A/N: Here's our first of the two epilogues for this story! This is definitely a more traditional epilogue chapter with the usual post-Victory events, like waking up and the finale interview. However, I've never really written an SYOT epilogue beyond the final interview for Serephina in Oceanside, so I wanted to finally write some more traditional epilogue content. So this one will be the whole Capitol and returning to Twelve chapter, and the last chapter is going to be a couple little scenes to wrap us all up :) For now, though, I hope y'all enjoy this one!
Lord Parthenia, 16
Victor of the 22nd Hunger Games
I wake up in the belly of the hovercraft on the way back to the Capitol. My brain figures out where I am faster than it should. I mean, it's not a hard thing to guess, really, with the engines humming smoothly beneath where I lay, quiet but still vibrating my bones. I would recognize that sound and those dark sloping walls anywhere, made of cold black metal, with the suspended benches trimming both sides with precision. The sight brings me back to the morning before the Bloodbath, bringing about a faint wave of nausea and a body memory of a thick tracker being injected into my right shoulder. I try to reach up to rub the barely throbbing spot on my arm, where a ghostly pain beats, but I find I can't. My forearms are shackled to the metal gurney I lay on, as are my ankles and knees. I try to lift my arms one more time but find it useless; there's no way I'm going to be moving with these things holding me down.
I don't know why I'm not panicking. I can't move, but I'm not panicking. Something tells me I should be scared, especially when I begin to notice people moving slowly around me, talking in far-off voices, like I'm underwater and they're looming above the surface. I should be scared of people, something in my brain tells me I should be scared of people, but I'm not really. They look small, distant from where I lay, and although they are all dressed in teal medical gowns, I can see their real colors peeking through. Bright lemon yellow hair, lurid green skin, opals pressed into sharp jawlines, diamond earrings like beer bottle caps dangling to the neck. They are people, and I should be scared of people my brain says, but not these people. I want to laugh at the thought of being scared of them, standing in teal gowns to hide their true natures. They do not wear their wild in their eyes like me, like the other ones, the ones of the grass and sky and blood, the ones I should be scared of, twitching on freshly slick mud. They wear their wild on the outside, to shame it, to flaunt it, to show they are nothing more than dyed skin and processed hair, with nothing in the eyes but colored fluid and shiny glass.
Still, I tremble a little bit as they get closer to me, starchy gloved hands reaching out to soothe and question. I don't let myself yell or shake or writhe. I just let my body tremble a little bit, so little I know they must not even see it, that the only way I know I am quaking at all is from the faint tremors I feel in my taut muscles, from my throat to my hips to my calves. My entire body feels rigid, but I'm still not scared, just bracing for something, anything, something that should be coming but isn't, has already come, has already passed, will never pass again. For eleven days I have been bracing for something and it has ended and I am supposed to be free but I am shackled to a metal gurney and they are over me in teal robes with opal jawlines and their wildness on their skin and I do not scream so they will stay quiet and come underwater with me and tell me what is really going on.
Eventually, one of them speaks, and I'm surprised when I can make out their words. "Hello, Mr. Parthenia. Can you hear me?"
I open my mouth, expecting to find my lips dry and hard like they were in the arena, when I had no water for a day and the prairie sun baked them so tough I could barely feel them on my face. They feel soft and pliable when I move them, and my tongue swishes in my warm, wet mouth, making sounds in response. A gurgle maybe, or a hiss, or a choked-up Yes. Either way, it does the trick. The man over me, it has to be a man from the high ridges of his face, dyed dark red, and the deep whisper of his voice like sandpaper under Mom's fingers, the man nods at whatever I say and speaks again.
"How do you feel, Mr. Parthenia?" The words linger in the air, harder to understand. How do you feel? I haven't been asked that in years, in years, how do you feel, not in years besides from the time when a little girl sat me down on the rotted hardwood floor of a prairie cabin and pried my secrets out of me like hairpins in an old tin can Mama kept under the bed by her-
"I said, how do you feel, Mr. Parthenia? Can you focus on me, Mr. Parthenia?" A snap of the fingers, above my face, something that should frighten me but doesn't. "Mr. Parthenia?"
