Summary: We spend a couple of hours quizzing each other on military terms. I visit my mother and Prim for a while. When I'm back in my compartment, showered, staring into the darkness, I finally ask, "Johanna, could you really hear him screaming?"
"That was part of it," she says. "Like the jabberjays in the arena. Only it was real. And it didn't stop after an hour. Tick, tock."
"Tick, tock," I whisper back.
Roses. Wolf mutts. Tributes. Frosted dolphins. Friends. Mockingjays. Stylists. Me.
Everything screams in my dreams tonight.
- Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay, The Hunger Games Trilogy
An expanded series of scenes from Mockingjay. Text taken directly from the book in italics.
WARNING: Rated T+ for disturbing images, blood, mentions of torture. If you are expecting fluff or whimsy without some heartache first, this is not the fic you're looking for.
Plutarch droning on about military history would be boring and awful under most circumstances, but having to listen to him during the late afternoon after several hours of running and push ups makes it unbearable. Johanna gave up on staying awake twenty minutes ago and my eyes are drooping. All of us are ready for dinner, a chorus of grumbling bellies rolling through the room periodically. The only excitement arrives when Plutarch uses several terms that few of us recognize, not even the soldiers from Thirteen. Queen. King. Empire. Monarch. I only know the words from watching Peeta and Haymitch play chess. I didn't realize they meant something in terms of our ancestors' history.
A soldier with graying hair asks Plutarch to explain and I drift in and out of the discussion, my mind really focused on the food I'm about to eat. When he finally finishes droning on, York shouts at us to form back up. I jab Johanna with my elbow to wake her. She flops comically for a second before rising from her chair and joining the line of us making our way back up to the surface and the training field.
We push ourselves hard for the last bit of training, a few laps and then rifle assembly. Today, Johanna actually manages to assemble her rifle without help. The fresh air and exercise work wonders to reinvigorate us after the dull lectures. By the time we reach the cafeteria, we are famished.
"Johanna, could you really hear him screaming?"
"That was part of it," she says. "Like the jabberjays in the arena. Only it was real. And it didn't stop after an hour. Tick, tock."
"Tick tock," I whisper back.
We lay in silence, fearing the night and the visions it brings. I can't find the line between sleeping and waking. "Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick. Tock."
There are always sounds in Thirteen. The constant whir of the ventilation systems. Strange clicks as electrical systems cycle on and off. "Tick tock," I whisper, and they fall silent. The entire world freezes and then the gears resume.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The beating sound echoes in my head and calls me forth. The air warms around me, thickens with humidity. Buttercup leaps onto my bed and cleans his paws, staring at me with shining yellow eyes. I try to shoo him and he jumps down. His paws leave glowing prints on the floor.
My footsteps follow him and the cadence of the clock. Reaching out, I touch the door and it dissolves beneath my hand, as do the walls. The jungle springs forth in their place. The awful buzzing of the insects creates a rumble, a prelude to the lightning that will soon strike the tree in the distance.
Peeta. I have to get to Peeta before the lightning starts.
Buttercup's footsteps light the way, but as I get closer, the ground roils beneath me. A sea of litterfall that heaves and crests. Frosted dolphins breach the surface, screaming shrilly into the night before they once more disappear into the soil waves and are silenced. Over and over again.
"Tick tock. Tick tock."
Still, the clock chimes on as I reach the beach and leave the dolphins behind, only here, the wolves prowl. Snarling with blood dripping from their fangs. Their human eyes watching me.
I cover my ears and break into a run, the screams of the dolphins growing more distant as I circle the Cornucopia. The wolves follow, their stinking breath washing down my spine, their greedy claws grabbing for vengeance. For me.
"Tick tock. Tick tock."
They follow me as I crash into the jungle, still following Buttercup's luminescent trail. As soon as the wolf mutts' paws reach the dirt, their screaming intensifies. Grisly howls of pain and anguish. Then come the birds.
