Annie: At the Edge
I can hear that sound, that familiar, horrible sound, like thunder, only worse, louder. The ground shakes and rumbles and tilts, until everything is tripled before my eyes and my teeth are threatening to chatter out of my head. I grab hold of a tree for support, but then I am washed away, washed away, a wave of water that crashes, drags, sweeps me into blueness. It's instinct to swim, one arm up, pulling, darting through waves like I've done all my life. But then I'm no longer in water. It's wet, hot, bright bright scarlet, not silky against my skin but sticky, and the smell is of death, of terror, of that axe swinging through Cameri's flesh, and I open my mouth to scream…
"Annie!"
I bolt upright with a wail.
For one fleeting, terrifying second, my vision is drowned by red and I can feel the salty wet of blood on my fingers.
I scream low and claw at the bedsheets, but then I can see and my mother is staring at me, eyebrows knitted together with worry.
"The blood…?" I whisper, touching her face, making sure she's there.
"No blood," she whispers, "It was just a dream, Annie. Just a dream."
One second of relief.
Then I remember.
"Oh no," I whisper, my eyes going wide, "Oh no."
It's Reaping Day.
I'm standing in the girl's line and I'm watching as Kiaan Rosst pulls a slip from the female bowl…
"Shh, Annie," my mother holds me so carefully, as though I might break at her touch. I think I will. "You're not the only District 4 victor. Remember, there's Mags and Minna and -"
…and Kiaan flicks open the paper with a smooth move of her wrist. She beams at the crowd and says it, those two words that ruin everything from that moment on: "Annie Cresta!"
"I can't go there," I sob, burying my face in her pale hair, "I can't!"
But we both know there's no choice.
I'm on the train with Kiaan, several of the mentors and Cameri, my male counterpart. We're eating, and the food looks wonderful, but I taste nothing. I'm eating for the sake of something to do and all the tips being called across the table aren't registering, because even though I've trained, I am sure that I will die.
The hot water feels beautiful, beautiful, but my mind is whirling and I think I'm going to be sick. I can remember the cyclone of terror that clouded my thoughts, so long back, yet it seems like yesterday, because of the dreams, and I'm afraid, so very, very afraid, that it will come back.
Cameri and I, allies, crouch together behind a mess of weedy ferns. I can't move; there's a District 1 pair roaming near us.
"What should we do?" I whisper, from the corner of my mouth. And Cameri, impulsive, stupid Cameri, replies, "This."
He bursts out of the ferns, wielding his knife, and there's nothing I can do but follow. The District 1 pair are fierce, but so are we, and the fight is fast, furious, brutal, aimed to kill. I manage to seriously wound the female, but she's slashed my arm too, and there's blood, so much blood…
Then I hear it.
The scream.
The axe, slicing through bone and flesh.
I whirl around, all pain gone.
Cameri's body is lying on the grass.
And his head… it is in the District I tribute's hand.
The memory brings tears to my eyes, my wide, wide eyes, and I collapse on the bathtub floor, hiding my face in my hair, trying to disappear in the soaking brown.
"No. No. No. Cameri. No. NO!"
A gentle knock on the door.
"Annie?" my mother calls.
I store that voice away, just in case…I'll never hear it again.
"Annie, Finnick is here."
Finnick. Oh, Finnick. He can't…see me like this. I hurt him enough before.
I pull myself out of the shower, pull on my clothes, good clothes – silky aqua clothes that shift on my skin like the waves of the ocean. Reaping clothes. The same clothes I wore on that day, that day…
"No," I hiss to myself; my voice sounds faraway and foreign, "Not now. For Finnick."
Finnick.
I may never see him again.
I can't help it – I can't stay calm – I can't – I can't, I can't…
But I burst out of the bathroom anyway, because I need him, Finnick Odair, to…to…I don't know, but I do. I can't…
…I can't seem to think straight and the trainers are all staring at me like I'm a lost cause. Maybe I am.
