Author's Note: Well, I made my two-week deadline! With a day to spare, no less. Chapter Four is also finished now. I've been working on both as one project. Actually, they were both going to be the same chapter... but as I kind of suspected all along, it's turned into two because of the length. I think it works well this way. Review and tell me what you think!
I'll be posting Chapter Four early next week. Tuesday at the latest. By then, I hope I'll have my drawings and the beginning of my audiobook version of this story posted too. Sorry about all the delay with those! I guarantee they'll be worth the wait, though.
Now I have to say one more thing: thank you for reading this! It's very important to me to tell Cinna's story and not leave it unsung. And I can only tell it effectively if I'm telling it to someone. So, dear reader: I'm dedicating this chapter to YOU! That's right, you, for reading this.
Thanks for helping me make this story come to life!
It's been hours. I'm still here, and I'm still being tortured.
It's impossible that this could still be the same day. I feel like I've been in pain for a week with no rest. No breaks. I'm so exhausted and I just can't see how I can fight any more.
But I have to keep fighting, because my battle is still going on.
I'm still in my arena. And this is still only the second day.
So what will it feel like on the twentieth?
There's no way I can let myself think about that. I just have to hold on. Surely it can only be a few more hours. Even though I keep being wrong about the time. I still have to be getting close to the end of today.
Because this isn't the first time I've thought it could only be a few more hours. I've thought it several times already. And each of those times was what felt like at least half a day apart.
There are only so many times that could happen before one of them would have to be true.
It's amazing how hard it is to hold on to a logical thought like that in the face of so much pain.
And it's amazing how hard it is to hold on to my artistic focus on the things I can learn from all of this.
Right now, I feel like all I'm learning is that pain hurts. A lot.
I close my eyes and just give up on watching for now. Maybe even without the visual part, I can still get something from what I'm feeling. Something for my art.
Something to keep my mind off the idea that I'm being tortured.
It's so strange. I'm distracting myself from the pain of being tortured... by thinking about the pain of being tortured.
Actually, the pain I'm feeling isn't just from the torture itself. A lot of things are hurting me. Things I would never have thought about until I was facing them.
My throat hurts from what I can't exactly call dehydration, since they did give me enough water this morning, but certainly from thirst. From not having had anything to drink for hours, while all this same time I've had to keep clenching my throat and my jaws so tightly closed to keep from screaming when the pain got too bad. Which it's been doing a lot.
The hard metal edges of the cuffs are cutting into the sides of my wrists and ankles, too. I haven't been able to see them too well, even when I've tried to look, but I can feel it. And I can imagine what it probably looks like.
I imagine that the skin along those edges must be turning a raw, bright pink by now. There must be low, puffy abrasions at the points of contact. On my right wrist especially, I can feel the deep stinging. I've tried again and again, by reflex, to reach up with that hand, trying to prevent or stop some horribly painful attack.
It's taking my body even longer than my mind to accept the fact that I can't do that. The fact that I can't do something that simple.
The thought still makes me shudder. It's completely horrifying.
Everyone should be able to reach up or move aside to protect themselves from pain.
I won't focus on that thought. Relentlessly, I make my mind continue the search for something to think about that I can use later on for my art.
That I can use right now to help me survive.
All right. Back to focusing on the sensations of my body, other than this torture.
My back is cramped and knotted from lying in this same position for so long. Especially with all the pain I've been feeling, and the tension, and my body's reflexive efforts to break free.
Reflexive, and useless. Because there's no way I'm going anywhere.
Not while I'm clamped down with such unbreakable bonds and being tortured.
Being tortured... It's a horrible thought. It's a horrible thing to be happening.
Horrible, and almost incomprehensible.
It's still hard for me to accept that I'm actually being tortured. It's so far outside of anywhere my life has ever gone before now. So far outside of anything I ever expected to face. Until recently.
Being tortured is not the kind of thing you think of as ever really happening to you.
The feeling persists in spite of the brutal reality of what I'm facing. It feels strange to even think the words.
I'm being tortured.
It feels so strange and almost unreal, but it's true. I am a prisoner of President Snow's government and I am being tortured for information about the rebellion.
There's nothing unreal, though, about the pain I'm feeling. They're doing something to both my upper arms right now. Some kind of crushing damage, I think. It's ferociously painful and it's also terrifying me, because if my arms are damaged I won't be able to work properly. And I need my work. I need it to live.
I can't be Cinna if I can't create.
Stop it, I tell myself. They're being careful. They have to be. They can't damage me too badly or they'll lose me and lose their chance to question me.
But how long will they be interested in that? What if they decide I have nothing to say that they want to hear? Will they kill me then?
Suddenly I'm filled with a whole new kind of terror.
I've been facing all this by believing I'll get through it. Believing I'll escape. Thinking about the time when I'll be free to create my designs again.
What if that never happens? What if I don't escape at all?
What if my hands are never free again between now and the time I die? What if they kill me before I ever thread another needle?
I might never create another fashion ever again.