My legs ache with the effort of running. My chest with the pounding of my heart and the need to stop. To take deep gulps of air. But I keep going, ignoring the screams of friends as they swoop around me on dark wings. Gale, Madge, Prim, Rue, Cinna.
On and on I run until the charged air makes my hair stand on end and I skid to a halt in front of the great tree. Lightning splits the sky, cleaving the tree in two, revealing a pristine white throne, a man perched upon it dressed all in white. The remnants of the tree twisted into bushes that sprout snow-white roses.
The screaming stops.
"Kneel," a voice orders, and I have no choice, zapped into obedience by a current not unlike the one on the ladders of the hovercraft.
I cry out at the pain, and when I again lift my head, the jungle is gone. Replaced with a chessboard that stretches to the horizon and beyond, the sky above me crackles with lightning cavorting in storm clouds.
The man on the throne watches me, his face hidden behind a marble mask.
"Who's been painting my roses red?" he asks. I command my limbs to move so I can kill him. The serpent voice behind the mask who will steal everyone I love from me. But I cannot move and shriek with rage.
"Who's been painting my roses red?" he roars again. The wolves, dolphins, and birds resume their screams for a moment. Until he commands their silence. "You, Miss Everdeen, you dare to stain with blood and pain, my perfect flower bed?"
I open my mouth to deny it and choke on my words.
"She can't speak, My King," Plutarch informs him, sweeping into a grand bow before standing upright. "Allow me."
He claps his hands, making thunder boom through the land. The screaming resumes until the King shouts for silence. Talons dig into my shoulder. A mockingjay perches there and begins to sing.
"Yes. Yes, go on," Plutarch urges as the King leans forward in his throne.
"What does it say?" he demands.
"She did not act alone, your Grace," Plutarch states. "She had help from the Ace."
"The Ace, you say? Bring forth the prisoner!" the King bellows and the creatures of the night scream in answer. "Silence! Or someone shall lose their head!"
Plutarch claps his hands and two chess pawns drag a limp form across the board, his wrists in thick iron manacles. They drop him to kneel, facing me, in one of the black squares. His ash blonde waves are matted with blood, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Peeta!" The mockingjay on my shoulder screams with my voice the instant that I think his name.
A bird perches on his shoulder, a mockingjay's direct negative. White with black underwing stripes.
"Katniss! Katniss!" the bird howls with his voice.
The king rises and walks to stand behind Peeta as the screams begin anew, a low hum that gradually grows to an unbearable lament. I cover my ears but am otherwise unable to move, forced to watch as Peeta lifts his head to look at me with pained blue eyes. The white bird flaps its wings and tries to lift him from the ground, but his knees are as useless as mine.
"No, not your head," the king decrees. "Your heart."
Peeta's mouth falls open with shock, the white bird screams for him, an agonizing sound that goes on for hours. My black bird joins the chorus as my throat turns raw with the screams I can't seem to get out, the bird releasing them for me. A red blossom forms on Peeta's chest where I know his heart to be, growing in size apace with the agony of our screams. His eyes turn cloudy and angry and still our mingled screams fill the night, only his transform from pain and fear to a murderous rage. Blackness taints his eyes, erasing the blue. The white roses on the bushes bleed red from their centers and soon, the roses scream, too.
"Tick tock. Tick tock. Now die by the clock."
Midnight chimes. And everything screams.
I wake thrashing in my sheets with Peeta's name a soft wail on my lips. In the dark, I search for my pearl and hug my knees to my chest once I find it. Hold in my real screams as I press the pearl to my lips, biting the lower until I taste blood mingling with the salt of tears. And I promise myself again.
I will kill Snow for this. For taking him from me.
But more words tumble out. "You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces."
Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.
Sleep does not come easy, and when it does, it brings no relief. There's no clock here and still, I hear the ticking. Tick tock. Tick Tock.
Buttercup's glowing paw prints lead me once more through city streets, littered with rubble and bodies. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Peeta's memories are here somewhere and I must find them before midnight. Always midnight.