But I can't think like that. I have to try, at least a little bit. At least I'm not as bad as the District 12 tributes. They don't even want to do anything.
Seeing Finnick standing there makes me feel stronger. A cliff, that's what he looks like, strong and sturdy, something to lean on.
I must look as bad as I feel, because he says, "It's okay, Annie. They won't take you."
I want to believe it.
But I am beyond hope. I am on the edge, and sometimes I just want to go over it and be submerged, because functioning, working, moving, every day, is just too painful. I think of Forever, stretching on and one, week and month after year, again again again, and my head sways like the water that laps on the sandy shore.
"No," I start in a whisper, but my voice starts to rise, "No, no, no!"
Finnick should be used to it, my constant wails of denial, but every time, every time, I see pain in his beautiful beautiful eyes, and I just can't stand it, I want to scream myself over the edge.
"I promise you won't go back, Annie," he whispers, pressing his lips to my hair, "I promise." And he takes my trembling hand in his, to lead me to the Quarter Quell Reaping.
I am finishing off dinner, slowly. I've stuffed myself already, but I don't want to watch myself riding through the Capitol in my skimpy blue dress and silver-streaked hair. I force a spoonful of fish into my mouth and try not to listen to the mentors, stylists, Kiaan and Cameri, oohing and aahing over the television. I have to close my eyes to stop the tears.
Finnick is standing beside me as Kiaan prances over to the big glass balls at the center on the stage. She pipes a message of encouragement in her high, tweeting accent and flips her blinding white hair over her shoulder with a beam that shows off the emeralds in her teeth.
But I am not listening.
I am concentrating on Finnick's fingers, just brushing against mine, the only things that are keeping me together.
He promised.
He promised.
Didn't he?
Kiaan fishes for a slip in a ball full of male victor names and opens one with her characteristic wrist flick. She beams once more, emeralds gleaming in the sun, and calls out: "Finnick Odair."
My heart seems to stop.
My lungs aren't working properly.
I clench one hand into a fist, place the other on my chest, trying to force air into my body. But it is not working.
Finnick is gone.
What…what will happen to me…?
The world is swirling before my eyes, my head is pounding, I can hear screaming and thunder and smell blood and death. I think…it's from the Games…but who knows…maybe it's happening now, again…
I know who the female tribute will be before Kiaan says a word.
"Annie Crrrresta!"
No. No. No. No. NO!
Am I saying it out loud?
I don't know.
I don't care.
I am over the edge.
It was like this before, during the Games. Everything is nothing and nothing is something and something is everything. Blood is everywhere and I can hear them, everyone, wailing and shrieking, and I am drowned in it, everything, nothing, something, and I can't swim out of it. No.
But then I feel a hand brushing against mine, pulling me back, slowly, surely, back to the edge.
Mags.
She's…she's…volunteered…
How…?
…how did I win the Games? How am I the only one standing alive – shivering, cold, but ALIVE - on the hard wet ground of the arena? How is everyone else gone and how I am not? I stare around, eyes wide, fingers clutching soaking arms, and I fall to the ground and let it all out. My tears add to the water on the dirt.
Mags, poor, sweet Mags, hobbles on to the stage. I love her, love her with all my heart.
Mags.
And Finnick.
Mags and Finnick.
Finnick and Mags.
No Annie.
No.
Annie.
I see my mother crying.
I can feel tears on my own cheeks.
I'm not happy.
Not sad.
Not angry.
I'm…empty.
Finnick catches my eye and smiles, so sad, and maybe if I hadn't been crying already, I would have then.
Maybe.
Or not.
I feel like I was brimming with everything and now I've been gutted, scoured and cleaned, a silky aqua fish out of the water.
The Hunger Games took something out of me.
I don't think I'll get it back.
A/N: Aaagh! Possibly the LONGEST one-shot I've ever written!
I wrote this before I read Mockingjay, but I don't think I've gotten any facts wrong or made anyone is OOC. But in case I have, feel free to point it out.