of wildflowers of all different colors. When I finally conjure up the picture of the memory enough to be enveloped in it, I walk through the meadow. I find a patch of soft pink flowers and sit in the middle of it. I pick a bouquet of them and let my mind wander to a memory that remains untouched by the Capitol.

I inhale the sweet air and remember Rue. I lay on the ground and watch the clouds morphing into shapes of nature.

I'm jolted back into reality when I begin to feel sick. The doctors have all left, and all that's left in me is my IV, delivering Morphling and other drugs to my veins. I vomit into a trash can next to my bed. I feel my eyelids growing heavier and heavier. I'm being lured off into sleep by the drugs coursing through me.

When my eyes fall shut, I'm pushing through clouds and fog. I can't see anything in front of me. I'm running. I only stop when I run into trees, knocking me onto my back. I continue to run through this never-ending forest. When i get too tired to go forward, I realize how truly lost I am. But I'm not scared. I remember Peeta used to tell me something about this.

"If you're lost, you can always be found."

I sit on a rock and wait. A light appears, causing the clouds and fog to vanish. I place my hand on the light, feel it's light and love radiating from it. I am me, lost in a confusion of real and not real. Peeta is the light, leading my troubled self back to safety and security.

I follow the light until I reach the end of the forest. I'm back in the meadow.

As I sit in the meadow, Peeta appears out of thin air. He reaches his arms out to me, calling me to him... calling me to a place where it is only us. Nobody to hurt me or chase us. I rise and go, relieved, into his arms.