"Alive," I say, a real word this time, heavy on the tongue like a piece of bitter hard candy but there, loud enough to fill the belly of the hovercraft, to push against the sloping black walls.
The man nods and draws back a little. "I'm Dr. Addison Rubricatus, your physician for your stay in the Capitol. Do you understand what that means, Mr. Parthenia?"
"You will be taking care of me," I whisper. "I...I know what a doctor is."
"I don't mean to insult your intelligence," Dr. Rubricatus intones, bowing his head a little. "I just mean to check your understanding. It seems you are regaining awareness, yes?"
"I'm in a hovercraft," I mutter, rolling my eyes up to the ceiling, only to find myself staring into a white fluorescent lamp which burns my eyes. I don't look away.
"You are, and you're on your way back to the Capitol," he says, encouragingly, like he's talking to a small child. "You've won, after all. You're the Victor now, Mr. Parthenia."
Those are the words I have been avoiding thinking about, won, Victor. They don't break me like they should. I don't start fighting the braces around my forearms, I don't start gnashing teeth, I don't start seeing visions. I just keep staring up into the fluorescent lamp above my head until my eyes burn so hard I have to close them. When I do, the backs of my eyelids are on fire, bright orange and purple and red and green, a roaring inferno against the always-black of my inside-skin. When I open them again, I look at the doctor, the lamp's flames still swimming in little dark bursts across my vision.
"I did win," I say, pausing for a while, all the teal robed people who show their wildness to hide it waiting for my response quietly. I don't bother responding, letting them wait until they figure out I'm not going to say anything else, and it's almost funny, the way they lean in and wait so long for more words, but everything in my body feels a little too heavy so I don't laugh, only stare at the doctor until he speaks again.
"Yes, yes you have," he clucks, his tone sounding almost offended by my brevity. "Well, do you feel well enough to stay awake for the remainder of the journey?"
"Yes. How long?" Three words, all I bother to say. A man with dark red skin and a sandpaper voice who asks me what a doctor is doesn't deserve anything more from me.
"Good, we will keep you awake then. Usually most Victors have to be sedated on the way back, due to their injuries, but you were lucky that yours were only minor." He looks down at me with a smile. "It was really quite admirable how well you did, how hard you fought, with nothing more than those scratches on your knuckles to show for it."
"How long?" I ask again, the only question I care about. I won't think about the other things he speaks about, injuries and knuckles and fighting and oh things are lingering a little, my chest feels heavy, and I ask again, a little harder, "How long?"
"Oh, yes, I apologize," Dr. Rubricatus sighs. "Less than an hour now. You should be pleased to know we got you fixed up while you were still unconscious. Your knuckles are all taped up, no lasting injuries there besides some limited mobility, but all the fingers are still in place. Nothing else to patch up besides getting some fluids into you with an IV. Otherwise, you're splendid, Mr. Parthenia. I expect you won't even need to stay in the hospital beyond our official health screening, which I'm sure you'll pass with flying colors."
"Good," I mutter. I turn my head a little, wanting to gaze out a window to think a little, but there are none, just sleek black walls. They slope upwards to form a dark cage over me, the top of it clouded by blinding white fluorescents that burn my eyes. They do not hurt as much as the other things waiting patiently in my head, waiting for when I have the clarity to be horrified by them. I am too still now, too quiet, to understand what has really happened, what I have really done.
"I'll leave you to rest," Dr. Rubricatus says, tersely now, the time for conversation over. He has nothing more to say to me; it is obvious I have nothing more to say to him.
"Okay," I whisper, turning my head again and staring out of an imaginary window. I conjure the sensation of dark brown earth rushing below us, hot and soft, as the hovercraft's engines hum hollow against the back of my ribs.
