Dip, exhale; surface, inhale.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Even mad girls need to come up for air sometime.
Even if you don't come up breathing, you'll still come up with air in your lungs.
The image of corpses breaking surface, inflated, around her makes her stifle a scream. When hands move to block the sound, they ache and resist jerky motions. They mirror the pounding throbs of her head, slick hot liquid dripping down her right cheek.
No, that's not right. Is it?
Head jerks to the right, eyes still sealed though lids protest, twitching against her will. Neck cracks and quirks. She barely suppresses a hiss of misery. She is weaving, bobbing between the underwater currents, and the cold slap of air.
Only, all of the water is gone.
She is swimming through shadows.
Breaking the surface means a reality of pain. Staying under means contending with her demons. The in-between, Annie's pretty little paradise gets muddied up much too easily.
She can hear a shrieking in the distance, as she emerges from the clawing, lifeless hands inside of her mind. They are screaming, but it is not words, when they open their fangs to show gaping black holes. The swish-slice of flesh meeting metal resounds, instead, amplified in the semi-(hah!) quiet of her mind.
Them? she muses before shadows scatter thought. Is it me or them?
She starts to stray back into their grasp. It should scare her, she knows, but there is something to the nest that her mind can be. Sometimes retreating feels like security. Accepting it is easy. Maybe she does not deserve anything except silence. Isolation.
The pain brings her back. Hands flex, the bones reply in turn, sharp stabbing rippling up her nerves.
A whimper. Then, not-so far-off sounds.
"Is anyone in there?"
I know you, she thinks, before shaking her head. No, no, I know the memory, not the present. I'm just confused.
She does know that voice, though. Even silhouettes of nightmares past permit recognition. It is normally deep, and warm. Right now, terror rides it. A piggyback from hell, round and round her head. She cannot bring the face to the surface. But she knows that she knows.
(What she knows, she cannot quite say.)
A bubble lights in her diaphragm, but it hurts on the way up. What starts like a tickling laugh comes out as a silly bark.
Arp, arp, arp!
She pictures a girl with flippers for hands. She is a seal. Isn't that funny? Seals can't be Victors.
Arp, arp, arp!
The laughter persists.
Arp, arp, arp!
She is uncertain if it is from her, after a time.
Arp, arp, arp!
It is beginning to hurt in her sides and chest, so she assumes she must still be laughing. Her own hands are gripping, griping, against the pain sparking and spurring them to fits of spasming. She brings hands to her ears. Palms rub and rub the ringing orifices, to try and get the aching out.
Maybe the shadows will go, too, she muses.
It is no use. Tough luck, and really, it is a shame.
The shadows are circling. Whales to krill, are really sharks to blood.
Just like your mama, they snicker.
She can feel their hot breath in her ear. And it reminds her, reminds her-
She pushes it away. Their voices are less terrifying than some memories. Their words, though, can be downright bone-chilling.
We're coming for you, too.
Leer and sneer and mock. She ignores them, or tries. She is too tired to fight them. They feed off of the disorientation, block and hide and gnaw the images. They only let through the terrible thoughts. Happy memories, though more bright, face the gauntlet of acid-worn defenses that turn inward, turn to offense. Turn on her, until she is attacking herself. On good days, they only come out at night, the shadows.
But they are smart. They worm their way into the daytime, too.
They get that from me.
It does not really bother her, though it likely should.
The vibrance peers at her, beckons her to make her way over yonder. As if through a cloud of smoke, a long, narrow, dangerous path keeps the happiness at a distance. The stairwell, just the first stair alone is daunting. She is only sometimes brave enough to make her way there.
Am I, now?
The pain is becoming more real, more acute. She is not going to the happy memories, no. She is going towards reality.
It hurts.
Reality is not usually so happy. No better or worse than the images in Annie's head, she tends to think, but tricky. In reality, happiness remains far offshore. She wants to be there, though, because she can feel more. She is not just soaked in fear. Smell more than blood and the chemicals of the dam's freshwater. Sometimes it is a toss-up, between remaining here, in the shadows of her mind, or out there, where… the bad things have are will, happened happening happen.
