Chapter 3 – The Awakening
AN: ATTENTION: Long boring chapter ahead. This is actually only a very long complicated conversation between Johanna and Pearl, who finds herself awakening in the hospital. In case you don't want to read a lot for nothing (which I would completely understand), just scroll to the bottom and read the summary. Enjoy it anyways :)
„Pearl! Pearl!", I heard somebody call my name. The voice was hysterical and high pitched, like a mother calling after her baby, as it falls down a cliff. I realized that it was the voice of a mother. My mother.
„Pearl! No, not my darling! My darling!", the voice grew louder, coming nearer and even more desperate to reach me. I wanted to help the voice, sooth it, tell it everything was allright, but I didnt seem to find my body. Where was I? Where did all the sounds come from? The crying, shouting and this amused laughter in the background?
With a bolt I woke from my dream. Sweat was pearling off my forehead and dripped into my vision, when I forced my heavy eyelids open. I growned. Not a good idea. The bright white light was like needles in my eyes. Immediately I closed them again, struggling to collect my thoughts. I still felt like in my dream. Standing on some sort of stage, when my mother was frantically trying to come to me.
I dared to open my eyes again, this time more careful. Inching them open millimeter after millimeter until I gradually got used to the light. I blinked a couple of times and wanted to get a cup of water from the kitchen when I realized I couldnt move my arms. My hands where tied to some sort of bed with a thick cloth on each side. I panted, panicked, not understanding the situation. Tugging as hard as I could I shook the whole bed, causing thousands of things behind me to clatter loudly. I looked around, eyes wide, like an animal that just got caught in a crippling trap, grasping that it wasn't at the right place. And I wasn't. Absolutely not. These sterile white walls and floors did not belong to our house. Where was I what was I doing here? Was I perhaps still asleep? No, definately not. The pain on my hands, that were sour from the hurting cloth was too real, for me to be dreaming.
„Good morning, sleeping beauty!". My head spun around to the door, just to recognize a face that brought back the memories. The reaping. The tributes of the Capitol. My mother storming on stage, when I collapsed, trying to save me. I remember her screams, when the recruits held her back, tugged her away from me.
I gasped loudly, frantic tears building in the corners of my eyes. With a delightedly cruel look on her face, Johanna took place on the end of my bed, turning to face me.
„We were scared you wouldn't wake up again,", she said, her eyes like the devil, „and it would have just been so sad to loose you, wouldn't it?" She chuckled, and stretched forward to carress my face with dirty fingers. My mother had told me, that th Capitol had been torturing her and her family. With water and electro shocks. No wonder she doesn't wash very often, I thought, but didn't have much sympathy for her in my situation.
I tried to pull away from her touch, urging my body back, from this demon sitting right here, but I couldn't move. Her fingers went over my skin, as if she was intending to rip through it any second.
„Tell me, Pearl... What is it like going to the reaping every year, knowing that you will never have to go to the games?", she leaned on her elbow, a smile playing on her lips. I couldn't say anything, couldn't respond to this question. What was it like? I really didn't know. I never thought about what it must feel like, when you were practically sentenced to death by the Capitol. But then again I realized that this was what I was. I was a tribute in the last hunger games.
Still paralyzed by the ties on arms and legs I wasn't able to escape Johanna's stare, nor her words.
„Did you ever think about what it must be like for the not so privileged? You have been raised as a princess, weren't you?", she asked, still smiling, „You never had to be scared to come home to your starving family, without anything you could bring them. Well, but now everything will change", her eyes sharpened on me, and my breath got heavier. Johanna leaned forward even more, our noses nearly touching. I could imagine how I must be looking to her. The pampered Capitol child, that she was finally allowed to toy around with. On which she was allowed to take revenge.
„Your parents are the reason you are hear, do you realize this, dear Pearl?", she asked, piercing me with dark eyes.
I finally managed to get the panicked knot out of my throat, practically spitting my angry words in her face.
„My parents did nothing wrong!", I bristled with anger.
„Oh, darling,", she chuckled amused, „of course they did nothing wrong. Well, let's say at least in the eyes of the Capitol. You do know that your mother had business with the gamemakers, don't you? Not only did she have the cruelty to place bets", she snorted at these words, „on the tributes, but she also messed with the gamemakers to influence someone's chance on winning.", Johanna stood up, pacing up and down in the small room. Her head getting read.
„Your mother didn't give a shit whether the bets she placed were on things or on children! But it wasn't enough for her to affect the deathrates, no! Can you believe that someone can dryly report of the deaths she caused, still being able to look yourself in the mirror? She talked about the tributes like it didn't matter if children died. Like they were born to amuse. Ha! She even made jokes about their death! She was a journalist of the worst sort!", Johanna now practically shouted at me.
„Was?", I gasped, processing that she had been speaking of my mother in the past tense the whole time. „What did you do to her? I swear if you hurt anyone I'll-"
„You'll what?", she sneared back at me. „You do realize that you're the one who's tied to a bed, don't you? Gosh, you Capitol kids are just so ridiculous", she said laughing now.
I just glared at her in shock. What had they done to my mother? To little Brend? I wanted to stand up and shake the answer out of her. Johanna saw my expression and stopped laughing, still not suppressing an evil smirk.
„Don't worry. We didn't hurt any one of your precious little family yet. Even though I would have loved to,", she sighed dramatically, „ but sadly the other victors thought it wasn't ethical. I really wonder what they thought was ethical about the hunger games anyways? I really don't understand why it shouldn't be allright if we just went and just shot up whole District 1", she was pondering on this thought for a few seconds, probably imaging her version of the perfect revenge. I was disgusted by her and wondered if she had always been this way. Could someone be born without a heart? Were all the surviving victors this way? I remembered the smile on Katniss' lips, when Johanna announced the last hunger games. No they couldn't be. But the games made them to what they were.
In this moment I swore myself, whatever might happen in the arena, I would stay true to myself.
Johanna walked back to the edge of my bed, picking up something from the little cupboard standing there. She closed her hand over the thing, that she obviously didn't want me to see.
„W-what are you doing?", I stuttered, when she leaned over me, grinning. But she didn't answer. Instead she rammed an injection down my arm. I gasped at the pain, as she pushed it deaper through my flesh. My vision was starting to blurr and I looked up from the silver injection that was glistening in the bright light of the room, directly into Johanna's eyes.
„When you wake up, something wonderful is beginning." Her devilish face vanished before my eyes and her words were the last thing I could process, before darkness engulfed me.
AN: Yeah, well incase you read this now, you probably know what I meant by long and boring... For all those who came down here to read a summary watch out.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE CHAPTER YET: So Johanna practically explains to Pearl why she wants the hunger games, why Pearl is one of the chosen tributes and that she wants revenge. Especially on Pearl's mother who has been placing bets and fussing around with the gamemakers to influence on the tributes who will be victors. And Johanna lets out her anger on Pearl. Last thing happening is Johanna giving Pearl a sleeping injection... Yeah that was a chapter of 1400 words summed up in 4 sentences. haha... i am so pathetic xD
Sorry for typos...