"Subject247 is ready for the arena, clarida."
"perfect. We need a twist in these games. Those two lovers seem to think they can make it out both. How wrong they are." he said with a smile on his lips.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow. A bed of grass a soft green pillow...Lay down your head and close your eyes. And when again they open...the sun will rise...
These words were the last rue would ever hear. She was gone in every human sense. Her cold body left intertwined with the wildflowers katniss gave her. One last gift. I was subject247. Lifted from the arena in a steel claw, painfully mutated for weeks, injected with liquids like fire in my veins. I longed to feel death again. A needle pierced my skin and it's pull called me. Lulling me to sleep.
How long have I been asleep? If sleep was what you called the drug the purple haired man forced into me. I was aware that I was no longer in a tank, not confined to a glass case. Hello? I willed myself to speak to the darkness around me. It smelled like rotted meat and feces. Hello! I tried again, astonished to hear a sharp yelp in place of my speech. I began to panic. Where am I? What am I? Why am I here? Fear shook my body. A low growl sounded from all sides of the room. I felt a twinge at the back of my neck and lost control, my body sat down calmly, ears pricked at attention. I willed my legs to move, yet felt no relief. A door opened, flooding the room with white light. There they were. My fellow fallen tributes, faces elongated and eyes dull with hunger. Their skin hangling loosely off their hairy bodies as they limped back and forth on human-like hands and feet. I was terrified, wanting my stoneset body to run I managed one desperate stumble forwards, rewarded with a shock down my spine. A man stepped into the room with an electric cattle prod. Zapping it on and off menacingly.
"Out you pieces of filth," he said with a perverse smile that made bile rise in my throat. I forced my head to turn to look at the others, all sitting at attention. Clove, Glimmer, Marvel, Thresh. Their deformed bodies sent me into hysteria. I felt my lungs tighten and watched In horror as, with a gesture of the prod, the man corralled us out the door. My body got up to move without my consent, limping along the corridor. The silence was complete here, excepting the click of the cattle prod and the screech of our untrimmed nails as they scraped along the slate floor. The man led us into another roomwith a red door the size of which suggested it was for mutts to pass through. Marvel limped along behind the rest, his injured leg impairing his balance.
"move you piece of shit!" the man screamed at him, striking him repeatedly untill he lowered to the ground panting. "be good for us you monsters," he smiled as the door slid shut, obscuring them from my view. The hold on my body released along with the twinge in my neck and I collapsed to the ground exhausted. Im so hungry...and tired...why am I here... I asked myself over and over again until I fell asleep.
I woke up with the twinge back. Already on my feet I looked around. The others were panting in excitement, all facing the red door. Their mouths hung open just a little too far, like the unhinged jaws of a snake. It took me a minute to realize that I was panting too, excitement coursed through me although I'm sure it wasn't mine. A steady thumping noise filled the air. Looking around again I noticed the ragged lumps of flesh they had attached to the base of our spines. They gave us tails too. Those sick bastards! An alarm went off in my head and my body took off. Racing with the rest to the opening door, out into the night of the arena.
End of chapter one