It's been terrible watching her, these past hours.
She's so terribly thirsty. I can see it in every movement of her body. Her slow, dragging footsteps, when she should be so quick and light on her feet. Her awkwardness. Her confusion, even more than anything else. The dull, aching, hopeless confusion in her face...
Katniss, the beautiful, brave Girl on Fire, is slowly dying of thirst.
And here I am, sitting in my comfortable living room in my nice, luxurious Capitol apartment. Because for some reason, I'm entitled to be outside of all this. I'm entitled to be safe while all of these horrors are happening.
Only I don't feel safe. Not at all. I feel hurt, and horrified, and trapped. And I don't know why I should be allowed to stay outside of that awful arena, while Katniss Everdeen and all of the other frightened tributes are trapped inside it.
What is it about me that should mean I'm allowed to be outside of the Hunger Games?
Why am I different from them?
Well, apparently someone thinks so. Apparently, just because of where I live and where I was born, I'm entitled to be left out of this awful game.
At least, I'm supposed to be outside of it. But I'm not.
I'm playing it as surely as everyone else.
Me, Cinna the stylist, a citizen of the privileged class. A citizen of the Capitol. Safe in my comfortable life. Surrounded by luxury. With everything I could possibly want... except the one thing I really want. Except the chance to protect Katniss, and everyone else, from this stupid, horrible, pointless agony.
The Hunger Games, we call it... but Katniss has food in her pack right now. What she doesn't have is water. And that's what's looking likely to kill her.
Except for one thing. One hope. The TV people have made a big point of showing this, the one, desperate hope that Katniss maybe doesn't even know she has. They keep panning the cameras ahead of her, sweeping forward... to show the small, bright pond of water that's directly in her path but still so very far in front of her. The one thing that can save her...
If she can get there in time.
I know that Haymitch is trying to help her. Only he can't do it in the obvious way.
Because he too, as her mentor, has to play this whole stupid game.
They do call it the Hunger Games, after all. And the tributes are not the only ones playing.
One way or another, all of us...
The tributes and their families.
The mentors.
The stylists like me.
The excited Capitol audience.
The horrified, miserable, helpless people in the districts.
All of us.
We're all playing. Whether we want to or not.
We're all trapped in these awful Games.
That's why I told Katniss, "This is my first year in the Games."
In them. Not working 'with' them, not helping to run them.
I wouldn't do that. And I won't think of myself as doing that. I won't pretend to be on the outside. I won't think of this as something that is only happening to someone else. Or far worse, as something that I'm personally doing to someone else. It would be so completely horrible to think that... and it would be a lie.
A total lie.
Because if this is happening, and I'm a part of it...
Then I am in the Games.
We are all in these Games. Every one of us. Every single person in Panem.
Why can't everyone see that?
If this kind of agony is happening to anyone, then it's happening to all of us.
It's just that some of us, I guess, can't even feel it. They're too numb, or too distracted. Too hopeless. Too excited. Too caught up in the glamour. Or just too totally clueless.
But I'm certainly feeling it. And I wish I was the only person feeling this pain.
Only I'm not.
Maybe not everyone in Panem can realize how painful this is. What terrible injury and damage this cruelty is doing to all of us. But a lot of people can feel it. At the very least, all of the tributes in the arena are feeling their own agony very clearly right now. All of the tributes, and all of the people who love them.
And right now, I am watching Katniss feel the agony of her terrible dehydration and thirst.
I've been watching her feel it for hours.
It almost broke my heart this morning, when she looked up at the sky and whispered her fierce, desperate plea for water. And I think it hurt Haymitch too. Because of course he has sponsors clamoring to send it to her. Some out of genuine compassion and pity - or as much pity as they can feel when they're so caught up in the 'thrill' of watching all these kids die - and some because they just want to see her in better condition. Because it'll be more exciting for them if she can run, and fight, and show off her skills at surviving in the woods. Or just because it's exciting to them, somehow thrilling or some kind of an ego rush, I guess, to think of being able to say: "I sponsored the Girl on Fire!"
Who knows what they're all thinking.