She gives a start at a feeling of landing inside of herself. A sick feeling dulls in her stomach. It keeps out, however momentarily, the feelings ofslice, dice, bruise, batter. Opened nicks to her skin balk in the cold air, and the exposure clenches teeth together until she thinks the molars are beginning to crack.
It is easier not to fight. Easier, just to go with the tides, the ebbs and flows of joy and fear and panic and calm.
No one ever promised that being a Victor would make a girl happy.
Breath is labored. Sea-green eyes sting against the onslaught of tears-
No, she thinks with a start. They are not tears.
It is the dried salt lingering about, crusting her eyelids.
Is it real? she (thinks that she) asks it aloud. Who she is supposed to be asking, exactly, eludes her.
"Annie?" the voice is a shriek now, and lashes flutter and peel apart. A shaky hand travels up, to block the boiling sunlight heating, and stabbing through onto her face.
Hot breath against her ear.
It's real, it's real, it's-
She wants to cry out, does a bit, actually. She hears through ringing ears muffled yelps and yowls and the soft, soft lull of the water lapping the sand.
The water should not sound so close. She could swear it is within her grasp, and when eyes peer down, she sees it is lapping the shattered, wounded planks of wood which have her trapped.
She cannot find the strength against the pain to move, but rolls her head, as best she can, to the left.
She would give a start, if not for exhaustion.
Bronze hair is bleeding dark red, tanned skin paling. The worst, though, is that there is a wooden plank pinning him to the wall behind him. No blood, none that she can see, but it is secure against his chest, and she cannot keep her eyes there long enough, to see if the chest is rising and falling.
She is whimpering before she can stop.
Impaled.
He's impaled.
He's dead.
(Dead people aren't very good friends.
Are we, Annie?)
A scream finds its way and before Annie can stop herself, she is struggling against aching, dizzy bones to clamor out of the haphazard lean-to.
"Is she in there?!" sounds again.
"I heard something!"
"Here, check here!"
("Get out of here!
Hide!
They're coming!"
but the bushes don't stop the blood,
just like pretty necks don't stop katanas.)
Annie thinks, for a moment, she may actually have lost her mind, because the man next to her looks dead and yet there is no one else in here to be making sounds. Eyes glancing, warily over, before quickly diverting.
Shake head, tap ears one tap, two tap, three tap.
He looks familiar, too.
(Hey, here's a riddle: How does a dead man speak? In breathless tones.)
Laughter attacks, until tears fill her eyes. Hands are trying to find somewhere that will not shift and move and break and hurt her clawing fingers.
groan, moan,
"Annie!",
shift, twist,
"Hold on, we're coming!",
creak, thump,
"Can you see her?"
With a burst of sunshine, patches of blue invade. Hands fly to eyes and breath quickens. Heart pounds because don't look, can't look.
The light hurts too much.
There must be lots of people, she can hear muffled conversations and distant calls of names and numbers. Things that do not make sense.
"Annie!" it's a mixture of relief and fear. A tug to wrist feeds warmth to cold, shuddering limbs.
Everything hurts.
When they tug her up, half-carry her out over the unsteady rubble, she winces and whimpers before tears are popping out intermittently, against her better judgement.
I wasn't supposed to let them see me cry.
"Ou se okay, kid," the reassuring whisper comes against a background song filled with gasps and shouts. She is pulled into a tight embrace, and it would feel like choking, except her body feels numb to the restriction.
Choking doesn't matter, though.
Isn't that funny?
Strong arms, warm. Eyes stay locked on the ground, but she can see the skin of the arms are not so different from her own. It is disorienting, when she realizes the ground beneath their feet is moving. Sticky, dark brown mud pops as her feet sink then are retrieved with each step from the gooey substance.
Annie is shaking. She cannot stop.