They make me go through the whole routine once we've landed and I'm carted into the hospital. Dr. Rubricatus says no Victor's been in as good of shape as me after the Games since he became the Games physician. Still, they have to follow procedure, go through the motions although I was lucid even in the hovercraft, even though the only bandages on my body are around my hardened knuckles. I'm eager to prove to them this is all a waste of time. My legs are jelly for a couple moments from laying down so long, from the fatigue of eleven days in the arena. However, I regain my balance after a couple of steps, and the rest of my body wakes up soon afterwards, thrilled to show that it is not broken, that I am still alive. The teal robed nurses still hold onto my arms even after I walk straight and strong for a couple steps. They guide me down the hallway in my translucent paper robe as if my legs aren't roped with muscle, as if these legs haven't held me stable enough to survive clear hellfire burning across a sea of golden grass.
I feel insulted enough that I could claw at their faces like an animal but I don't, there's no point in that. They'll just hold onto me like this even longer if I start thrashing and wailing like the wild parts of my eyes would like to. I just let them guide me down the hallway like I don't have legs at all until we're in another room, wide and bright with a window looking out on the city. It's covered in slatted blinds but I can still see glimpses of chrome and concrete, and despite myself I'm excited to turn my head to the side and gaze out at the world beyond.
They lay me down in the hospital bed at the center of the room so gingerly, as if I'm made of quilted tin foil and tissue paper. I don't crumple against the soft sheets, I just sink a little into the cushiony fabric, pressing up against my sore back. Against the metal gurney in the hovercraft, I couldn't feel any of my aches. The black metal walls and the cold steel pallet and the minor shock of being entirely alive kept them away. Now, though, everything is bright and soft, and I have been alive enough now to be bored of it again already, just a bit, so I feel every bruise and strain in my muscles. It's not real pain, I know that, but it's enough to make me restless. I shift in the soft sheets, crumpling the pillow under my cheek as I turn and look out the window. I can only see a couple skyscraper windows flashing in midday sun, blue-gray glass glanced with blinding sun, but it's enough, oh boy, it's enough to keep me in that bed until they come for the screening.
It's over quicker than I thought. I barely have to do anything at all. Just open my mouth when Dr. Rubricatus says so, so I can feel his gloved finger press down on my tongue and drag itself across my gums. Just follow his finger with my eyes, the ones still thinking about hot sunlight on skyscraper windows, on a golden Cornucopia right before it started to rain. Just lift my arms and push against his like I pushed the knife against the nape of the smooth olive neck of the girl named Miriam Park that I won't really think about, because it was just a neck and a knife and that happened there and I am here, pressing against a doctor's dark red arms and feeling my own sore muscles stretch against my angry skin until he releases me and smiles as wide as the sky.
I'm declared to be in perfect health. The doctor shakes my good hand, the one not wrapped in bandages to protect my still raw knuckles. Says if I need anything else to give him a call, but that I've made his job easy this year. Says some other things I might find offensive on another day, calling me a "good boy" and making some comments about District Twelve and my physique. I don't really think about them, just looking over at the window. The slatted blinds hide the skyscrapers outside from this angle, so my eyes turn to the door instead. Once Dr. Rubricatus goes out of it, he leaves it open, and I take a step forward. Are they letting me free?
Someone I forgot was alive, but who certainly did not forget I was alive, walks through the open space once the doctor and his posse of teal robed nurses are gone. Eris Glasshine looks even more drab than usual against the stark, sterile hospital walls and the receding gaggle of painted teal robes behind her. Her brown hair is lank and greasy, and dark bags rim her eyes. She smiles at me as she steps into the room, a brown paper bag in her hands. I'm thankful that she does not speak or rush at me to hug me like I might have expected. She lingers near the doorway, saying nothing, insinuating nothing, just staring at me and smiling soft in the way that means nothing at all, a waiting smile. She waits and I wait and then I want to be free so I speak.
"It's nice to see you again," and I find that I really mean it, because she is one of them but she does not wear her wildness on her skin, on her hair, on her clothes. I see it in her eyes, shining like a polished chrome hatchet in each pupil, ready to cleave everything around her apart. That waiting smile, but those wild eyes, so wild. She is like me, like us. We were never close before, when she was focused on taking care of Carmen and the baby, but we will be now, as close as I can get to someone now. She is probably the only person I could find with wild eyes and real skin in this entire city.
