A/n: The idea came to me and it was too interesting not to give it a try. This is AU, so it is obviously not following any rules of the Hunger Games world, and likewise isn't following every rule of this world either ;) I don't think I've ever written an AU before, so I'll see how this goes and go from there. Regardless, happy reading!

It all started when a quarter fell from a young man's hand.

It had been in the sweaty and nervous palm of the fast walking college senior, but as he lifted his hand quickly to signal the bus to stop, it slid out of his closed fist without him noticing. He was climbing onto the bus when he felt a hand grab onto his arm.

He spun around immediately, his heart picking up pace, and stared in confusion at the man in front of him. He had on torn, damp clothes and reeked of fish water and bad hygiene. His hair was in disarray, ruined from too long in the sun and sand, and he had the trademark blistered skin of one of Panem, Florida's many homeless citizens.

The bus driver reeved the engine impatiently. The man on the bus yanked his arm free from the homeless man, trying not to feel guilty that he couldn't help him. Even if he had the time, he didn't have the money, and he felt himself getting annoyed at himself for his indifference. But then the homeless man in front of him lifted up his hand, and before the bus driver yelled at the man to either get on the bus or get off, he caught sight of two things. The first was the quarter, sitting innocently in the dirty palm of his hand. And the other was his tongue-less mouth as he tried to say something to him.

Reeling away from the homeless man in shock and disgust, he scrambled back up onto the bus and quickly handed the bus driver his pass card. He pretended that his heart wasn't pounding as he walked to the back of the bus, ignoring the questioning glances of all the other Floridians. He pressed his forehead against the fogged up glass of the window and asked himself questions he didn't know the answer to. Questions like: why was the homeless man offering him a quarter? And where did his tongue go?

He let himself ponder those things for only a few more minutes, and then he was nervously surfing the internet on his phone again. He was only thirty minutes away from his first meeting with Dr. Abernathy and Dr. Mags, and he still had no better idea of what he wanted to do his thesis on than he did at the last meeting. Dr. Mags would give him another extension, no doubt, but Dr. Abernathy was more likely to skin him alive.

He stowed his phone away when the bus arrived at his stop. He hurried off, nervous and guilty, and almost ran right into a huddled mass of gray on the sidewalk in front of the college gate. He yelped and jumped quickly to the left, changing his path so as not to step on the person, and then he hurriedly leaned down.

"Are you okay?" He asked. The sky was darkening and another peal of thunder rang out. He wished for the first time today that Panem would actually do something about the homelessness problem instead of remodeling the city hall for the thirteenth time.

The woman on the sidewalk lifted her head. Her eyes were dark and tear-filled, and when she opened her mouth to reply, he was better prepared for what he saw this time. He stared at the eerie emptiness, his eyes seeking the nub in the very back of her throat, and he felt faint.

"Ma'am," he said quickly, his heart pounding. But then he stopped, because he couldn't very well ask her why her tongue was missing. But he was sick, because he knew enough to know that this is not a coincidence. It isn't a coincidence that he stumbled upon two homeless people in Panem, both missing their tongues.

He stood up again, ignoring the rain that began falling in cold droplets on his face. And then he pulled his phone from his pocket again and dialed a familiar number.

"This is Scarlet, secretary of the Sociology department at Panem University. How can I help you?"

"Scarlet, can you put me on with Dr. Mags?" He asked.

"Sure thing, Finnick. Hold on one second, let me check and make sure she's in her office."

Finnick listened to the overtly familiar classical tune as she put the phone on hold. He tapped his foot and pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head as the rain began pouring down with more force. When he heard his mentor's voice, he was relieved.

"Dr. Mags, I was wondering if we could postpone the meeting for another hour." He asked. "It's very important. It has to do with my thesis."

Finnick was loaded with a heavy secret.

He ducked into a small café downtown and slid into the booth closest to the door. He barely acknowledged the waitress when she came by for his drink order.

He pulled a notebook from his bookbag and opened it to a blank page. And then he uncapped a pen and held it in his hand. But all he did from that point on was stare at the page, the sound of the rain and the humidity of the small café somehow numbing his disgust.

The waitress brought him a cup of coffee. He distractedly dumped some sugar cubes into it.

When the waitress handed him the check, she frowned at him.

"You sure seem a thousand miles away." She said.

