Hijacking A Downfall of Sanity

I sit. I watch. I try hard not to listen. But the sounds meet my ears anyway. The tortured screams of Johanna. The gurgled cries of the avoxes. I've received so little punishment it's not fair. Despite the few punches from my last broadcast through out Panem no one has laid a finger on me.

But that's the Capitol for you. They know things. They know that physical beatings would only help my conscience. They know that hearing the screams of my friends, watching as they roughly cut of fingers and peel the skin off Darius, and the sound of electricity as they shoot it at a wet Johanna hurts me more than anything they could physically do to me.

I'm losing myself.

A guard walks in, the lights in my cell are off but I know he's wearing a spotless, clean pressed uniform.

I can smell it. The fabric smells too fresh and alien in this place. I've smelled rotting flesh and blood for two long. I've become accustomed to it. No, this uniform doesn't belong here.

He unlocks my wrist and ankle shackles. Being careful to not touch me. A year ago touching me was something to brag about. Now I'm repulsive. Just scum on the floor of a prison cell.

I've been waiting for this, my punishment. I helped the rebels. I saved the Mockingjay. I saw this coming. Who couldn't?

The guard held a gun at me as we walked past halls of different toys of torture and holding cells. Johanna and I share a cell but she's often taken to these rooms. They call it her 'Persuasion' time. A time when they beat her for information.

I can feel the gun on my back. Pressed against me, a bruise was forming from the cold, stiff metal. The man leads me down a flight of stairs. If I was normal, no that's the wrong word. If I was sane.

If I was sane I would wonder where he was taking me. I would care what was going to happen to me. But I haven't felt sane in a long time. It's not just the torture methods they inflict on me here either. I haven't felt sane since I let Katniss run off with Johanna. Since Beetee's plan with using the lightning. Since Katniss decided that my life was more important than hers. Since the Quarter Quell theme was announced.

Yes the Quarter Quell, that was the beginning. The beginning of my slow loss of sanity.

The guard pushes me into a clear white room. A group of Capitol doctors in sterile white lab coats look at me expectantly. They've been waiting for my arrival.

For Capitol people they're extremely drab and boring. Other than having their hair dyed in colors from baby blue to mercury red, a few tattoos, sculpted facial hair (Not only on the men.), and the man in the corner has peacock feathers for hair. Extremely boring. These were the closet to normal people he'd seen in his few stays here, except for Cinna. But somehow Cinna didn't seem like a normal citizen. I could never mentally address him as Cinna, Capitol Citizen.

The doctors swarmed me and pulled me over to a shiny steel table. Strapping me down, taking my blood pressure, and listening to my heart beat. Asking me the last time I ate.

I don't stop them. I ignore them. I go to my happy place. A place that has started disintegrating and falling apart. A place only half whole. But it's still happy, so I still go.

"Like this?" Katniss asks, her hair blowing around her face, oddly not in her normal braid, as she turns to look at me. I nod and smile. We're making buns. Rolling them and baking them. She has some flour on her nose. I grin and wipe it off. She freezes looking at me, we stare at each. I lose myself in her misty grey eyes. Foggier than rain on a hot day. I lean forward to press a kiss on her petal-like lips and-

"Aaaaah!" A scream. Probably Johanna's, but it sounds oddly masculine. Darius can't scream like that though, his lack of tongue prevents it. I shake my head and try to return to my happy place.

Katniss giggles as I take her hand, guiding it. We're frosting a cake now. But not just any cake. This will be for Prim. Her beloved sister. The cake is as blue as the little girls eyes. Pretty pink letters spell out 'Happy Birthday!'. I kiss Katniss's cheek, she turns and puts a dot of icing on my nose.

The screaming is louder this time. I open my eyes. Bright lights shine down on me, I'm temporarily blinded. Pain shoots up my hands making them shake. I can't feel my feet. As my vision un-blurs around me I see a screen. I watch the pictures unfold on it.

I see myself. A year younger, sitting with the Career Pack around a pine tree. They're all asleep, even Glitter who was supposed to be staying guard. I watch Katniss saw off the Tracker Jacker nest, throwing it down on us.

Pain hits me making me squint. The scream echoes around the sterile room but I'm the only one in here.

I've been the one screaming all along. I watch more scenes from both the first Game and the second. Clips, pieces, parts.

I see the Games with new eyes. Improved eyes. I see Katniss in new ways.

I scream again, but not from pain. Katniss is not human. She is a mutation the Capitol made to provide the ultimate Hunger Games. She went wrong. She's still going wrong. No one can stop her. At least not yet.

I will stop her. I will end Katniss Everdeen. I will kill the Mockingjay.