"I'm honored you feel that way," Eris says softly. "It's...unspeakably nice to see you again as well. I'm still in shock that you've come back. It feels like a dream."
"I'm real, darling, but I'm a dream too," I laugh, a little airy thing, just a soft gush of the lungs, but still a laugh. I hear a semblance of my old swagger in the words, and it awakens me a little more, makes me cherish the wild gleam in my Mentor's eyes even more.
Eris laughs too for a couple of moments before quieting and shaking her head slowly, greasy hair sliding against her pallid cheeks. "You're fulfilling my dream, that's for sure. I'm happy you made it out alive, even if I wasn't much help at all in the effort."
"You sent us nice dinners, nice notes," I say with a soft smile. "And the armor. I appreciated them, all of it. You chose...you chose well. You helped."
"I'm happy I did," she whispers, pressing a hand against her chest, as if she's holding back her swelling heart. "It's all I've ever wanted to do. To help."
"I see it in your eyes," I murmur before I can stop myself. We stare at each other for several moments; she opens her mouth as if to say something but closes it, then smiling really little, a genuine smile saying things she can't put into words.
"Well, you ready to get out of this place?" Eris asks, lifting up the brown paper bag in her hands and gesturing it towards me. "I brought you some comfy clothes for the ride back to the Hotel."
"Please, I've never been more bored in my life," I joke, putting on the best smile I can muster with the smell of doctors and bleach lingering in the air.
Eris just laughs again, shaking her head and turning away. "Meet me in the hall when you're ready, Lord. I'll see you out there."
The windows of the Games car are blackened to protect us from onlookers, so I can't see anything outside. I don't find myself feeling upset about it, though. I'm no longer strapped onto a gurney or confined to a hospital bed. I can move a little bit more now, and I feel more alive than before, so the thirst to look out windows is receding. I don't need to long for the Capitol's shiny glass and steely beams any longer; they'll be all around me for the next several days. I can kick my legs and stretch my arms and open my mouth and say what I please, at least within reason. Eris reminded me of the little clusters of black plastic and glass lenses hidden in every corner of every place while we were walking to the car. Still, it's more than I could do before.
I'm getting freer by the minute; once we get to our floor in the Tribute Hotel, I'll be able to move my body in any way I want to. And once we get out of this fake little city, I can run for miles and still find more shadowy alleyways to go down in the bowels of the Seam. I never thought I'd miss Twelve, and I don't think I really miss it, at least not most of it. I wouldn't mind seeing Thor in the flat we shared or Cressilda pouring a drink behind the bar while rainbow lights pulse around her. Still, it's not missing it, not really. It's just a place where I can have more freedom than here, a place where I can run a little wild and convince myself that they're not looking, that they'll never look. For now, I'm stuck in a little dark car with blacked out windows. I'll be out of here soon.
Eris sits beside me in the back of the car, and she doesn't say a word, refusing to engage with me unless I ask for it. Her pale skin looks even more sallow against the black leather interior of the Games car, and despite myself I find that I feel a little worried for her. She looks like she's almost in worse shape than I am, and she's not the one who just fought their way out of a death match.
"You look like you need a visit with Dr. Rubricatus, not me," I murmur, chuckling to myself.
"I didn't really sleep," Eris says blankly, staring straight ahead for a moment, almost transfixed with something invisible on the driver's headrest. She shakes herself free before looking back at me. "Sorry. Really spacey. Didn't sleep, like I said."
"All eleven days?" I don't believe it, really. She might have wild eyes, greasy hair, and skin so real it's a sickly yellow-white, but she had to have slept. She is still one of them.
"I'm not sure when, or if, I slept," she admits quietly, looking down at her hands. "Whenever I closed my eyes, I got too worried I'd miss something."
"Thank you." There's nothing else I can say, but the words are heavy with honesty and respect.
"Of course, I was just doing my job," Eris mutters, slowly bringing her eyes up to meet mine.