Mud, turns to small tidepools, turns to sand, sand, sand beneath her bare feet. Dislodged, the drier sand sticks to wet feet, while other particles hiss and whistle, kicked into oblivion. Grass weeds tickle at her feet, but her muscles are so sore in her legs, she would much rather collapse down in them.
Click, swoosh, and mumbling, mumbling. Hands are on her shoulders, nudge for her to sit down on a hard surface which sways under her weight. Knees and feet hang off of the edge.
The man says something Annie does not quite hear, before repeating it a second time, then a third.
"Annie," finally cuts through the haze. That does not really do the girl much good.
Annie. I am Annie.
Hands squeeze her shoulders, causing a retorting grimace. "It's Daran."
Tongue tastes like sandpaper.
Daran.
"Can you hear me?"
A hand waves in front of her face. Annie flinches, shutting her eyes.
"I don't think she can hear me," Daran addresses someone to Annie's right-hand side. "She's in shock."
"Clearly." that someone retorts. Cool, indifferent. "She'll get over it."
Clinical.
Eyes flicker, wander up to investigate the people 'handling' her.
Clinical.
The woman who spoke wears a nurse's jumpsuit. She wraps something around Annie's elbow, before beginning to press along the bones of her forearm. The muscles are sore, achingly bitter in their reaction to the sensory touch.
Clinical.
"Bo?" it's the first name that comes to her mind. Voice is croaking, mind beginning to churn out images. She is saying more names before she knows it.
Aslin and Fabi and Manny and Graci and Evanse-
Mags-
And the body next to her had been-
"Finnick," her mouth says it before her brain can stop her. "Dead."
"No," the man- Daran. Daran!- says. His hands remain on her shoulders. Shoulders are rattling and she wonders if he feels like he is starting a broken-down boat. It nearly makes her smile. "They took him straight to the hospital. Finnick was with you, Annie, we just got him out."
"Yes," the mute nod and flatness of her own voice sounds distant. Far off, and fading as it goes. She wonders who is speaking with her voice. "He had a beam in his chest."
Her own nod backs her up.
"He's got a pulse," Daran insists, firmly. "I promise you, Annie. He's not dead, that beam got him pinned but it didn't go through him."
This takes time to process. Her eyes slowly brave meeting Daran's. There is a pity there, behind his eyes. It gnaws on Annie. He is looking at her, as if she is some wounded, pathetic thing.
Although, perhaps that is exactly what she is. If nothing else, she surely looks the role.
All of her clothing is ragged, and wretched. And salt stings her throat and burns her nostrils.
"He's not dead," Annie repeats.
Daran nods.
"Where's… everyone?"
"They're helping the rescue crews, or getting treated still," Daran answers. He glances to the nurse, before leaning in and giving Annie a tentative hug. "I'm gonna get Bo. Okay?"
"Okay," Annie manages with a more even tone than ought to be possible.
Daran has not waited for Annie's response. Her former mentor never was one for feelings. Though he has always been kind, to Annie.
A smile quirks her face, before being distracted, and discarded with the changing breeze. A sharp breath shoves the momentary relief down her throat. Finnick is not dead. And Daran is getting Bo.
Two down. Just like the games, only they don't get the death-toll, or their faces in the sky.
The nurse is gripping at the bones in Annie's hand, flexing them and causing her to let out a gripe of pain. Eyes water, and Annie has to purse her lips, to keep from saying or doing anything.
In the hospital, after the got her out, she kept trying to flee. The Capitol Doctors were not very sympathetic. Nor were the nurses.
Annie really does not like either of the two species.
Not after-
"Annie!"
The new voice behind the cry causes her head to jerk in the direction of the sound, before she winces. The hand free of the nurse's inspection touches her own neck gingerly as she looks, more restrained, for the source of the voice.
Bo. The lighter strawberry-blonde head of hair, the more tanned skin of Annie's brother comes into her nigh-weepy vision. Before she knows it, she is pulled into a tight, desperate, one-armed hug. It hurts, and she cannot resist a hiss responding.
