I hear screaming, but I'm in my safe place now. I hear voices, I feel hands, but I don't hear them, and I don't feel them all at once. The waves rock me back and forth, and I can taste salt in my mouth. It tastes like Finnick. Like home.
But the screaming finds me in my safe place. I am still deep underwater, but the water isn't salty anymore. It's cold, and it pushes me around. But I'm a good swimmer, one of the best in District 4. So I fight the currents, and eventually I resurface. The place feels familiar, even submerged in water. But it isn't a good familiarity, it's a foreboding one. Like I have ended up in a terrible place against my will.
I see a boy with brown skin, and he tells me Blake is dead.
I know, don't I know that? I watched his head roll around on the ground. I felt his blood on my skin, on my clothes, in my hair. At least the cruel waters that push me to and fro have washed his blood off of me.
There's a booming cannon, and suddenly, I am yanked from the water. I feel carpet on my face, and I bury my fingers in it. Soft. The screaming is gone, but it's replaced by a whisper. "They're all dead, they're all dead," the whisper says, and it doesn't stop.
They're all dead. Aren't they?
Yes, they're all dead. I killed them all.
The realization stops the whispers.
"I killed everyone in the arena, didn't I?" I hear myself asking.
"No, not everyone," a voice says. It isn't Finnick. I think it's the doctor. Doctor? Yes, of course. The tribute who wins the Games always sees a doctor right after.
"Are we going back to the Capitol?" I ask.
"We're already here," says the doctor.
"But I just won the Games," I say, annoyed.
"You won the Games six months ago. You're on your Victory Tour."
I push myself into a sitting position, frustrated that they don't understand. I see Finnick, sitting far away, looking completely defeated, looking like he wants to cry, looking like he wants to embrace me. Mags stands near him, one hand on his shoulder, the other over her mouth. She is crying. Camilla-I'm surprised when thinking her name doesn't bring on the customary annoyance, but warmth and love-Camilla is kneeling next to me, tissue in her hand, blotting my face.
I sit there for a few moments longer, trying to figure out what's going on. Trying to figure out why we're here, instead of a hovercraft. Trying to figure out why the loss of Blake doesn't hit me like a battering ram, doesn't feel like a knife to the heart.
Eventually, slowly, bit by bit, it comes back.
I had an episode. This interview, this goading, arrogant doctor pushed me into one, the worst one in a long time. It must have been bad enough that it felt real, like I went back in time, like I was living the arena again. Like I was just being pulled from the arena.
Sanity snaps back into my brain, so quickly it knocks me off kilter.
"Sorry," I mumble. Camilla offers me a hand, and I take it gladly, and let her pull me off the ground. She sits me down in my chair and fusses over me, trying to smooth down my hair, straightening the neckline of my shirt, pushing locks of hair out of my face. "It's okay," I whisper eventually. "I'm fine."
"Do you need to be done?" Camilla asks worriedly.
"Do I have a choice?" I ask the doctor wearily.
He glances down at his watch, looks at the producers standing near the cameras, and frowns at me. "I think we have everything we need," says the doctor.
Relief crushes me like a ton of bricks. I don't think that, after that episode, I would be able to find a safe place to go to. I don't think I could go away again. So I would have to sit through the rest of it, answering that doctor's ridiculous questions about my time in hell.
"I know you have a psychiatrist in District 4," the doctor says. He gets out of his chair and approaches me, so I stand up defensively. "But if you ever need a change of scenery, you can always call me."
"Considering you seem to make things worse, I think I'll pass," I say, hostility coloring my voice.
The doctor sighs, and says quietly, "I'm trying to help you, Annie. I'm a doctor."
"Funny way of showing it," I retort.
"I'm trying to help you live the rest of your life away from here," he responds calmly, quieter than before. But he doesn't give me time to respond. He just pulls a business card out of his pocket and hands it to me. "I'm on your side, Annie."
Then he leaves. The camera crew takes a while to pack up their equipment, but they're gone soon enough, too. That just leaves me, Mags, Finnick, Camilla, and Lanie. No one says anything except Camilla, who is busying herself asking the Avoxes for tea and something sweet to help get my energy back up. She comes back over to me, and pulls me to a soft couch, where she continues to fuss over me, sugaring my tea when it comes, and pushing little pastries into my fingers.
It annoys me a little that Finnick isn't the one fussing over me. I know that he can't be-well, Finnick to me while we're here. But he can still be my mentor. He can still be my friend. But he just sits in the corner of the room, looking anywhere but at me.
So I sip the tea Camilla gets me, and I eat her pastries robotically. I smile when she wants me to, and eventually, I manage to excuse myself. I go into the room I slept in before the Hunger Games. I turn the shower on, and let the hot water run over my body. I get tired of standing, so I sit down on the floor. I try not to get my hair wet, but it gets wet anyway. I don't find the energy to care.
It's been so long since I've had a really bad episode, if you don't include the episode in District 2. But even that one wasn't so bad, comparatively. I think-I think it was so bad because I hadn't had one in so long. I hadn't really thought about all of the people I killed, not much, anyway. Not outside of sleeping hours. I dream about them, of course, but I don't talk about them except for my head doctor and Finnick sometimes. That makes sense. I felt like I was getting better-and I still think that I was-but no one heals completely. Progress has roadblocks.
It was bound to happen. Being in this place, surrounded by these people probing into my life, into my health. People that have no right to it. The presence of Blake in this apartment is almost tangible. On the couches in the living room, we sat together and cried together and said silent goodbyes to each other. We ate breakfast together in the dining room. In the basement of this building we trained for the Games together. This place is haunted.
Now that I have the why figured out, my mind quiets down a little. I lift myself off the floor of the shower and put conditioner in my hair. I use the shower comb to detangle my hair. I scrub my body clean, rinse my hair, and step out of the shower. I almost feel like a new, less damaged person. I know that isn't true, of course, but it lends me some peace of mind that I could figure out why I had an episode and why it was so bad. It makes me feel more like myself.
I put a thick robe on. It snows gently outside the window of my bedroom and, though the apartment isn't cold, the robe makes me feel warm and safe. It isn't yet dinner time, but I take a pillow and blanket off the bed and lay down on the floor in front of my window. I'd never seen snow before this Tour. There have been snows in District 4, but never in my lifetime. Snow fell in District 7 when we first arrived, and it was mesmerizing. It snowed in District 8, too. It felt strange to feel the snowflakes fall on my face. Different from rain, even cold rain. Better. It felt clean.
So I settle myself on the floor in front of the window, and watch the snow fall. The city looks mesmerizing. Even though I see people walking the streets, I see cars driving up and down the avenues, I imagine that it's quiet. That the snowfall muffles the sounds of the city. Watching the flakes glitter past the window, I imagine where each of them will end up, and soon enough I fall into a dreamless sleep.