"Well, it's a job you're good at," I reply, lacing my hands together in my lap, the fingertips of my left hand brushing against the hardened bandages on the knuckles of my right.
"Thank you," she says, and we fall into silence again, both almost smiling, both a little more at ease, as the Games car rumbles on towards the Tribute Hotel.
When the elevator doors woosh open to reveal the District Twelve floor of the Tribute Hotel, the breath leaves my lungs for a couple of moments. Everything looks exactly like it did when I left here, eleven or twelve days ago now. The white leather couch and chairs, languishing around the massive television screen, and the long dining table with the rose quartz countertop, crowded with a feast of food. Eris has to tug my hand to get me to move forward, and it takes all of my effort to get the air to go into my nose and out my mouth as I stumble across the sleek tiled floors towards the dining table, where my Escort waits for us.
Edna Trinket looks similarly weary to Eris, her pastel green and yellow wig sagging to the side on her head as she stands to greet us. Despite how tired she looks, her smile is genuine, wide and pearly, as she beckons for us to join her at the table. I slowly pull out my own chair and sit down in front of an empty plate, my eyes overwhelmed by the mounds of food in front of me. I'm not hungry, but the creature inside of me screams to eat all of it, that it won't be here long. I'm brought back to moments of licking gravy from the curved walls of a sponsor cannister like an animal, and I'm suddenly not hungry at all.
"Welcome back, Lord," Edna says cheerily as she sits down across from me. "It's nice to see you again. You did splendidly in the arena."
"Thank you, I tried my best," I tell her. Edna looks nicer than most of the Capitolites, but there is no wildness in her eyes. There's nothing in them at all. "Do I have to eat anything?"
"There's not a thing you have to do today," Edna tells me, smiling sweetly. "You should try to get some food into you sometime today, but if you're not ready to eat yet, no worries. You have the day to yourself."
"And tomorrow?" I ask, turning to Eris, needing to see her face again, to be reassured I am not the only one here.
"Tomorrow's going to be busy," Eris sighs, sitting down in the chair next to me and propping her elbows on the cool countertop. "Your Victory interview's tomorrow night, with Fabula, so tomorrow is going to be all the preparations for that. There's barely going to be time to blink. I'm sorry they're rushing this ahead, but since you're in such good health, they don't want to wait around any longer to talk to you."
"It's alright, it'll just be over quicker then," I murmur, my eyes drifting out across the pastries splayed on the table. I desperately want to find them appealing, but I do not. They all look sweet and brittle, like they'd turn to sugary dust in my mouth, and the thought makes my stomach curdle.
"You're right, it'll be over sooner," Edna nods, scooping some pears in a light yellow sauce onto her plate.
"They should let you go home right afterwards, I think," Eris says, keeping her plate clear as well, her fingers fidgeting with a silvery salad fork. "We'll try to make sure this gets over with as quickly as we can manage it, so we can get back to Twelve as soon as possible."
"Thanks," I say, staring at the too-sweet pastries piled on the table before standing suddenly, making Eris jump in her seat. "I'm going to go rest."
"That's a good idea, you still need it," Edna soothes while Eris shakes her head slowly.
"We'll be here if you need anything," Eris tells me with a thin-lipped smile.
I don't respond, shuffling off towards the room where I slept for my stay in the Capitol. I close my eyes when the door automatically opens to reveal the darkened room. I don't need to see anything around me; something tells me really seeing the bed and the screen and the bedside table will trigger memories I won't be able to repress. I just stumble through the darkness with my eyes squeezed closed until I reach the bed, collapsing on top of it with a groan. I pull the heavy comforter tight around me, my eyes still scrunched closed, willing sleep to come get me before the other things do.
I stare out the glass sliding doors that lead to the balcony, out at the Capitol spread out below. The sky is white-gray, covered by misting clouds that obscure the sky and rain softly on the city below. Most of the bright lights and neon signs are off since it's the middle of the day, and everything is just wet steel and slippery glass. I pull the thick white quilt around me tighter, nestling into the back cushions of the leather chair. My head throbs lightly with murky thoughts, a skinny oak box in a fireplace, a golden Cornucopia standing up against the rain, a broken machete slicked with mud, a brass bullet rolling from the pocket of a bloody windbreaker.