"Di ou mèsi," he is mumbling, hot breath against her hair feeling incredibly out of place. "Di ou mèsi, ap okay-"
"Bo," Annie manages back.
His other arm is not in a sling, as it had been the last time Annie saw him. Still, the injured arm hangs limp at his side. Annie wants to ask if he is okay, himself, only the question sticks on the roof of her mouth. She may not like the answer.
Her throat feels too tight, and the fog that heats the tears in her eyes is keeping everything at a distance. Her hand reaches out, finds her brother's injured arm, and the hand belonging to the arm interlaces with her own.
"Excuse us," the nurse cuts in, sharply. "I haven't finished my examination of her injuries."
"I'm fine-"
"I'll judge that, Miss Cresta."
There is a condescension to the tone.
"But, I'm-"
The nurse stops Annie with a disciplinary glare that looks more like caged fury.
Annie's shoulders hunch up, and she looks at the ground. Bo relinquishes his hold. While Annie misses the warmth of her brother's arms, she has to admit, he had been holding her awfully tight. Her chest and shoulders, and aching arms, hardly appreciated the gesture. Everything is shuddering with each inhale and exhale, now. The sweat down her back and sheening across her forehead is cooling, making her shiver further.
The nurse tugs Annie's head upwards by the chin, and she tries not to sink back into a black hole at the triggering touch. Holding a small, metallic pen in front of Annie's face, the nurse orders to follow the object with her eyes. Annie does the best she can, but there is a peculiar sense of failure at the nurse's conclusory huff.
The woman steps away, producing a tablet and beginning to type things rapidly onto it.
Annie blinks away the mist of tears, and begins to allow eyes to take in the scene around her. There are emergency crews, not just in the immediate vicinity, but all over. Even the local Peacekeepers are assisting the crews, wounded sitting similar to Annie, on metal bedframes of the back's of medical vans from District Four's hospital. The buildings in the distance, in Town, and even the Canneries, seem battered, but mostly together.
It is a beautiful, bright, sunny blue sky. Not a cloud in site. The gentle laps of the waves try, just like the sky, to seem to apologize for the wrath they had shown.
Mama Lanati, Papa would say, after winter storms or hurricanes. She's a tricky one.
Considering the jumbled memories, it is not actually as horrible as one would expect.
With one exception: they are currently in an inland, sandy area. The embankment abuts Shelling Shacks, then marshy bogs before solidifying enough to border the railroad line.
Clear across cool, calm waters of the inlet, Annie can see the back of Victor's Village. Not four feet from where she currently is seated, on the propped-down back of a medical emergency van, is the wreckage from which she and Finnick- not the dead boy, silly, they say he isn't dead- had emerged. From what Annie can see, where her house's backyard ought to be across the creek, is actually a flattened pile of wood and stone.
Her brow immediately knits, and she looks up, searching her brother.
"How'd we get…?" Annie feels a panic building, and she lets it build, because there is little more that she can, in fact do, to stop it. "Bo, we were at the house."
Bo nods, placing a hand on his sister's back and taking a deep breath. Even being twenty-four, he does not look much older than Annie feels. He looks just as shaky as she feels.
(Looks like a child, to be exact.
And, though being a child may mean many things,
it certainly doesn't mean you feel equipped to deal with loss.)
"Bo?!" the anxiety must carry on her voice, the fear and the strain, and the panic, because he shushes her, rubs her back gently.
"There was a surge," Bo clears his throat. "They thought… they watched you get washed away. Az was-"
Aslin Sibb.
Bo's fiyanse.
My sissy.
My sissy couldn't get to me. We got separated.
And Finnick-
Annie's mind churns up screaming. Terrified sounds of her friends trying to keep each other safe inside of her Victor's Village home; clinging to one another. Finnick throwing himself over her, covering her, protecting her. Glass shattering, wind screaming, pressure deafening everything and everyone. And then, getting separated.
