The Missing Pieces: Chapter 10
Kato Everdeen aka Noel Dube
"Give me a moment, give me a chance
Lost in the hurt, caught in the past"
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to present the winner of the 74th and 75th Hunger Games! Katniss Everdeen!" Came Caesar's voice amplified to degrees that of thousands beaming down around through the arena. The sounds of cheering capitol citizens mingled with his voice, as they were playing the live feed sound of the city. Mingling with the cheers came the telltale call of the mockingjays that signified that there was an approaching hovercraft. The orchestra of sounds brought bile to my throat and I keeled over, spat out blood bitterly between my two parched lips and screamed my agony.
Cato was dead, and I was supposed to go back. Everyone was dead at this point, and that being the case, what was the point of living on? Why give the Capitol the honor of having another trophy? They have plenty, and all of them surely more magnificent than a soon to be mother with a broken heart and no will left. Maybe I can opt for opium or morphine once the baby is born. Or not. If I get hooked on alcohol before the baby is born, maybe I can spare it from the horrors of the hunger games. But what about me? Why couldn't I be spared from the horrors of the games? Why should I even let them claim me as their trophy in the first place?
I could feel the air chill as the hovercraft approaches, and with that, I hurled myself head first sideways, into the hole, closed my eyes praying for a quick death, and preparing myself with a smile to greet all my loved ones. Waiting for bone shattering impact, or suffocation of some sort, I smiled a smile just for myself. One last one, to salute the old times, the old memories I had accumulated and associated with the finer aspects of life.
Then my cannon went off.
It was dark and the air had a musky humid quality to it.
This couldn't be death, could it?
If it was, it wasn't that bad, but honestly, I couldn't imagine heaven to have a sort of brightening quality. Or hell to have a sort of evil demeanor to it. This was just…warm and ambiguous albeit rather dark.
"Be quiet, missus. Hush and shush or they shall hear your from above!" hushed a raspy voice that sounded kindly but weathered with age.
My eyes widened, and I was suddenly so aware of my body. My hands gripped and unwrapped, forming a fist then relaxed. I was on my back, against a slab of what felt like stone. My toes wiggled within my boots, and I flexed my facial muscles, feeling my lips move silently. My skin still adsorbed temperatures, and detected the rough textures of my clothing. My eyes blinked in the darkness, detecting nothing. It was the same with my eyes open as it was when they were closed. Sitting up, I realized it wasn't completely dark; there was a tiny source of red light way off in the distance of rocky craters that was only visible by squinting.
"Cato." My voice came out as a groan.
"Hush, hush, hush missus, they are nearby, I hear them, that I do." Said the voice, with strange inflections and tones. I had decided that it was a woman, although I couldn't quite be sure.
She moved silently, and I felt smooth leathery fingers clamp around my mouth, tenderly, but with an urgency that made me stiffen and eyes widen with a strong desire to comply to her will. Above us came rumblings and strange noises of commotion.
Was I dead? I had come to the conclusion that I wasn't. But now came a harder question to answer. Where was I? Starting with the basics, I wasn't in Captiol captivity, but that didn't mean I was safe. It was a rocky terrain, and I was definitely underground. Cato was down here, that I also knew for sure, which was another plus, but his state of being was questionable, but the likely hood was he wasn't dead, which was an unbelievable relief, and I could feel my pulse beginning to slow already.
The commotion coming from above stilled, and her voice floated to me again, this time close to my ear.
"Time to go now, missus."