My mind catches on the last thought, and it plays over and over again, my hands pushing over Miriam's corpse and the bullet rolling out. The bullet that saved my life, the bullet she had all along, the bullet she didn't use on me. It rolls out of the mesh confines of her pocket over and over, as I push her dead eyes into the ground to get it. My breath suddenly hitches in my throat and I can't breathe, I can't breathe as I stare out at the white-gray clouds raining over the Capitol, and the white quilt wraps itself around my chest and pushes out my breath as the knife slides into Miriam's neck and she barely makes a noise as she falls to the ground and the bullet rolls out of her pocket when I flip her over, it rolls out and she didn't use it on me, I can't breathe, why didn't she use it on me?
Someone's shaking me, and I look up to see a frantic Eris over me, instructing me to, "Breathe, breathe, breathe," so I do, I do, I forget about the bullet long enough for the air to come back into my lungs and for my limbs to stop shaking against the padded white quilt I've wrapped myself in.
When I catch my breath, I don't hear anything for a while, just staring at the fuzzy carpet at my feet and feeling Eris standing over me, waiting for something to happen, with her waiting smile. Her eyes are so bright and wild, though, it's a wonder she keeps it all in. I look up into those eyes and the words come out without meaning to.
"Why didn't she kill me," I breathe, and I'm not really sure it's a question, but it might as well be one.
"I don't know," Eris whispers, knowing exactly what I'm talking about. She reaches out and grabs my hand; I don't flinch, I let her hold it, feeling her soft palms rub against the bandages on my knuckles that Chavez cut open, the ones he cut open before I killed him and didn't let him have the words he needed to say.
"She should've killed me," and it's just a statement, it's just supposed to hang in the air, it's not supposed to be anything else, but the words hurt, they bring tears to my eyes. Eris brushes all the tears away, one by one, as they trickle down my cheeks, as I keep murmuring, "She should've killed me," until I'm just humming, low and gritty and dirty, and I'm in my Mentor's arms and we cry a little bit together as the white-gray clouds mist over the Capitol, making the steel slick and the glass gleam like opals inlaid everywhere with no light to make them shine.
Walking through the entrance into the Remake Center isn't that hard, really. I barely understood where I was, when we'd just gotten off the train, when Eris and Edna brought me here. I was still in shock a little, still thinking I was going to live. I guess I was right, that I was going to live, but I shouldn't have known it then. The train and the food and the skyscrapers and the people all just hurt my head so much that I believed, just for a little while, that I was going to live. Then I got onto a chariot naked with a pregnant girl painted in coal dust, shivering in the dark tunnel as the horses tossed their heads. The whole world laughed at us while Carmen nearly started crying, and I knew I was going to die, I knew they were going to kill me no matter what I did.
I feel nauseous at the thought of meeting the man who painted me with coal dust and sent me out to face the world, but apparently I don't need to worry. When I entire the blank white room where they poured cold water over me and stripped the hair from my body, Amazingus is not there. Instead, a shorter person with olive green skin and a forest green pixie cut greets me, dressed in a flowy robe patterned with asparagus stalks and artichoke hearts.
"Goucho," they say, their face round and their tone welcoming, if a bit businesslike. "I'm your new stylist. Amazingus is currently indisposed, so I'm standing in for him while he recovers."
"Oh?" I ask as the prep teamers remove my clothes, hoping Goucho will fill the room with words so I can ignore the chubby dyed fingers tracing and pinching at my skin already.
"Got too excited after you won, drank too much rosé and fell four stories from a balcony," Goucho chuckles as they flip through a cream colored sketchbook. "Broke his neck, but he's still alive. I doubt you'll see him again, anyways, after the coal dust stunt at the parade. Panem knows I wouldn't employ him again. But, anyway, he's alive, just in a hospital bed for Snow knows how long, the fool."
"I didn't like him," I say, even though I don't really like Goucho much either, with the way they keep flipping through their sketchbook without even looking at me.