I get trapped, caught in tangles of wire that slither and writhe like snakes. I try to scream for help and can't. They sprout legs, insects of great length crawling over me. My mockingjay lands nearby and pecks at them, but the insects overwhelm the creature and we are both swallowed, consumed in a black pit, falling for ages until the world flips upside down.
Lightning flashes and I land, poised on a throne overlooking the giant chess board. The bird perches on my shoulder as I survey my surroundings. Broken chess pieces cover the checkered surface. Great chasms split the squares. I glance down and find myself dressed in my Mockingjay uniform, only it's made of blood red instead of black. When I look back at the chess board, Peeta's there, kneeling once more, his eyes fierce black pits of tracker-jacker rage. Hands bound, body neglected. Tortured. He looks the same as he did on the day they rescued him.
All around him, crushed white roses bleed crimson onto the marble ground. The white bird reposes on his shoulder, hissing angry words and accusations, all of them true. I left him. I left him in the arena and then I left him without a hope of recovery, leaving him in the hands of the questionable head doctors of Thirteen. With each accusation, the blood flower on his chest grows larger until he begins to fade away into it.
I will it to stop, but when I move to stand, I can't use my hands. Glancing down, I scream at the beating mass in my palm. I try to run to him, to return what belongs to him, but I smash my toe on something solid and fall to the ground. Look back to find Snow's visage captured in marble, severed from his marble body and seeping blood from his hideous, puffy lips.
"We painted his roses red," Mutt Peeta's voice snarls at me. "Tick tock."
I scream and sit upright in my tent.
"It was the waste of a trip. She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You won't find Prim." At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. "Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead." I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead." A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair. Buttercup begins to wail as well. No matter what I do, he won't go. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs racks my body, until eventually I fall unconscious.
Buttercup limps along the forest path lined with primroses, leaving softly glowing prints for me to follow. We trek through gauzy violet clouds that swirl around me like silk when I wave my hand through their mist. I hear faint screams and wait for the horrors to descend. A silent Mockingjay lands on my shoulder and remains.
Buttercup waits for me at the edge of the woods, where the trees open up upon a wide black and white chess board. A soft meow encourages me, and I walk alone across the squares until my feet ache and my throat is parched. I pass a crumbled throne set inside a split open and charred tree. There's no sign of the carnage caused by the occupants of the throne. Because the monster is within.
I continue to walk. The throne is not my goal.
Eventually, trees rise up from the horizon and my pulse quickens. Smoke drifts across the edges of the board as I reach its end. I kneel in the dirt and stare at the burning rose bushes that block my path. Through the smoke and the flames, I see a figure in a red-stained shirt, kneeling in the dirt. His hands work with assurance, planting seedlings.
The bird on my shoulder takes flight, soars over the burning roses. Its reverse leaves its perch on his shoulder and they cartwheel through the air for a moment before disappearing into the woods.
I want to touch him, to hold him and know that he's alright. I call out his name. He stands and as he whispers my name, the blossom shaped stain begins to recede, leaving one of soft yellow in the same shape in its place. The roses burn. And he waits with me.
My eyes flutter open to my room. Buttercup sits perched on the end of my bed, his tail swishing rhythmically. Tick tock. Tick tock. Eyes glowing yellow and alert in the moonlight. Guarding me until I can get past the burning rose bushes.
He's still there in the morning. And eventually, after many lost days, both of them guard me in the night and wait for me to wake in the mornings. The yellow-eyed cat and the blue-eyed boy.
My thanks to titaniasfics for editing this odd little piece and making some wonderful suggestions. Thank you also to peetabreadgirl for accidentally giving me the inspiration at the last minute. We have weird conversations. And finally, thanks to titaniasfics, akai-echo, loueze, and thegirlfromoverthepond for running Love in Panem and this challenge. Keeping the love and the fandom alive, ladies! Thank you so much for your time and brainpower.
3 KDNFB