He handed her her money and didn't reply. He wasn't a thousand miles away. In fact, he was only about a mile away, reliving a conversation he had just had with one of the many homeless people he managed to see when he was actually looking for them. They blended into the masses before, but now that he was aware of their presence, they were everywhere. On the benches, under the bridges, outside of bars, huddled under bus stops. And they all had two things in common: they were homeless and tongue-less. And only a mile away was where Finnick had found the other thing they all had in common: they were released from Capitol Institute.

The conversation he had, that he couldn't shake from his head or even write down, took place without words.

"I have seen so many of you. And you're all missing your tongues. Who did this to you?" He had asked, desperate to understand. He felt a strange mix of horror and excitement, the way you feel when you know you're about to catch onto something huge and potentially life-changing that no one else has yet.

The homeless woman in question, with wide, drafty eyes, wordlessly handed him a soaking wet, folded up piece of paper. Finnick took it from her hesitantly. He tore it a few times as he tried to carefully unfold it, but the tears didn't make it unreadable.

"This is a discharge form. From Capitol Institute." He said outloud. He looked at the woman. She only grimaced when he said the words. "Were you a patient there?" He asked.

He knew it was a dumb question, but he had to clarify. She nodded after a moment's hesitation.

"And the rest? They were too?" He asked.

The background noise of the city, the honking of the cars and the roaring of the waves and the shrieking of the seagulls, became unpleasantly loud as he waited for her answer. She opened her mouth only to close it, seemingly remembering just a little too late that she couldn't answer a question like that ever again. She nodded once.

"They did this to you there?" He asked.

But her eyes were filling with tears too quickly, and she was choking on the words she could not longer say. He walked away from her shaking form, his shoulders tense and his eyes too bright.

"Oh, look who decided to grace us with his presence!"

Dr. Abernathy's hair was unrulier than ever when Finnick walked into his office. He was seated in his wooden chair behind his desk, his arms crossed over his chest and an expectant smirk on his face. Dr. Mags was seated at the sofa in front of the desk. Finnick quickly sat down beside her, depositing his soaked bookbag and jacket on the floor beside the sofa.

"Hello, Dr. Abernathy." Finnick said sourly. He then turned and smiled at Dr. Mags. "Hello!"

She grinned back. Finnick knew she was fond of him, even more so than the other students. He had really taken to her subject and found a similar zeal for it as she had. Finnick had also found a love for government, or maybe it was just the grouchy head of the department's deep desire to throw it over that wooed him. Either way, he ended up a Sociology and Government double major. He hadn't regretted it yet.

"Well, meeting number two. Let's hear it." Dr. Abernathy said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and peering at Finnick. Dr. Mags looked at him too, her wrinkled face curious, and Finnick nervously grabbed onto the notebook in his lap. Inside, he had only managed to write two words. Two words to sum up his discovery today. Capitol Institution.

"I want to do my thesis on Capitol Institution."

The office was silent for a few long moments. And then Dr. Abernathy burst into hysterical laughter.

"Are you insane?" He guffawed. "The Cuckoo Capital?"

Finnick stared coolly at him, trying not to let the cracks in his resolve show. Dr. Mags nervously cleared her throat.

"Well, Finnick, it is certainly a brave choice—

"I saw something today." He interrupted her abruptly. His heart began pounding and his hands began to sweat. "Have you ever looked at the homeless people? Really looked at them?"

He examined both their faces. Dr. Mags and Dr. Abernathy exchanged a quick glance and then looked back at Finnick uneasily.

He started to feel very uncomfortable and very lied to.

"They are missing their tongues," he said weakly, even though he could tell at this point that both were aware of this.

Dr. Abernathy was not smiling for once.

"We know."

Finnick looked from his somber face to Dr. Mags' concerned one.

"How many people know? How come no one notices?" He asked.

"Because no one notices the homeless. No one cares. They fade into the background and become just part of the scenery." Dr. Mags said. "It's blunt and harsh, but think about it. It's true. We've talked about this a lot in class. As for whom all knows, a few other faculty members do. It was first discovered by Dr. Abernathy, though. He shared it with a few of us."

Finnick looked at Dr. Abernathy.

"Have you called the police?"

When Dr. Abernathy smirked, Finnick felt even more uncomfortable. He sometimes got flashes when Dr. Abernathy grinned like that, so self-assuredly, flashes from his childhood and the past he didn't want to remember. Flashes of big, sweaty hands and whispered threats and crying and begging and pleading and—

"Do you know who owns and runs Capitol Institute, Finnick?" Dr. Abernathy asked.