"No one really does," Goucho sighs, flipping through their notebook for several more moments before pausing. "Ah, this is the one here. Tzipporah, this is the one, no?"
Goucho angles the sketchbook so the prep-teamer measuring my calves can see. She titters excitedly, murmuring, "Yes Goucho, that's the one, yes." Her violet wig shakes with enthusiasm as she wraps the tape measure a little too tightly around my leg. I don't wince, I've felt worse before, and at least she thinks I have legs unlike the nurses from the hospital who held my arms the whole time.
"Good," Goucho replies with an easy smile, taking a step closer to me, inspecting my face. "You're a handsome young man, Mr. Parthenia. I'm expected to put you in gold, of course, but I'm not so sure it's your color."
Gold, like the Cornucopia and the grass, the grass that was everywhere, always, behind my eyes now forevermore. "I don't like gold."
"I don't either, but it was this year's color of course, with the prairie and all, and it represents success, Victory," Goucho sighs, holding their sketchbook close to their chest. "There is an excuse we can make, of course. What do you think about a suit made of wood?"
"There weren't any trees," I whisper, already knowing where they're going with this, but refusing to play along.
"There was a cabin, however, and a rifle," Goucho reminds me, as if I don't already know, as if those things aren't in my every waking thought. "It would certainly be an innovative design. We could make the suit out of mahogany like the rifle, and hang strings of brass bullets around your neck like the ones-"
"Gold," I say suddenly, hard, sharp, a bullet piercing prairie air. "Gold, please. Make it gold."
I wait underneath the stage, on the lift. The droning sounds of thousands of Capitolite chattering above seem to drown out everything else around me. I can't hear anything else but their voices, and I can't see anything besides blackness. Everything is dark down here; even the golden suit, molded closely to my body, does not sparkle. No light reaches me here, and my breath comes more easily than it should. This is the first time I've been completely alone in a long time, and it feels blissful almost. I feel like I'm drowning in nothingness, as the golden cage of my outfit squeezes against my ribs, cast to fit around each ridge of my muscular abdomen. The drowning is not an unpleasant feeling as the Capitol roars above me and I see nothing but black. Maybe I'll die down here, suffocating in endless black, before they raise me up to the stage to be pranced about for their personal pleasure. It wouldn't be the worst way to go.
Suddenly, a familiar voice cuts through the din above, and the sea of talking Capitolites is silenced almost instantly. Fabula Obcubo's voice carries through the cavernous expanses of Crameus Hall above, and I can hear her more clearly than I would have thought. There must be speakers embedded in the lift, so I can know when they're going to raise me up. Either way, Fabula shouts excitedly about the 22nd Annual Hunger Games before beginning to introduce my team. My prep teamers, Goucho standing in as my stylist still, Edna as my Escort, Eris as my Mentor. I can't see them, but I know from watching past Victory interviews that they're all seated on a long couch near the chairs where Fabula and I will sit.
It takes a while for the applause to quiet down for Eris. She has wild eyes and looks nothing like them, but the audience is still thrilled that one of their own was able to bring a Victor back. Proud, I'd guess, even of the drab, pallid thing that my Mentor is. I wonder how she is looking at them, what clothes Goucho has put her in so that she isn't an outrage. I wonder if her eyes are still shining like mine, up on that stage, looking out at thousands of her fellow Capitolites all colorful and plastic. They are cheering now for the boy who killed a little girl before she could even look back at him, his dagger buried in the back of her neck.
Fabula must have announced me already, because the lift begins to rise under my feet. If I thought the sound of the Capitolites from beneath the stage was overwhelming, it is not match for the sounds that meet my ears now. Thousands upon thousands of painted people shrieking, clapping, calling out my name, jumping up and down for a better look. It's like thunder, loud thunder over a prairie as tornadoes twisted their way on the horizon through looming charcoal thunderheads, bringing death with them as the Cornucopia waited for the rain, for the blood to slick across its golden hide. I breathe deep and ignore the thoughts of death-thunder, because the stage lights are on my skin, dusted with gold flakes, and Fabula Obcubo is beckoning for me to join her, so I do. I will do what they say, so I can leave behind their empty eyes and wild skin for the dark alleyways of the Seam where I can run forever, into shadows wet with longing, dark with screams.
