A/N: Sorry everyone! I have been at boarding school and I haven't been able to update (I was engulfed by family and friends in the holidays). It's going to be interesting getting to know my own characters again. To jog your memories, there was a big anti-Capitol demonstration on the 7th of January and Kirra is now writing in her diary about it…
Tuesday, 7th January
Today, I:
6:00: Was rudely woken up by Bianca bursting into my room and screaming: 'IT'S TODAY!'
6:30: Ate breakfast whilst pretending to listen to Bianca's briefing
7:00: Gathered supplies from the Apothecary and went to the hospital
8:00: - 7:00: Demonstration. More on that later.
7:30: Dinner at the Crestas'
9:00: Now. Writing diary…
It was a complete massacre. I never want to see another peacekeeper. The paramedics kept bringing people in and we just didn't have the resources. People had to start bringing their camp beds to the hospital for the immobile. Niamh (who Bianca and I recruited to chat to the wounded while we tended to the new arrivals) spent most of the day in tears after seeing the injuries. The smell of blood was enough to make my mother vomit when she came in with food which Dad had provided from The Fat Gull (luckily, she did not vomit on the food).
At around half past 2, people started to come in with these bizarre cuts. No matter how hard we tried, they did not stop bleeding. Then, this kid (I think he's friends with IALB), came in and wheezed: 'leech mutts' before he passed out. This made me lose faith in the Capitol completely. Mutts had been invented with the best of intentions: fun pets for small children. There were mini pandas, mini tigers, I think you could even buy mini elephants at one point. I guess they started using the technology for military purposes. Imbeciles.
Anyway, back to the cuts. The only thing I could remember to stop bleeding was 'apply pressure and if that doesn't work try honey and cayenne pepper'. No-one else had any better ideas and we needed the chemical sealant for deep gashes, so I called Annabelle Connolly (who co-owns the supermarket) and she sent some over. All I can say is this: blood, pepper and honey are a smell no decent person should ever have to experience.
As the day went on, the wounds only got worse. It was completely exhausting. I thought things couldn't get much worse, but then they brought Max in. He has an anaphylactic allergy to peppers and some idiotic peacekeeper sprayed pepper spray in his face. He may be a complete jerk but he's my oldest friend. He kind of means a lot to me. Seeing him like that after all of the other stuff that happened today turned me into an emotional wreck. It was just so overwhelming. Catalina was yelling at everyone in Spanish and I had to translate. Eventually, my mother turned up and told me that I had to leave because the Crestas had invited us over for dinner.
Since everyone in our part of Northern 4 knows each other; all of the people at the hospital knew my mother's relentless commitment to social events. With her, if you agreed to do something with someone, you had to do it, no matter what else had cropped up in your life. So, despite the still quite large amount of people that needed treating, I went home, had a shower and headed off to the Cresta house.
I arrived to find that my mother had ditched me because her translation services had been "desperately required" to communicate with the people who had uprisen in Southern 4 (Mrs Cresta assured me she had spent at least half an hour on the phone convincing her to help the district rather than come to dinner); IALB was at his friend's house and Dad was at The Fat Gull working overtime to provide food for the wounded. So it was just the Cresta family and I. With all of the excitement, Mrs Cresta had forgotten to prepare dinner, so she shooed Mike and I upstairs and sent Mr Cresta and Bridget (Mike's little sister) off to buy some figs (I wished him luck; Annabelle said the supermarket was full of panic buyers preparing for all-out war earlier).
Mike and I sat down in his room and he sighed and said: 'How was it?' Once again, I turned into a blubbering mess of tears and snot. I need to stop doing this. It's most unhygienic. Eventually, he came over and hugged me. Mike is an awkward hugger, and I'm not normally the type of person who enjoys being hugged, but I needed it. I asked him why we were bothering with all of this and he launched into this massive monologue about miners exploding in 12 every day and how much the textile workers are abused in 8 and how in 10, the animals get more food than the humans do.
Eventually, he shut up and we just sat there together for a bit. Then, Mrs Cresta walked in and said: "Am I intruding on something?!"
My first response was: "What would you be intruding on?" but then I realised that I was leaning against Mike in a rather romantic-looking fashion. I promptly turned the colour of cooked lobster and stood up. I mumbled something about dinner being ready and Mrs Cresta led us downstairs very enthusiastically. The food was good, but dinner table conversation was mostly small talk. It was just really awkward. After dessert, I made my excuses and left. I'm just praying that Bridget doesn't tell IALB otherwise I'll never hear the end of it. To add to all of this, my mother and Catalina are expecting Max and I to get married and produce joint grandchildren for them.
Oh, listen to me. I'm so fickle. How can I talk about what little there is of my love life when over 200 people were wounded today. Good night, diary. Today was a crazy day.