But Haymitch can't let any of them send Katniss any water. He told me it's the only way he can try to let her know that she's about to find it on her own. That would be enough of a reason... but there's a subtler one, too.
Haymitch doesn't dare interfere with the drama that's developing here. Because as the Capitol audience watches Katniss fighting so hard for survival, as they watch her dehydrating and getting closer and closer to dying... it's keeping everyone's attention on her. People are talking about her, getting excited and anxious for her, and wondering if she's going to make it - and they're betting on her.
One more thing that I, as her stylist, am not allowed to do.
But I don't really want to bet on Katniss, anyway. I'd much rather just rescue her from this whole horrifying nightmare.
And I can't do that either.
All I can do is sit here and watch her on my TV screen. Watch her, and know that Haymitch doesn't dare to send her any water, because this whole nauseating drama is the one thing that may keep her alive later on.
If people have watched her fight through this on her own, and win... then maybe they'll be more willing to sponsor her in the critical, final stages of these Hunger Games. When she may need those precious, expensive gifts even more desperately.
And when everything will cost the sponsors even more money than the same gifts would right now.
So if Haymitch really wants to help her, then he can't do anything directly for her today. No, he has to let her show the audience what she can do on her own. So they'll think she's worth putting their money on later.
As if there could ever be any question that a human life is worth so very much more than money!
But apparently, to a lot of people, it isn't. Not necessarily. Not unless they can get something out of it. Like... excitement, or entertainment, or the chance to convince themselves that they're somehow being kind.
Well, I could tell them that's completely ridiculous. If they wanted to listen to me. I could tell them that it isn't kind to let someone suffer, and to treat it as some kind of a sick game. Not even if you do make a big, showy point of sending them some kind of a gift in the middle of their agony.
That isn't kindness. It's just one more piece of drama. And yet, it's the only thing Katniss is going to get from these people. If she gets anything at all.
Right now, a lot of people are more than eager to send her something. Water, or anything else she needs. But if Haymitch lets them do that now, then they'll feel like they've already done their part. "I've already helped her," they'll be able to say. "What more does she want?"
No, he has to let this drama keep on building. So that he'll be able to capitalize on it when he really needs it. When there is something he desperately needs to be able to send to Katniss, maybe something she'd have no chance of finding on her own.
And right now, that means he has to leave her in this agony. He has to leave her stumbling along, leaning on that jagged, broken stick she found this morning. He has to leave her so thirsty...
What would it feel like to be so terribly thirsty?
I can't even possibly imagine it.
I'm actually starting to feel a little thirsty myself. There's a tall, cool glass of water sitting next to me... but I haven't touched it for hours. The last time I tried to take a sip, somewhere around midmorning, it almost choked me. It was all I could do not to throw my nice, cold glass of water right across the room.
Because of course, Katniss doesn't have any. And when I'm watching her gradually die of thirst, how can I possibly drink anything myself?
It's like Haymitch. He's feeling something like this too right now, only it takes kind of a different form for him.
"I'm not going to have a drink until she can," he growled at me, this morning when he was telling me about all of this. About how he couldn't afford to send Katniss any water, if he wanted to be able to possibly save her life later on in the Games.
Only Haymitch wasn't talking about water, I realized, as I looked at him and saw the misery in his raw, reddened, bloodshot eyes.
He was talking about alcohol.
Haymitch has stayed completely sober, as far as I know, since this whole awful thing started. Since yesterday morning, when Katniss and Peeta and the other tributes were all sent into the arena.
He's not terribly worried about Peeta for the moment, he told me, since Peeta is with the Career pack and he should be somewhat safe for now. But he's absolutely sick with pain and worry for Katniss. Because she's in terrible danger right now, even if none of the other tributes find her and try to attack her. She's horribly, dangerously dehydrated -
And at the same time, she's suffering hideously from her awful thirst.
So Haymitch has decided to join her in her agony.
He won't touch a drop of any of his liquor, until Katniss has found water. That's what he told me.
"Until she's had a drink," he said grimly, "or until she doesn't need one anymore. One way or the other."
And I knew, in sudden horror, that he meant "or until she dies."
