The single light bulb, hanging naked from the ceiling, illuminates the pitch black darkness. Katniss lifts the bottle to her lips, taking a slow drink. The burn of the alcohol slips down her throat, and she sighs heavily, her fingers tapping against the glass.
Before, she didn't understand. She didn't know why Haymitch, her mentor, turned to alcohol for release. But now she knows.
It's been hell, these last eleven years. The eighty-sixth annual Hunger Games are only a few months away, and she doesn't think that she can take another one. She can't coach another pair of children and then watch them be sent to their deaths again.
Sometimes, when she drinks, she forgets, for a brief second. Lost in the haze, she can pretend that she is sixteen again, and that her sister's name was never pulled from the reaping ball. Prim is dead now, like Gale and Peeta. Like Katniss's mother and Peeta's entire family. Like Haymitch and Cinna and everyone Katniss has ever cared about. The Capitol did not appreciate her little rebellion, but they let the Mockingjay live anyways. They show her, every year, on that platform with the new District Twelve escort and the new mayor. Her skin has a sickly pale cast to it, and there are dark bags under her eyes. Sometimes she's drunk; sometimes she's high or stoned. Anything to get her through.
And they show her on every television screen in Panem, as the warning. Rebel against the Capitol, and you'll end up like her. The Mockingjay has lost her wings.
Last year was worse than the rest. The girl who was called was twelve, and she looked so much like Prim that Katniss nearly broke down sobbing right there. She waited for someone to volunteer, for someone to save her, but no one did. No one would dare follow in Katniss's footsteps.
And she watched the girl die on national television.
The reapings will be held soon, and Katniss doesn't know if she can make it through it again.
She understands now.
Katniss takes another swallow of alcohol and smiles to herself, alone in that dim, dirty room. She can feel the drink clouding her mind, and the world blurs and spins around her.
She understands, but she wishes that she didn't.
All she can do now is drink and try to forget.