The thought fills me with such an awful aching pain inside that I almost can't even force my body to breathe.
I can't die without ever creating again!
It's throwing me into a panic. Just this sudden jolt of white-hot terror flying out from my heart to fill my whole soul. I'm terrified now -
- and when I'm this terrified, it's suddenly impossible to stand the physical pain.
There's just this wave of pain that's crashing into all my senses. It was already there, but now I'm focusing on it and it's so terrible that I just can't stand it. I don't think I can stand it for another second.
I'm gasping now and fighting desperately to hold on to my control. And how long can this last? Not long.
All right. I have to calm myself. I'm an artist. That's what I decided -
The savage pain in my arms breaks me out of my thoughts. Still that terrifying pain in my arms, still that fear of never being able to create again -
No. I'm going to focus. I am going to fight this and I'm going to win.
I'm going to survive. I'm going to create again.
I'm still Cinna the stylist. I'm going to make it.
Slowly, I take a deep breath. I feel my body relaxing. I feel my thoughts calming down.
It's all right. Steady, Cinna. I've got this.
I open my eyes and look. The wounds in my arms are vivid. Brutal. Bruises spreading from my shoulders to my elbows now. Contrast that with the gleaming silver of the weapons that are still damaging me. The hard faces of my torturers. The remorseless expressions in their eyes.
Sweep out even farther, to the hard, white, almost savagely bright walls of this terrible room. The venue. The backdrop.
It's all so visually intense. It's totally fascinating.
But I'm still feeling so much pain. I'm still barely able to hang on.
So I'm facing this question. What am I going to do, if what I'm doing now isn't enough?
It's very simple. And it's very important.
I'm going to have to take this a step further. Deliberately, I start designing fashions in my head.
All right. The first step is to have someone to create for.
Maybe I'll make something for him, I think suddenly, looking at the Peacekeeper. Something awful and cruel, so he can look the way he really is -
No, I don't want to do that!
I don't want to think that way. I'll just make something that works for him visually. I don't want to create something awful and cruel. I'm not like that. I'm not the same kind of stylist he is.
Stop it! I think almost frantically. He's not a stylist! Let's see, I need gray, to go with his eyes. Gray...
Before long, I have a whole outfit for him in the works. A severe gray suit. A stiff white shirt. I can't help making it a little grim, no matter what I do or don't want to feel or how much of it I do or don't want to put into my creation.
Still, I find myself looking for something to soften it. Something to complete the look. Something to balance it somehow. The question occupies me enough that I'm almost able to ignore the pain he's causing me.
Almost. Only almost, and the thought of that pain makes me focus on it more.
It's changed. Of course. It keeps doing that.
They keep doing that. Changing my pain. Looking for something else that might be harder for me to stand. So they can break me.
They're not going to break me. It's never going to happen. But they don't know that. And unquestionably, in their attempts to break me, they're causing me a horrible amount of pain.
He and his assistants have put away their crushing weapons. The assistants are over by the tool chest, no doubt picking out something else horrible to hurt me with. I can't think about that. Only this minute...
The Peacekeeper is the only one hurting me right now. But that's bad enough. He's gotten out his old jagged knife, the one he first used on me when he started torturing me yesterday. The one with the curved blade and all the vicious little points.
Right now, he's inflicting another set of little cuts on me. This time, on the front of my upper right arm, a few inches above the crook of my elbow. Right where the other weapons have already bruised me.
It hurts. It hurts a lot, and it's really scaring me. A lot. Because that's my right arm, and I use that a lot when I make my designs.
No. Don't think about it.
I bring my mind back to the design I'm making now. The one I'm making in my head, for the Peacekeeper.
I need something to soften the gray suit.
Something...
I'm drawing a blank, but I keep thinking. Carefully, I visualize the whole suit again. I visualize him standng there wearing it. Just standing there. Not hurting me...
Stop.
I just let my mind loose. I let it float and imagine what I might be missing in this design. It's a more dreamlike feeling than I usually have when I create, but it works for me right now.
Wordlessly, I let myself wonder what I need. I don't ask. I don't demand an answer from my thoughts. I just imagine.
I have it.
The sky.
The buttons on his suit are going to be a soft, warm blue the color of the sky.
Because he shouldn't be in here all the time. He should be outside.
Everyone should be outside sometimes.
Neither of us should be in here all the time. We should be outside. And we should be free. Me from this pain, and him from the pain of causing it.
And we should be friends.
It's hours later. What feels like about six hours. Or maybe, once again, it's only two.
I'm very close to the edge of breaking now. It doesn't matter how many designs I create in my mind, for some time I've been hurting so badly I can hardly think.
Still, I'm holding on. And it seems they're getting very tired of watching me do that.
One of the torturer's assistants, especially, seems to be getting very frustrated. He's been watching my face for some time, watching me watch the wounds they're causing me. Apparently, he's starting to realize that this is somehow helping me.
He's looking more and more furious about that by the minute.
"Cover his damn eyes!" he finally bursts out.
The Peacekeeper's reply is cold and measured.