If Katniss dies in this arena, if she dies of thirst before she finds that pond, then Haymitch will let himself drink. To drown out the pain of having watched one more of his tributes die. And he'll probably drink himself into a stupor on the floor.
And could I possibly blame him?
I shake my head. There's no point in thinking about all this any longer. It won't help.
But maybe nothing will help, I think, focusing on the screen in front of me one more time. Nothing but to wait, and hope that somehow Katniss will find the strength to get through this.
They're showing Katniss again now. She hasn't been on the screen all day, of course. Even after all the deaths in yesterday's bloodbath, when the Games started, there are still a number of tributes left alive to feature. The TV people have been going back and forth between them, weaving a larger story for the entertainment of the audience here in the Capitol... and for the torture of the people in the districts, who are being forced to watch these kids going through all this agony.
How the same exact television program could be entertainment for some people and torture for others, I'll never know.
But I think it really is just horrifyingly simple. It's just that some people, people like the families and friends of these children, actually care what happens to them.
And some people, like most of us here in the Capitol, just don't.
That's the part I really don't understand. How could anyone not care? How could they not be imagining, or at least trying to imagine, what it feels like for these tributes, these children, to be terrified and hurt and lost like this? To be fighting for their lives, in pain, hungry, lonely, homesick, afraid...
Or thirsty. Like Katniss is thirsty, right now.
She's dragging herself along, fighting to stay upright. She's so exhausted, so damaged by not having had any water for so long. Physically, mentally, emotionally, she must be so completely worn down. And it's not just exhaustion. I can see that she's in such terrible pain from this awful thirst, from the effects of her dehydration.
Such awful pain...
What could it feel like to be in such pain that you actually can barely control your body? That you almost can't walk?
Because clearly, Katniss is in agony. That's one thing that's very clear from the way she's moving. From her face. Not so much from the pain that's showing in her face, although that's considerable - but more from the way she's clearly fighting so hard not to show it. From the grim lines of her face, the tension around her eyes, the set of her angrily determined mouth. And the quick flashes of fear and rejection I keep seeing in her eyes, right after she trips, or almost falls, or simply looks even more hurt and alone for a few seconds -
Right before her face gets even more focused and controlled. Right before she hides her pain even more completely, behind that fierce, wild mask of angry, hard-eyed strength.
She's terrified that someone will see how hurt she is. And I think there are a number of reasons for that.
Partly, it's got to be for the audience. Because she knows that if she looks strong, and fierce and determined, people are going to be more likely to want to sponsor her. But I think it's really a lot more than that. Is she thinking of Prim? Her little sister, back home? And her mother, and all the rest of the people she loves?
They've got to be watching her. And I think that's a lot of why Katniss doesn't want to let her pain show. Because if she lets the cameras pick up on her agony, then those people are going to see it too. And they'll be even more hurt for her than they already are.
And Katniss is here in the first place because she'd rather be hurt herself than let her little sister be hurt.
My hands are clenching into fists as I watch her. She's so brave, and it's so unfair that she's being tortured like this. Tortured for being a hero! It isn't right.
But then, none of this is right in the first place. And until I find a way to stop it -
Well, until someone finds a way to stop it. But if that's me, then I'm going to go for it. If I find any way to stop these awful Games, or help someone to stop them... if I find any way to stop all the horrors and abuse that are going on all over Panem, year after year...
I'll do it so fast that everyone's heads will spin.
But right now, I don't feel like I can do anything at all. I feel completely powerless. All I can do is to sit here, surrounded by all this pointless luxury, and watch as Katniss forces her body to keep moving even though she doesn't even have any water.
It's so pointlessly, horribly ridiculous. Why should I have everything while she has nothing?
I wish it was me in there, instead of her.
But what good would that do? I think suddenly. That's the same choice she already made for her sister. And now, Prim is trapped in the agony of watching Katniss suffer and maybe die -
And anyway, they don't allow Capitol stylists to volunteer for district tributes.
No, I have to find a way - or someone has to find a way - for all of this to stop entirely.
Katniss stumbles again. She almost loses her footing, and for a second I think she's going to go down. But she keeps her balance. Again, I see that flash of fear in her eyes. But there's something more to the horror she's feeling, more than just the fear of losing sponsors or hurting her family. I can see it so clearly, that extra level of pain and fear and fury that she's feeling whenever she almost lets her agony show...