Finnick hid his shaking hands underneath his legs.

"The City, Dr. Abernathy?" He shot back.

"Precisely. And who owns the City?"

Dr. Abernathy reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his infamous flask. Finnick stared at the familiar etching of a goose on the sleek, silver surface and then gave the answer that everyone knew, but no one was really allowed to say.

"Mayor Snow."

"And who controls Mayor Snow?" Dr. Abernathy asked.

Finnick dropped his eyes to the carpet. Dr. Abernathy took a swig of his flask.

"No one. Mayor Snow owns every large corporation in the United States. He owns everything."

"So you do listen in class."

A silence fell over them. Finnick was exhausted and suddenly he didn't even care at all about his thesis, or about graduating.

"We have to do something." He said quietly. "At least know what's going on. So we can't do anything about it. Fine. But someone should know. I just can't stand the fact that hundreds of people walk by them every day."

The Capitol Institute hadn't escaped the public's attention in whole. It was nicknamed the Cuckoo Capital and had the reputation of being a metaphorical final resting place for the mentally insane. It was said that anyone who checked in never checked out. They went in and died there. Most of the people of Panem, Florida saw it as a good thing, a great thing. Those beyond help were given a place to rest, a place to stay. But now Finnick was seeing what they couldn't: that there was something more to this. That something went on; something caused them to cut out tongues and discharge people. Or cut out their tongues before they discharged them, so they couldn't ever speak of what was happening in there.

"We've talked about this in secret, the faculty members that is. And we know there's only one thing we really can do at this point. We have to make the public aware. We have to thoroughly investigate and present our case with so much evidence that not even the most extravagant lawyer in the country can dismiss the case. We need witnesses; we need to see what goes on in there. But the problem is that no one comes out. The only ones who do are not even in the records of having ever been there once they're gone, and, as you saw, are rendered speechless for the rest of their lives."

Finnick grasped the back of his head and breathed slowly through his mouth, wishing he had never decided to get up early to go downtown for breakfast this morning.

"You say you want a thesis, boy?" Dr. Abernathy said suddenly, his voice sparked with a newfound energy. Finnick lifted his head slowly. Dr. Abernathy continued. "You do it. Check yourself in. Pretend you're unstable, see what goes on. Write about it. If you want a way to guarantee a seat in grad school, this is it."

Finnick gaped at him. Dr. Mags chided.

"Haymitch! He's just a boy!"

"Just a boy? He's about to graduate. If he wants to be a journalist and write about this stuff then he can—"

"That is totally different and you know it! This is potentially life threatening! And besides, do you think Mayor Snow would let that get published in this city's newspaper?!"

"Well of course not! We send it to fellow professors around the country via email. Just another college student's thesis should go relatively unnoticed through the technological scanners. And once they have it, they get it to the right people. And that's when it's exposed and something can be done."

Finnick's head was starting to ache from their bickering. Dr. Mags shot back at him, leaning further toward the desk. Dr. Abernathy was practically standing up at this point.

"What makes you think they would care? They don't care now! No one cares now! They walk past them like they're not even human—"

"Because, Mags. If we make them see it, they can no longer pretend they don't. And then they have to make a decision. Do they ignore the homeless, knowing everyone knows they know, or do they at least pretend to care in order to look good to their peers? You're the sociologist. You tell me."

Dr. Mags fell silent. Finnick knew Dr. Abernathy had a very valid point.

"This—it's not legal. If they found out he was faking…they could kill him. How could we stay in touch with him?" Dr. Mags asked helplessly.

Dr. Abernathy looked at Finnick then.

"We'll deal with that in due time. We have some of the country's best minds here, we can figure it out. Dr. Beetee can create just about any device that can surpass Panem's security measures." He answered her, still examining Finnick. Finally, he addressed him. "Would this be something you'd want to do, Finnick?"

But Finnick couldn't agree to something like that until he knew exactly what he was agreeing to.

"I don't know. Can I email you tomorrow and let you know? I need to get some air." He asked, anxiety weaving into his voice.

Dr. Abernathy nodded, his gray eyes hard. Finnick rose unsteadily to his feet and hoisted his bookbag up onto his shoulders. His hand was on the doorknob when Dr. Abernathy's voice stopped him.

"Remember, Finnick. You've seen them now. There's no unseeing them."