"No. Break him."
Break me? I think. Something in his words is catching my attention through my pain. Something in the way he's saying it.
Interesting. He doesn't mean what I would usually expect him to mean by that. He isn't talking about getting me to answer their questions.
This time, he's talking about my artistic interest. It's getting in the way of their torture. They may not exactly understand what I'm doing, but they know I'm doing something. And they don't like it. They want me to stop it.
They also have a plan for how to handle it. How, they think, to make me stop.
Their plan is simple, of course. Simple and predictable.
More pain. A lot more pain.
And, of course, they put their plan into effect immediately.
They're really stepping things up now. The pain is getting more and more difficult to bear. I'm still trying to hold on to my artistic focus but it's getting very hard.
They're doing their best to make it even harder. After all this, I'm finally feeling like I'm about to fall apart.
I won't let myself fall apart. So I make a deliberate choice.
I'm going to be something that they can't break.
I imagine myself as a length of fabric with a high tensile strength.
It's a spectacular image. I'm this dark sort of black-green fabric, shimmering and rustling as it's pulled tighter and tighter between these two big machines. I'm sort of shiny. Some kind of satin. Something you wouldn't expect to be this strong, but it is. There's no way they can break it.
There's no way they can break me.
The fabric is shaking hard now. These big, steel machines are clamped to it all the way across both ends. They're pulling it harder and harder, but it's still not breaking. It doesn't matter what they do, it's not breaking!
The fabric is having to fight very hard now. I'm fighting very hard now. It's shaking and rippling in great, deep waves all along its length. It's almost bouncing up and down with the strain. There's an amazing amount of movement involved, for something that's pulled so tight you'd think it would be immobilized.
Impossibly, the grasping arms of the steel machines themselves are starting to be pulled in now. They're bowing inward, toward the fabric, as it refuses to break under the tension.
Solid steel. Pitted against a thin sheet of glossy satin. And the satin's winning.
This is what is meant by tensile strength.
It doesn't matter what those machines do. It doesn't matter how much force they use.
This fabric is stronger than the things that are pulling at it. Just like me.
And then, a sudden sound cuts across my thoughts. The high, familiar scream of agony blends and merges with my visualization, bringing me the image of a knife slicing across the center of the fabric.
There is more than one way for that piece of fabric to break.
The cut slashes across its resistance, cutting right through the middle of all its strength. All my strength. I feel my fabric springing up and out to the sides, falling over the suddenly relaxed arms of the awful pulling machines. I feel completely cut in half. Completely broken.
They've cut me right in half. And now I'm left without any way to resist, because of the awful agony of what I'm hearing.
And right along with that, my imagery shatters. Leaving me with only the sound.
It's an utterly familiar voice. But I've never heard her scream like this before.
She cries out again, desperately.
"Cinna, help us!" It's Octavia! She's in agony! Such agony that she could never have imagined -
And right on the heels of that sound -
"No!" A frantic denial of pain - in Venia's voice!
And then a pure shriek of wordless agony. Flavius!
I panic, trying to break free and go to them. Someone is torturing my prep team!
Of course, I can't move. That only adds to my terror, in a different way than it's been doing all this time.
My prep team is being tortured and I can't get to them!
"Stop!" I yell. It is the first time I've yelled in twelve years. "Stop hurting them! They didn't do anything!"
I'm panicking. I'm absolutely frantic! I'm thrashing and fighting as hard as I can, but it's resulting in barely any movement. What am I going to do? My prep team!
"You can't hurt them!" I yell again, even more desperately. "They didn't know! I didn't tell them about the dress! Leave them alone!"
There's such agony in my voice, and it's all twisted and tangled between the agony of my body and the worse agony of my heart. This is not exactly what I had in mind for not breaking, but right now I almost don't care. I just have to help my prep team! Only how can I? I can't even move! I'm completely panicking.
Then, somehow, a completely calm thought surfaces in the middle of my panic.
Wait a minute. Those can't be their voices. My prep team is safe in District 13.
This doesn't make any sense. Why are they here? What is someone doing to them? They're safe in District 13.
I know they're safe in Thirteen. Portia told me the night of the interviews that they had gotten out.
Then how are they being tortured like this?
"Cinna!" Another cry of sheer desperation, this one from Venia again.
And I'm still in so much pain myself that it's hard to even focus. Only nothing could keep me from focusing on the voices of my prep team, not when they sound like this.
Not when they're being tortured like this.
Again, my mind insists on a calm, simple, logical truth.
They're safe in District Thirteen.
They're not being tortured. They can't be. District Thirteen is protecting them.
Suddenly, I'm aware of my breathing. I'm gasping, shuddering with each breath, my body fighting to get air in and out of my lungs. I'm fighting to keep calm. I'm fighting to think clearly.
My prep team...
No one is hurting my prep team.
No one.
I know that. So I don't have to be scared.
And then a searing slash of pain jolts me out of my fragile calm, as one of my torturers inflicts some kind of long, terrible cut along the outside of my left leg, from my knee to my ankle.