And suddenly, I know exactly what it is.
She is not just hiding her pain for the sake of the audience. Not even just for the sake of her loved ones.
She's doing it for herself, too.
Because this is about more than all of those other people. It's about Katniss herself, and the fact that she is being watched by so many of those awful, invasive cameras.
Katniss is hiding her pain for the sake of her own dignity.
That's a big part of what she's afraid of. She's afraid to have all of Panem see her humiliation. The fact that she's so hurt, so frightened, that she almost can't hold herself together. No one has a right to see that - but Katniss doesn't have any choice. She can't hide her face from the cameras.
So the only thing she can do is to hide her emotions behind her face, where no one can see them at all.
It's something that I can relate to pretty well. The fight to keep her own emotions private, both for the sake of what they might do to others and for herself...
Finally, one of the things I'm watching Katniss fighting against in this arena is something that I can actually understand.
Because after all, I do this same thing myself every day.
It's almost evening. Katniss is still desperately searching for water, and I can see her gradually starting to fall into more and more hopelessness. Her steps are slower and slower, her face more and more dull. She's still fighting, but I can see her body and her mind just slowly shutting down. She's physically falling apart at a terrifying rate. I think she knows that she can't go much longer without a drink, and I think she's starting to expect that she won't find any water at all before she dies.
And in a terrible, heart-rending contrast to that, the camera people keep on showing that she's almost, almost there. Just a hundred yards now. Maybe five or six hundred more steps, at the rate she's walking. Barely managing to pick up her feet at all. Dragging herself forward by sheer will...
While they keep on showing that quiet, glittering pond just ahead of her. The one with the bright yellow lilies, the evening sun slanting across it and turning the smooth water to a carpet of jewels. Beautiful, clear jewels, like the white ones I used on that flaming dress for her...
And then right back to Katniss, as she fights desperately for life. As she fights to lift her dragging feet above the ground and step forward one more time. Her slow, lurching progress. The closed look of hidden agony on her face. The bloody scratches on her hand, where she's fighting to keep hold of that stick she's balancing on like an old woman.
Back and forth. Katniss and the pond -
Complete with dramatic, suspenseful music. Of course.
Just in case we couldn't figure out for ourselves that this is a life-and-death situation for Katniss.
And just in case we couldn't figure out that we're supposed to enjoy that.
Well, at least those of us in the Capitol are. For the people in the districts, being forced to watch... this whole showy presentation is just a mockery.
Somehow, a lot of us have gotten it through our minds that it's even better than just torturing people, if we torture them and at the same time we force them to pretend that it's a game.
But this is no game. No matter what anyone tries to call it.
The Hunger Games, indeed.
That's totally, incomprehensibly, massively nauseating.
The torture that Katniss and the other tributes are facing is in no way any kind of a game.
The Hunger Atrocities, we should really call this. Or The Hunger Murders.
Or maybe, The Horrifying, Inexcusable Attacks Against Terrified Children And Their Families, So We Can Keep Control Of Everyone In Panem For Our Own Stupid, Selfish Greed.
That would be a much better name.
But then, it would be even better if we didn't do this at all.
To do something this sickening...
Why can't everyone figure out that we should just stop?!
But no one's stopping right now. These Games are in full swing, and the camera people are playing this particular piece of misery for all it's worth. They've briefly clipped around to a few of the other tributes, but Katniss and her painful thirst are the big drama right now. The big, exciting, wonderful thing that we're all supposed to like so much. To like, if we're in the Capitol... or to be hurt by, if we're in the districts.
Well, I guess I'm breaking the rules on this one. Because I'm in the Capitol, and I don't like this at all. I'm definitely being hurt by it.
Just like I've been hurt by the Hunger Games every year, ever since I first started to figure them out when I was very, very little.
And right now, I'm being hurt by watching the cameras cutting back and forth from Katniss to her desperately needed water source.
Only who cares? I think miserably. Who cares if I'm being hurt? She's being hurt even more.
