A/N: Finished rereading Mockingjay recently and had this little idea pop into my head during the epilogue. I know that a lot of people have done it, but oh well. I'll do it too. It's an interesting (albeit intense) subject to work with.
WARNING: This story is depressing. Very depressing. More depressing than that story I wrote for Darth Vader in the Star Wars archive, which is really saying something. However, I assume that anyone who can enjoy Hunger Games enough to read fanfiction about it knows how to deal with depressing, so maybe I have nothing to worry about…
Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins owns Hunger Games and all of its characters. I'm (sadly) not Suzanne Collins. I don't own this stuff.
…
Sometimes at night, I wake up to the sound of my mother screaming in her sleep.
I don't know why she has so many nightmares. I grew out of mine years ago – and my little brother, Cinna, is starting to have fewer and fewer of them as the years drag by. But my mother's nightmares never stop. They don't come every night – but most nights I'm woken up by them. Cinna cries whenever he hears them, and I just sit there and hold him tightly until the sound passes. I want to cry too, but for his sake, I keep it in. Since my dad stays in with my mom while the terrors occur, I'm the only person there to support my brother during those episodes.
Once, I asked my mother why she had bad dreams so often. My mother had smiled sadly and absently patted my shoulder, staring off into space. "I'll tell you when you're older." And she'd left it at that. My father said pretty much the same thing; "When you're ready to hear it, we'll tell you. But not until then, alright, Rue?" He'd then sent me outside to play with my brother.
It's scary to hear my mom fall apart like that. During the day, my mother is one of the strongest people I know – brave and stubborn, never hesitating to reach out and defend her family. While the sun is up, I look up to her – idolize her, even. But at night, things are different. When I lay in bed and hear her scream as she struggles to surface from whatever hellish world sleep has trapped her in, she is a whole other person. At night, she is frightened, lost and weak – so completely incongruous with the woman I know. It's terrifying.
I want to know why she screams like that. Maybe if I know what's wrong, I'll be able to fix it so that she won't be so afraid anymore. I love my mom a lot, and I don't want her to be so scared all the time. I want to help her. But I can't, no matter how hard I try.
That's why I'm where I am today.
I'm not supposed to go in my dad's study. My parents spent all twelve years of my life trying to hammer that into my brain. Don't go in there for any reason under any circumstances. Doubtless they're trying to hide something from us, and I have a feeling that it might have to do with my mom's nightmares. After all, they've been hiding that from me for twelve years – so what else could it be? I have no idea.
Sending a quick, furtive glance over my shoulder, I slowly crack open the door and slip inside without making a sound. I thank the stars that my mom is teaching me how to hunt. Closing the door behind me, I scan the room, taking in every tiny detail. The study is nothing special – just a few bookcases lining the wall with a cluttered desk and old chair sitting by the window. It'd be completely and utterly dull if not for the dozen covered canvases that take up most of the empty floor space.
Eying the canvases curiously, I move over to one silently and lift the cloth covering off of it. It's a painting – its artistry undoubtedly my father's – of a large golden stagelike/domelike structure. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, stand on top of it, while a pack of nearly two dozen ravenous dogs feeds right below them. A bloodied hand is reaching up out of the mob of canines towards the two people on top. The girl has an arrow pointed in its direction. Cringing, I quickly replace the cover.
The other paintings are similar to it – bloody images of death and destruction, all created by my father's brush. A young man tied to a whipping post with a torn, bloodied back. A woman faceup in the water with that vile red liquid pouring out of an ugly gash in her neck. A red-haired man getting dismembered by another pack of bloodthirsty dogs. My mother, bruised and wounded, clutching a festered burn that mars the flesh of her left leg. On and on and on it goes, images of blood and gore and death etching themselves into my brain and rooting there, resisting all attempts I make to drive them out. Bile rises up in my throat, which I quickly suppress. Suddenly, I'm seriously regretting coming in here.
No wonder my parents told me to stay out, if my father spent so much time painting these… atrocities.
I quickly cover up the last painting and back away, preparing to bolt from the room. Then I hear the sound of the door opening behind me. "…Rue?" my father asks. I freeze, my heart pounding in my chest. Slowly, I turn, guiltily meeting my father's stern gaze. "What are you doing?" he questions. "You know that you're not supposed to be in here."
Tears well up in my eyes. "I just wanted to know why mom keeps having nightmares!" I protest, my voice bordering on hysteria. "You never tell me anything about it and… I… I want to help her!" I bury my face in my hands, feeling my body start to shake as I struggle to suppress my sobs. "What happened? These paintings… what happened to you two?"
My father's face softens. Sighing, he walks over to me and places a hand on my shoulder. "It's not a pretty story, Rue," he says quietly. I narrow my eyes at him and cross my arms over my chest in a manner that I've seen my mom do when she's refusing to back out of something. My dad sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Fine," he whispers. Then, louder; "Kat, can you come in here for a second?"
The sound of footsteps comes from the hall, and moment later, my mother sticks her head inside the room. Her eyes rest on me briefly before flicking backing to my father in confusion. "It's time," is all he says. She opens her mouth to protest, but then he adds, "Katniss, she saw the paintings. We might as well tell her the truth." My mother looks at me again. I smile hesitantly. She sighs, and makes a beeline for the desk, gesturing for me to follow. I do, taking a seat in front of the desk while my mom lowers herself into the chair behind it. My father stands right beside her.
The story she tells makes my bold run cold. Numbly, I listen as she explains to me about the Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell, and the ensuing rebellion. She lists every death she witnessed there, ever horror committed – even the ones she committed herself. During her discourse, she begins to cry, and my father reaches out and grabs her hand tightly. Sitting there, telling me this, she and father both seem to be a thousand years old, beaten down and world-weary, with next to nothing left to cling to. The whole situation makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry. So I do, and before long, all three of us are crying together, clinging to one another for support.
When I go to bed later that night, my rest is disturbed by images of faceless men and women getting shredded, dismembered, and blown to bits. For the first time in several years, I wake up screaming… in the same way that mom does. And this time, Cinna is crying over my night terror.
Once, I wanted nothing more than to stop my mother's nightmares. Now I understand that they will never go away, no matter what I do to make things better for her. Scars like that, caused from those sorts of horrors, never go away completely. No matter what support I offer to her, the pain and the fear will never disappear. She'll keep screaming, Cinna will keep crying, and Dad will keep painting. And I'll be caught right in the middle, unable to do anything about it.
I still hold Cinna and calm his tears when mom's nightmares take hold. I try to tell him that it'll be okay, but the truth is… I just don't know anymore. Whenever I think about the story, my throat closes up and a knot forms in my stomach. The images from dad's paintings haunt my dreams every now and then, though I rarely wake up screaming anymore.
This is the legacy I bear. The scars my parents gained from their ordeals have been passed down to me. I can only hope that Cinna doesn't inherit them as well.
Because scars like these never truly heal.