That night, Finnick ran his tongue along all his teeth and counted them.

He tried to say his name with his tongue shoved all the way in the back of his throat.

He almost cried when he heard the sounds he made.

The next morning, when he reached into his jacket pocket to grab his change to buy his morning vending-machine cinnamon bun, he found he was short a quarter.

He stared at his dumbstruck reflection in the glass of the vending machine as he realized what that first homeless man had been trying to say all along.

"You can't tell anyone. I mean it." He repeated.

Johanna slammed her fist down on the table in frustration.

"I get it, Odair! You've repeated that at least a dozen times since we got in here. And you shoved towels in the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor."

Finnick looked at the crack underneath the bathroom floor, wondering for the first time if maybe that was a bit excessive. He decided it was better safe than sorry.

"I'm going undercover for six months for my senior thesis." He told her, his voice equally scared and excited.

Johanna stared at him with a bored expression for a few extended moments, and then burst into howling laughter.

"You slay me!" She shrieked.

Finnick observed his best friend with a frown. She slapped her palm against her thigh and continued to laugh.

"I'm not kidding, Jo. I'm leaving in a week. I'm checking myself into Capitol Institute." He told her.

Her laughter tampered off pretty quickly.

"What the fuck, Finnick. You aren't a psychology major." She told him.

He scowled at her. "Don't you think I know that?" He demanded.

She shoved his shoulder, glaring herself. "Obviously not! Otherwise, why would you be doing such a stupid thing? What are you even studying exactly?"

Finnick ran a hand through his bronze curls nervously.

"The title of the research will be something like Inside the Ward: A Study of Panem's Mentally Ill."

Johanna rolled her eyes. "Shit title. Why'd you answer me like that?"

Johanna never missed a beat, and Finnick wasn't surprised. They became friends their freshman year and were stuck like glue since then. Johanna was a Forestry major and French minor who insisted she chose her areas of study based on the fact that she liked F-words. Finnick liked her spunkiness, her bluntness, and soon they found a likeliness in each other that helped cultivate a deep friendship. It was the deepness of that friendship that helped Johanna to see he was keeping something from her right now.

"What I'm going to tell you is a secret between us. A Finnick and Johanna secret." Finnick said. "I'm serious. This is really grave stuff."

Johanna nodded, serious for once.

"Okay. I won't tell." She promised.

Finnick spent forty-eight hours getting coached by the head of the psychology department, Dr. Trinket.

She carefully constructed the perfect role for Finnick, one that the psychiatrists at the ward would believe. She taught him what to say, how to say it, what ways to hold his shoulders as he walks, what information to give away and what to keep safe.

She grasped onto Dr. Abernathy's forearm as Finnick stepped onto the city bus, with nothing but a coat on his back. He waved to them all as the bus pulled away—Dr. Mags, Johanna, Dr. Abernathy, Dr. Effie—and found himself thankful he didn't have a family to miss. He didn't have a family to miss because…and that's when he stopped, because his head ached with the images and the smirks and the coarse handed men.

He pushed his hands nervously into the coat pocket during the short bus ride over. He wrapped his hands around the toothbrush in his pocket. He held it tightly the entire ride, his heart beating so quickly he felt he might throw up.

His legs were quaking as he walked up the long sidewalk. The grass around the Institute was perfectly mowed and perfectly green. The beach landscape behind the building was gorgeous as well, with the blue water almost perfectly matching the blue of the sky. But the building was the stark opposite. It towered fifteen stories into the air and was made of concrete. The windows were small and few in between, and when Finnick walked up to the doors, they were steel.

He rang the doorbell once. It opened to reveal a paranoid-looking nurse.

"Yes?"

Finnick pulled his hands from his pocket and stood straight and tall, like Dr. Trinket told him to.

"I deserve admittance." He said, his voice powerful and sure even though he felt the opposite. "I'm here to rescue you all."

The nurse looked exhausted.

"Follow me. Please clasp your hands together behind your back. Don't touch anyone. Don't stray." She muttered, repeating lines she obviously memorized years and years ago. Then she stepped back and opened the door wider, allowing him inside.

He followed after her, keeping his shoulders straight back and his head held high even though he wanted to wilt down to the floor. The walls were dark gray and the building had the upsetting odor of uncleanliness that was hastily covered with bleach. She led him into a small room and sat him down on a bench, quickly restraining his arms with a pair of restraints attached to the wall behind him. Another nurse began patting him down.