And the TV people are absolutely playing that up for all the sick, twisted drama they can possibly get out of it.
Back and forth. Again and again. Swelling, cresting, dramatic music, while Katniss fights to drag her dying body toward something she can only hope is there.
Cameras sweeping back and forth. Clipping from one scene to the other.
The beautiful, peaceful, glittering pond. And Katniss, fighting and horrified, close to despairing but absolutely refusing to give up. Fighting for one more bit of movement. Refusing to let her body stop, not while she has one more tiny bit of energy. One more spark of determination that she can find somewhere in her fiery soul.
There's a good reason that Katniss is the Girl on Fire. And it has little to do with the costumes I made for her. They were only my way of helping her to express it to everyone.
No, Katniss has been the Girl on Fire all along, all on her own. All her life, I'm sure. Long before I ever saw her or knew her name.
And right now, the Girl on Fire and the little pond of water that she's almost reached - they're the center of this horrifyingly dramatized scenario that the Gamemakers and the camera people are crafting for the rest of us. Katniss and the pond, maybe fifty yards apart now.
And then, naturally, because the television crews know so very well how to create such appealing tension for their viewers...
A commercial break.
Of course!
The familiar fragment of the Hunger Games anthem plays. The screen changes. The happy, oblivious voice of a female announcer pours out of the television's speakers:
"Will Katniss Everdeen make it? Or will this bold tribute fall, only steps from the one thing that can save her? Oh my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, I just don't know! But I have a feeling we're about to find out! So stay tuned through these commercials!"
As the dancing, singing representatives of a luxury goods store appear on the screen, I feel my stomach clenching with horror.
How could anyone be thinking of buying feather-edged pillows right now?
I almost throw my nearly-forgotten glass of water at the television in disgust.
Katniss is almost blind with pain and misery now. She's weaving unsteadily between the trees, wobbling and tipping as she lurches forward and leans on that stick. She isn't even walking as straight as I've seen Haymitch walk when he was terribly drunk. Her body has almost completely shut down. And her heart, her spirit -
They must be almost totally overwhelmed with despair. I can see it in her lowered head, the hunched position of her shoulders. The slow, dragging hopelessness of her movements.
But she's still moving. She still hasn't completely given up. I know, because if she had she would be curled up on the ground right now and she'd be dead.
And she's not dead. Katniss Everdeen is still fighting.
She's still fighting to keep her promise to her sister. Her promise to fight for life, just the way Prim wanted her to.
To try to win, no matter what. To fight for survival. To fight to come home.
No matter how hopeless it might seem.
I remember what she said at the interviews:
"I swore I would."
And right now, she's keeping that vow. I couldn't possibly be more proud of her.
I'm still in agony from watching her pain. But I'm starting to feel more hopeful, too. Because she's almost there! She's only a few yards from the pond now. I feel sure she would have realized that already, if she wasn't in such terrible condition. But she's still just dragging herself forward, still clearly so hopeless...
I'm sure she still thinks that she's really about to die.
My heart is pounding now as I watch her.
"Keep going!" I find myself whispering. "Just keep fighting, Katniss, you can do it! You're almost there!"
But she can't hear me. Of course.
I feel so very helpless.
Katniss is almost at the edge of the pond now. The ground under her feet is starting to be damp. Starting to turn into mud, from the water that's seeping out from the pond. There's no switching of camera angles now, not except for the few seconds when they focus in on her face. Everyone can see how close she is, right within the view of this one, single camera.
Everyone but Katniss.
Suddenly, her walking stick slips right out from under her. It's the mud, of course. The soft, slippery mud, not giving the base of the stick anything to really catch against. Katniss overbalances, lurches forward, and goes down hard. All in a second. She slams down into the mud...
And stays there, seeming to have forgotten the very idea of standing up and trying again.
"No..." I whisper, clenching my fists in horror. "Don't stop here, Katniss!"
But she has. She's just lying there, and now I can see her swirling her finger around in the mud. Drawing little spirals. Playing with it, idly, casually, slowly, like an exhausted child...
She is an exhausted child.
And right now she's so exhausted, so drained, that I don't even know if she's going to realize the obvious.
