After one of my headaches, waking up was the worst. Out of the few things I remember, that one stuck. It was like branding your eyes with a hot iron, then lighting your hair on fire and punching yourself in the stomach. At the same time. Light was too painful to look at, and motion would usually make me throw up.
My eyes flicked open. The world wasn't spinning and light didn't burn, so I must be dreaming. I was in a room filled with baby clothes, cribs, mobiles, toys and a miniature playground. The walls were all a baby blue adorned with pale pink, hand painted balloons. There were even clouds. I was laying on what appeared to be the largest sofa in existence. It was cream and soft, with little tortoise shell buttons and it covered an entire wall. One hundred people could have fit in the room comfortably standing. There was a small bed on the wall opposite to the sofa, as well as a changing table and a pale green door. There was a crackling soundtrack issuing from several speakers embedded in the ceiling. The music was very old-fashioned and the lyrics were… different. The song sounded old, much too old. It made me nervous, and it was on repeat. Okay… I'm definitely dreaming.
'Hush, hush, hush, here comes the boogey man,
Don't let him come too close to you,
He'll catch you if he can.'
This is so creepy, I thought as I sat up and made my way over to the pale green door.
As if on autopilot, I opened the door, switched on the light and found myself in a small bathroom. Everything was in the same pale green as the door. I sat down on the toilet lid and grabbed a small bottle of pills from the floor. After a perfunctory glance at the label I popped the lid off the container and dry swallowed the last three of the tiny red pills without a second thought.
"Can't forget these." I said cheerily to no one in particular.
What the hell am I doing?! I thought urgently, What the hell were those?
"Katniss?" Someone's muffled voice issued from behind the door, "Katniss? It's dinner time."
This isn't a dream, I thought slowly, the wheels in my head clicking into place, It's a memory…
"Oh goody!" I said enthusiastically and leaped off the toilet lid and yanked the door open-
-Only to find myself retching into a white plastic bucket, with someone holding back my hair and rubbing my back soothingly. My head felt like it was splitting in half and my eyes felt swollen and burned. I was able to stop momentarily and catch my breath before my stomach contents started to gush back out. After a few minutes, and two buckets later, I'd managed to stop for good. There had been a few false stops, where I'd start to lay back on the bed, to be confronted with another stab of pain behind my eyes and more vomit flowing from my mouth and nose. I felt so tired, so exhausted, I went straight back to sleep.
When I woke up I was fairly certain that I was not where I had fallen asleep.
I hadn't really had time to get a look at my surroundings, or my helper, whilst being sick into the bucket, so taking the opportunity, I analysed my new location.
Wow.
Well, uh…
This was not what I had expected.
This was… well it was… ummm.
Whew.
Ahem.
I was currently lying on top of a mattress, a mattress… that was floating on the ocean.
The Ocean.
Birds were whistling overhead and the sky was a gorgeous light blue.
"What the hell?" I said weakly, the taste of sick still in my mouth and the smell of salt water in my nose.
I lay absolutely still as wave after wave of water lapped against the mattress, and wave after wave of nausea attacked my stomach.
Too… much… motion, I thought dizzily, Too… much-
I threw up.
I managed to not only throw up on my self, but all over the mattress as well.
"Oh god…" I whispered as another bout of nausea overtook my body.
I was in the process of vomiting up a kidney, when the horizon opened up and a very large, very nervous Plutarch Heavensbee made a slow jog onto the water. Not into, onto. He was walking on the water as if it was solid ground.
"Terribly sorry, my dear," He said as he traversed a wave, a heavy sweat appearing on his brow, "I thought it would be soothing."
A smaller figure hurried out of the gap in the sky and rushed to my side. It was the red-haired Avox girl. She examined me for a moment, her small hands smoothing my hair and rubbing my back in slow, calming circles.
Noticing that the ocean was still beating against the mattress, she stood quickly and ran over to an oddly circular cloud. And slammed it with her fist. The ocean froze and the birds were silent statues in the sky.
Heavensbee took a small step forward and the Avox girl whipped around to face him.
"I thought it would be…" He trailed off, the Avox girl's eyes glared daggers at him. She put her hands on her hips and looked at him.
Her stance said 'I told you so, and now look what you've done.'
Heavensbee opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
The Avox girl adjusted her stance to crossing her arms, as if to say, 'Well? What do you have to say for yourself?'
"I…" Heavensbee began, wiping his face with a handkerchief.
The Avox girl threw up her arms in exasperation and knelt back down beside me. She put my arms around her neck and lifted me into her arms. She gave me a reassuring smile and carried me over the water and through the hole in the horizon.