The 74th Annual Hunger Games: Etherised

Chapter One

White Light

Author's Note: Hello HG readers, long time no see :^) Hopefully you'll have read 'The Others' before starting this, otherwise you might wonder what the hell has been going on… I loved it so much, I couldn't wait to do a sequel. Except then A-levels happened, hence the month-long delay. But never mind! You're here now, so off we go.

Legal: …I've got to do this all over again? REALLY?

Logan

I've never had an underwater dream before. But then, what I experience would be better termed a nightmare.

I'm already a long way from the surface, of a huge ocean in which there is nothing but deep, deep blue, for endless stretches of miles. My own hands are around my neck, and I look down and wonder why they're there. Below me there is an even darker blue, turning dark green and then black. I've lost all sense of weight, direction and dimension.

It's not my hands around my neck now. Another face is suddenly there, another body, and he has a murderous glint in his eyes as he throttles me. Who is he? Where have I seen his face before? I know that I know him, and yet I don't know who it is I'm supposed to know.

And then it's too late: I'm still conscious, and can see the light shafts disappearing as I sink into unceasing darkness. I don't know what's waiting for me underneath, but whatever it is feels terrifyingly real; I can feel the density of the water, feel it going down my throat and blocking my lungs. My body thrashes about, but in slow motion. I want to move faster but physically can't. And

White light. White lights. White lights ensconced in the ceiling. Wait. A ceiling? Where am I? Where did the sea go? Where did my killer go?

Then it all floods back: killer; Marvel; Careers; training; metal tree; tributes; reaping; games. I died.

I sit up straight like someone's swung a hammer into my spine. Then I instantly wish I hadn't, because the room - or what I can see of it - spins, and so I flop back down on my pillows…I have pillows! Oh sweet luxury!

I cough and splutter as my eyes try to produce something clearer than blurry, fuzzy shapes. My neck cramps with pain, and I realise I'm in a neck brace. Wow…what else is wrong with me…my left arm is in a sling, but I can stretch out my right arm with relative ease. I feel around my immediate surroundings: a metal box. A rail. Some buttons…Oh, oh, oh I shouldn't have pressed that, I'm…

"Help," I squeak, as the top half of my bed tips back to an angle no human being should have to endure. From my left I hear a grunt of pain, before a thin arm reaches over and presses another button to reverse the process. Eventually, I'm sitting up, and my eyes present a clearer scene to me:

Everything here is white, from the walls to the floors to the other beds. And in these eight other beds are young people, in thin white gowns under white blankets. They all look frail and weak, but very much alive. The tributes are alive.

"Don't worry, Logan, someone'll come along and explain everything to you soon enough."

With some difficulty, I manoeuver my upper body to the left, to find my partner from District Seven, Jackal. My jaw slackens instinctively.

"Jackal…? But, but you're dead."

"Well, that would make sense if I wasn't sitting here talking to you. And yet here I am. And now here you are."

She grimaces for a second, one arm draped over her pelvis, and another underneath her back, which, like mine, is propped up to a sitting position.

"My kidneys," she says by way of explanation. "Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn't, but I got nicked in each one. I keep asking the doctors to increase my morphine, but they're refusing to budge."

"…This is a hospital?"

"No, Logan, it's a garden centre. Of course it's a hospital."

"Sorry, you're right. I'm being stupid." Jackal sighs.

"No, don't worry about it. I'm just tetchy, y'know, because I haven't left this bed since I came out of surgery…however many hours ago."

"Surgery? Have I been…there too?" The thought makes me shiver with fear, irrational as it is; after all, if I have, then there's nothing to be afraid of, because it's already happened. Jackal nods, eyes closed. She looks really uncomfortable. Granted, I hardly feel like leaping out of bed and tap-dancing around the room, but my neck doesn't feel too sore unless I swallow or cough, and there's only a dull ache in my left shoulder. I recall the knife wound, and then forget about it.

"Did you all arrive at the same time?" I ask, casting my gaze around the room. I'm at the end of my row, but if I lean forward a small fraction, I can see the tribute from Six on Jackal's left, his own small neck swathed in thick bandages. I remember watching him get his throat slit. The District Five male is the last on our side, tucked up and fast asleep. I can't see anything immediately wrong with him.

"Looks like Five got out lucky, somehow," I say to Jackal. She glances at him, then looks back at me and gravely shakes her head.

"Who, Tristan? Under those blankets are a load of bandages across his chest. Got skewered through the ribs."