"Ah, just doing it to make sure the others don't get jealous, right?" He asks her, shooting her a cocky grin. "Wouldn't want them to know that I'm here or that I'm the best or that I'm getting special treatment. I like the way you think. Hey—don't take that!"

He stared at the toothbrush in the nurse's hand. He fought against the restraints.

"PUT THAT DOWN! PUT IT DOWN! I'M FINNICK ODAIR!"

He screamed so loudly his throat ached. The other nurse pulled the letter from his "previous psychologist" from his pocket and skimmed it. She set her palm on the other nurse's arm with a laugh.

"Oh, this explains it. Finnick Odair, 22. He was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder when he was twelve. He was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder at age sixteen. Says on the note that he's particularly dependent on his toothbrush and can get pretty violent if forced to use another one."

The other nurse laughed coldly at him as she waved the toothbrush mockingly in front of his face. Finnick felt real anger this time.

"Oh, just give him the toothbrush. The plastic isn't hard enough to make into a shank."

Finnick forced himself not to smile victoriously as they gave it back to him.

They forced him into a wheelchair and pushed him down the hallways. He waved at everyone that passed like he saw a queen do once, when he was a boy.

"They're excited I'm here," he whispered to one of the nurses.

She pushed him unceremoniously into a doorway.

"They'll be wanting to see me, so you better make sure the door's locked." He warned the other.

She stared hard at him for a long moment.

"Right. Of course, Mr. Odair." She threw a pair of clothes at him. "Get changed. Someone will be here to get your payment information and emergency contact and allergies and all that."

He nodded and peered at her seriously, his sea green eyes wide. "Is my publicist coming?"

She blinked. "Uh, what?"

He grinned then and winked at her. He wasn't too surprised when she blushed. In Dr. Trinket's words, this route was the easiest way to go because it would be easy for people to see why he was so full of himself. He always did have girls all over him.

"Oh, I get it. Good one." He told her, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

She left looking more confused than he had ever seen anyone.

Finnick set the toothbrush carefully on top of the nightstand. It wasn't the key to keeping him nonviolent. It was simply the key to bypassing the telephone surveillance, so he could make reports to Dr. Abernathy and Dr. Mags via telephone. All thanks to the scientific genius Dr. Beetee.

Finnick sat back on the hard mattress in the corner and took in his surroundings. The bed had a threadbare blanket and starch white walls. There was a small window at the top of the wall, way too high to reach, and an empty shelf built into the wall. Nothing else. This would be his home for the next six months. He tried not to feel sick. Instead, he tried to imagine what it would be like when he got his story out, when he was published, when everyone important reached out to shake his hand, when—but then the hands of the President turned into different hands, and Finnick became faint.

He gasped against the horrifying memories as they threatened to take him under. He didn't like to think it, but he knew he didn't have to make up a reason to need psychiatric help. He's had a reason for a long time. Just not the ones that he told them.

His first morning in the Institute started with the sound of metal knocking against metal.

He jerked awake out of a surprisingly deep sleep and peered groggily at the door. The sound got louder and louder until it was right at his door and it was in the room and in his head, bouncing around and around. The door swung open a minute later to reveal large officers carrying metal sticks. They jerked their heads, telling Finnick to exit his room, and they didn't have to tell him twice. He scrambled off the bed and stood at the open doorway.

He watched as the officers slammed those sticks against each door they passed. He looked down the hallway to his left, and it was infinite to his eyes. There seemed to be no end. There had to be hundreds of people lined up at the doors, tired and sad, some wailing, some murmuring to themselves. Finnick leaned against the doorway to his room and looked to his right. He saw the same never-ending line. He spotted a few nurses standing further down and decided it would be best to stay in character.

"Rest assured, all, Finnick is here. I didn't mean to keep you waiting," he said loudly, shooting them all a large, apologetic smile. He received blank stares and glares in response.

It took an hour before the officers made it to the rooms across from Finnick's. They hit their stick against a door that was across the hall and three down from Finnick's. The hall fell eerily quiet as everyone waited for yet another person to take the rank, but nothing happened. The officers opened the door with a key card. Still, no movement. Finnick glanced up at the number above the door as they walked in. 70. Finnick turned and looked at his own. 65. He wondered how many rooms there were, and how many of these people would die inside of them.