The sound of a metal pole cutting clean through the side of the house.
The sound as the roof had been ripped off and pressure sucked the house in on itself.
The break of Finnick's voice, howling against the whirling wind as the swell crushed through the house, and suddenly they were washed out, too. A flow filled with nails and projectiles and thick beams of mahogany.
And the water-
She was trying to keep him above the water.
Her arms weren't quite as strong as he needed her to be.
"You're okay," Bo whispers. An arm is around her shoulder. "You're okay, everyone's okay."
Annie reaches up to feel hot tears are boldly flying down her cheeks, like naughty teenagers fly into the fish-lodged waters of Pesca's farm-pools.
"You just had a fright-"
"I drowned, again," her voice frays and she shaking beyond what she had. "Bo, I'm dead."
The nurse is eyeing her, but it does not matter. Everything is narrow, shrinking. They both are growing farther, and farther away. A laugh starts to bubble but she thinks she might be crying but whatever it is, it hurts. She starts rocking, nodding her head and she cannot stop once she has started.
"Drowned, I'm… not real-"
"You didn't drown." Bo's grip on her tightens. "None of you drowned, Annie."
It is too quick, to Annie's mind, and she whimpers, because if he is honest, why does he speak so quickly, like a lie? That is how liars speak, not loving, big brothers telling the truth.
"I'm a fish in a net."
Her head starts swirling, and she is rocking back and forth, trying to find a center of balance. The more she rocks, the more it hurts. She thinks she hears things, but her hands cover her ears (one tap, two tap, three) and her lids shield her eyes before any of it can penetrate.
The sting that she feels in the back of her neck feels painfully pleasant. A tickle tingles down her stomach, makes her tighten, though she does not understand why.
"She needs to be admitted," the cold nurse's words drifts down into the slowly numbing darkness which has begun to take over.
Annie lets it take over her. She does not have the strength to keep fighting, forever. She is much too tired for fighting. She just wants everyone to be all right. Noise gets through the muffling, initially. The distance intensifies, until all that is left is a blurred silence.
Dip, exhale; surface, inhale.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Mags always says that sleep is good for the soul. Or was that soup?
THANKYOU FOR READING! let me know if anything is messy or confusing! this is just a lil' preview, the rest may not be coming once-a-week as I did with Ghosts, but I'm certainly going to try! As always comments / crit. / etc. are lovely! 3
a couple of things, for the purposes of this fic's headcanon (if you haven't read the previous installment, that will save you, I promise!):
1) Finnick and Annie never met as children / teens, what with District Four being so vast. Annie did train at District Four's Career Center, but they were years apart, and Finnick didn't attend after winning the 65th Games (exception being, training sessions to help the oldest kids, of which Annie was not a part at the time). Further, Finnick was not Annie's mentor, though he was in the Capitol during her Games for 'entertainment.' They still are getting to know one another, and their friendship / relationship is sort of on eggshells. Annie was 'sold' twice, up to this point, and Finnick was present at Annie's first 'appointment.'
2) District Four has a heavy Caribbean / French / Louisianan / southern influence, and you may also notice other 'customs' in the area known as Pesca differ far from canon. e.g.: families from Pesca speak 'Creel' (or a derivation of Haitian Creole). That being said, there is further Irish / Hispanic / other influences as well.
3) as much as I love Sam Claflin (and I do! I swear! I love him soso much!), during the books I always imagined Finnick to be at the least biracial? That being said, picture whomever pleases you!
4) Annie is now seventeen (was 16 during her games), Finnick is nineteen, Mags is 82. Johanna Mason has won the 69th Games, not the 71st, and so she is 18 for the purposes of this.
and yess. basically this is going to pick up right where Ghosts ended (and i hope you won't all kill me!)
5) Young Mags was the inspiration for President Snow's 'selling' system.
6) Annie has recently stolen something, at Mags' request, from a Games' muttation designer. And she may or may not remember that.