Opposite me is the boy from Ten, the one who had a limp. Next to him is, what was his name, Dyon, from Four, who's bandaged up around the liver. The girl and boy from Nine look like they're in especially bad shape: Jackal tells me she received an arrow to the head, and he got speared through the chest. I shudder.

The last girl, from Three, also dons a neck brace. The image of Cato's hands around her delicate jaw, snapping her head 180 degrees to the left, flashes across my mind. I suddenly want to be back asleep.

In between waves of pain, Jackal reels off their names for me: Mailo, Tristan, Kiko, Dyon, Ember, Archidamus ("Arc for short," he clarifies) and Perdita. Only then does it occur to me that all of these tributes died in the bloodbath, right at the beginning of the Games. Which means I have missed a fundamental question here:

"How are we still alive?"

"I might be able to shed some light on that issue."

From beyond our nine beds, a swooshing sound echoes out from a pair of glass automatic doors. I see a pristine white coat, white gloves, and a face that looks like it's seen too much of the world: a doctor.

She walks efficiently over to my bed and extends a hand.

"Dr. Melody Smithson. It's good to see you're awake, Tom. May I call you that, Tom?"

"Actually, most people know me as - "

"Well, Tom, I understand this must all be very overwhelming for you and difficult to understand, but before going into that I just want to make sure you're fully functioning. Arm, please."

Like a mine diffusal expert, she takes my blood pressure, examines my ears, flashes a light into my eyes, puts a tongue depressor to my throat and times my pulse, all in the space of two minutes.

"Now, the other tributes will already be in the know, because they arrived earlier. But you seemed to last a good few hours more, which you should be proud of. I will try to explain this to you as clearly and briefly as I can:

"Centuries before you were even born, during the initial wars for resources, the continents outside of Panem, then the United States of America, embarked on an international mission to transfer one tenth of the human population to another planet in a neighbouring galaxy. I won't bore you with the mechanics of the power technological prowess it took to transport that number of people to that planet, but I will tell you this: it was the most expensive, most risky project the human race had ever embarked upon. And it paid off.

"Today, outside this clinic, is a thriving metropolis, one of several, but not many. We humans had to begin again, producing and consuming materials from our new home sustainably, and ensuring that overpopulation would never again become a burden. The current ruler of Panem, President Snow, was well aware of how well members of rival nations were surviving, and so, after years of negotiations and summits, it was finally established that, under the ruse of an entertainment paradigm known as 'The Hunger Games' twenty-three of Panem's youngest citizens, from across all districts, all races and all backgrounds, would be granted eventual sanctuary on this planet.

"You may be shocked by the elaborate nature of this ruse, and naturally so, but you must understand that overpopulation, by reproduction or immigration, is considered in this society to be a fatal crime against humanity. If anyone outside of the presidential office was aware of what was occurring, there would be complete anarchy, an utter scramble for deliverance to a better world. So, for what has been seventy-four years now, this clinic has taken in twenty-three tributes, always either on the verge of death, or clinically dead and in need of revival, and put its most sophisticated medical equipment to use for their benefit.

"Questions?"

My mouth is dry from having been open for so long. I didn't know it was possible to feel so many different layers of emotions all at once: shock, fury, misery, relief, awe, anxiety, and utter bewilderment. I feel an overwhelming urge to yell at this matter-of-fact doctor, a symbol of one system which has decided, in collaboration with another, to rip my life to shreds, toss the pieces in the air, and expect me to pick them up.

Before I can, however, Jackal weakly intervenes:

"Don't, Logan. I was angry too. But it's just not worth it."

"It really isn't. You're stuck here," quips Dr. Smithson, suddenly full of verve as she scans my chart. "But at least you can count yourself as one of our luckier arrivals: flesh wound to the left shoulder with minor infection, plus the obvious bruising of the neck muscles. We also had to drain your lungs and sinuses of freshwater, but apart from that, you're perfectly fine. As soon as you're up to it, do feel free to stretch your legs and walk around this floor of the clinic, provided you don't get in anyone's way. Oh, and we tweaked your corneas a little: you now have 20/20 vision."

I try to form words of some kind, but find I can give no more than a thumbs-up with my right hand. Dr. Smithson smiles, taking the hint to leave. Before that, though, she points out which buttons will increase my morphine, crank my bed up and down, draw a curtain for privacy, and call a doctor should anything urgent come up. I blink and murmur "thank you", but the moment Dr. Smithson exits the ward, I sink back into my white pillows, overcome by a need to let my muddled thoughts find some semblance of order. I sleep.