"Get up!" An officer snarled from inside the room. There was the sound of something falling over, or maybe someone being pushed, and then the officers were pulling a seemingly lifeless girl tangled up in her own dark hair from the room. She allowed them to pull her to the doorway, but when one whispered something to her, her head snapped up to him and she glared at him with a ferocity that made Finnick concerned for the officer's wellbeing.

Once everyone was out of their rooms, the officers stood in the middle, and began to call roll. Finnick had expected some sort of acknowledgement that he was new, some sort of information on how the place worked. But he knew coming into this that he wasn't headed into a hospital. He was headed into a prison.

He scanned the faces of everyone in sight as their names were called. His eyes found that girl again when her name was called. She appeared to be completely empty.

"Anamaria Cresta!" They called off, and even though everyone turned to look at her, she didn't react in anyway. She just stared forward, her eyes locked on something Finnick couldn't see. She had lovely eyes that made him think of drowning.

After roll was finished, the officers said one final thing.

"All right, split into your groups and go about the day. New comer 65, you're in Group 4. New comer 89, you're in Group 11. New comer 54…"

Finnick blocked out the officer and began searching for a way to distinguish who was in this "Group 4" and who wasn't. When an officer came over and slid a bracelet around his wrist with a blue "FOUR" typed on it, everything was easier.

He spotted a scrawny boy with a FOUR and hurried over to him. Their group quickly filled, and soon most of the hallway had filed out.

"Where are they going?" Finnick asked his group.

"Breakfast." A girl answered nervously, picking at her cuticles that were already bleeding. She looked like she wanted to crawl her way out of her own skin.

Breakfast sounded good to Finnick, so he began to walk with them. He stopped when he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye. When he turned, he saw that the girl from room 70 was still standing in her doorway, her hands locked tightly over her ears. And on her wrist was the same bracelet they wore.

"Hey, that girl, she's—" he started.

"Not coming. She never comes." A man in his mid-forties answered. His voice was curt and emotionless. Finnick accepted the answer, but couldn't help but shoot a curious look over his shoulder as they walked away. If she never went to breakfast, how did she eat?

The answer came to him later that night, when she collapsed on her way to the bathroom.

He watched the doctors carry her down the hallway. Her arm hung limply, her bracelet almost sliding off her hand.

She didn't.

A boy named Peeta explained it to him in the bathroom. He wasn't in Finnick's group, he was in Group 12 according to the black print on his bracelet, but apparently he was the only one who had ever heard the girl speak before. He lived in 74, only a few down from the girl in 70. They both had been there for a very long time.

"It's not that she doesn't want to eat. It's that she doesn't want to go to the cafeteria." He whispered.

Peeta kept the faucet on to make the officers waiting outside think they were still washing their hands. Finnick tried to understand.

"Why not? If she doesn't go, she can't eat. Surely she'd rather go than starve to death?"

Peeta stared at the water.

"That's what I thought, too." He said. "But she told me she'd rather starve."

The officers stuck their heads in and yelled at them to hurry. Finnick wished he had more time to talk to Peeta. He was the first person who seemed to care that Finnick was new and seemed eager to help him. Finnick couldn't figure out exactly why he was here, though. For all intents and purposes, Peeta appeared completely stereotypically stable.

"What's so bad about the cafeteria?" Finnick asked.

The officers watched them suspiciously as they walked from the bathroom. Peeta whispered an answer to Finnick right before they walked off to their own rooms.

"She said she doesn't like the sound of gunshots."

Finnick shivered underneath his thin blanket that night, a terrible feeling in his gut. He kept replaying Peeta's words over and over again in his mind. He thought about the three meals he'd had in the cafeteria that day and didn't understand why she thought there were gunshots. Poor girl.

Finnick sighed and pulled the pillow over his head, willing himself to sleep, but then he remembered that there was no point. The next six months would be a series of waking up, standing for roll call, eating breakfast, doing "therapeutic activities" that turned out to really just be slave work for the city, lunch, "therapy sessions" which were really just the administering of subduing drugs, dinner, and "social time" that was spent under the watchful eyes and ears of the many officers. His head was spinning with all the new information he had learned, and even though he knew it was already infinitely more than he could have found out through normal research, he couldn't help but feel hopeless. How was he supposed to figure out how these people in here turned into those homeless people on the streets? How was he supposed to come to terms with the fact that generations have died in this place, and no one ever knew what it was really all about?

Youth was the time to make mistakes, but he found himself wondering if maybe he'd made too big of one this time.