See it, Katniss! I'm thinking now, too focused even to whisper my words aloud.
My hands are in front of me now, clenching so hard that my whole arms are shaking. But I barely notice.
See it! Be alive! Be alive enough to realize what's happening!
You're lying in mud!
Don't die of thirst fifteen feet from a pond!
"Katniss..." I whisper, barely able to force her name out through my tight, painfully clenched throat. "Just... see it!"
And finally, just when I'm starting to feel even more terrified for her, she does.
I see her head come up. Her face lifts into view. The side of it is covered with that wonderful mud, and her expression of sudden hope is making her more beautiful than I've ever seen her.
And for the first time in hours, her eyes are entirely alert and focused.
She pushes herself up a little and crawls through the mud and the thick, tangled green weeds, right into the water. I'm almost breathless with relief for her.
Katniss is going to live!
At least for right now, she's going to live. I feel a cold, sick horror as I realize that she's still in the arena, there are still any number of ways she could die...
I shake it off. Katniss has survived this first terrible challenge, and for right now she is going to be all right.
So, for right now, I am going to let myself be joyful for her.
She's okay!
Katniss shakily gets out her water bottle. My heart squeezes with pride for her as I see her remembering to purify the water. As I see her bravely waiting, no matter how agonizingly thirsty she must still be, for the iodine droplets to do their work.
My Girl on Fire is not just going to quickly relieve her thirst. She is going to make sure she doesn't make herself sick in the process.
She is awake now, and alert, and fighting with all her skills and strength and determination. She's not just trying to protect herself from the awful pain she's suffering right now...
She is fighting to survive.
My own glass of water is still sitting beside me. My nice, clear, pure, perfectly safe water...
The water I can count on any day, any minute that I want it.
Well, I'm not going to touch a drop. Not until Katniss has had her own drink of water.
And I feel sure that Haymitch, who is probably holding a bottle of some strong liquor in his hand and staring really hard at it, is not going to touch a drop of his beverage until then, either.
So we wait. Haymitch, I'm sure... and me... and Katniss.
And finally, after Katniss' bottle of precious, slightly murky water is finally safe...
Finally, it's time for all three of us to have a drink.
That should have been the end of the agony. At least for a while. But it wasn't.
Because first thing the next morning, even before it's daylight, I look at my television and I see a towering wall of flames descending on Katniss.
I see her waking up, jerked out of an exhausted sleep. I see her bolting upright in terror. Fighting to free herself from her sleeping bag, her tiny hidden shelter where she's fastened herself high in a tree for safety. Falling right out of the tree, bag and all. Hitting the ground hard. Shaken by the impact but unable to dare stop for even a second. Scrambling to her feet. Grabbing her precious bundle of supplies. Desperately running, fighting to stay ahead of the flames -
And I realize, suddenly sick with horror, that the Gamemakers have had a few ideas of their own about the concept of the 'Girl on Fire.'
Author's Note: Well, that ended up a lot longer and more complicated than I expected it to! And the title changed. It was originally going to just be a very short piece with Cinna watching Katniss finally find the pond, and my original working title for it was 'Mud.' But Cinna had a lot more to say than that, it turns out! So I changed the title to 'We're All Playing.' It's actually taken directly from something Cinna said very early in this fanfic, and I think it's more relevant to the whole concept of this story as it has developed. Well, what can I say? Cinna does like to surprise people. And today, with this story, he's definitely surprised me. I didn't even know I was going to write it at all until this morning, and then it changed so much...!
Ah well, allow a Cinna fangirl her brief moment of indulgence. :)
Anyway, 'We're All Playing' is a one-shot. I don't plan to continue it, in itself. But I do have a lot more fanfics written and posted for The Hunger Games, especially about Katniss and Cinna. One of my stories, Into My Work, is currently in progress and is already over 70,000 words. It tells the story of how Cinna survives and finds a way back to Katniss, after his arrest and disappearance! Because I totally believe he would have made it, and I'm writing that story to show exactly how. It's also a romantic pairing between Cinna and Katniss, by the way. :)
I have several shorter HG stories and poems, too. If you're interested, just check out my profile!