While my costume is heavy, Goucho has distributed the weight so that it's not difficult to move in it. The Capitol gasps and applauds even louder when I begin walking, when my outfit is in full view. The golden fabric of the suit looks like it has been melted down and poured across my body. It fits across every expanse of my taut skin except at my crotch, where a woven belt of false golden grain conveniently disguises my manhood. Everywhere else though, from my neck to my wrists to my ankles, the gold looks soft and still melty as it shimmers across my skin. My face, hands, and feet have been dusted with golden flakes, and the bandages on my knuckles have been beaded with golden trinkets. I asked Goucho to make it gold, and they made it gold. It is a disgusting show of wealth but enrapturing, and I am happy that if I must wear something, this is the something I will wear.
The fabric of the suit is flexible, so it's easy to cross the stage and lower myself into the creamy white chair across from Fabula. Her bright pink hair pops boldly underneath the stage lights, and her customary hot pink suit has no wrinkles in sight. Her smile is easy and wide, and I briefly remember our banter on this stage a lifetime ago, when I was the last tribute to talk to her, when I was able to still illicit some laughs from the audience. I try to bring that boy back, the easy one who only cared about flirting and booze and maybe kissing Soya and was still ignoring the fact that he was going to die. He flickers in my chest as I sit down and Fabula smiles, her toothy mouth opening to begin what must begin.
"Welcome, Lord, welcome!" Fabula gushes. "It's a pleasure to see you back here again. I think I can speak for all of us that we enjoyed watching you immensely; you were definitely an unconventional tribute, and an unconventional Victor! We have never really had a tribute like you win the Games before!"
"I know, I'm just so attractive, there hasn't been one like me before," I joke, leaning against the arm of the chair and sighing comedically. It feels strange to act like this, but something about my whole team sitting behind me, the stagelights in my face, Fabula's suit so bright in my eyes, it pushes what remains of my old self into my mouth and out into the auditorium's echoing halls.
"You still have the jokes!" Fabula laughs, shaking her head, her styled wig not moving an inch. "I didn't expect you to maintain your charisma after so long in the arena."
"Come on, Fabula, have some faith," I say, rolling my eyes. "Nothing can take away my swagger."
"It seems not," she chuckles, shaking her head again. "Well, you did have quite the time in the arena, so it is admirable you've maintained your composure."
"It was a lot," I agree, shifting in my seat a little, knowing the hard questions are going to begin now.
"Well, we'll see it all in the recap, but I want to cover some quick highlights first. Before the Games, you had an alliance with Soya Chaffer, the female from Eleven, correct?"
"Yes, I did," I nod quietly. I haven't thought about Soya much; it feels like our night making out on her bed was lifetimes ago. Her death was so early on it doesn't feel like it even happened, but it still aches to think about her being pushed to the ground in the muddy Cornucopia clearing. "She was a great girl. I was upset I wasn't able to save her."
"Yes, it was certainly disappointing your relationship could not last longer," Fabula coos. "But it opened up the door for the most beloved alliance of the year, between you and Miriam Park."
"We were beloved?" I ask with a faux gasp, knowing it must be the truth from how many gifts we got from sponsors. Still, I'm trying to make the mood lighter, so I don't think about the knife and her neck and the bullet rolling out of the mesh in her pocket. "I thought we were a bunch of assholes, really."
The audience laughs, and Fabula smiles at me. "Well, yes, you both were rude to each other at times, but it was a wonderful dynamic the two of you had. Always hilarious banter. And the night where you talked about your families in the cabin has been rated as one of the most emotional non-death scenes by viewers in Games history."
"Wow," I reply, a little stunned. "I didn't realize that we made that much of an impact, with that. I was just talking about my life, really. Didn't realize it'd be so tragic to everyone."
"Yes, the two of you certainly have had it rough," Fabula sighs. "Speaking of impact, that brings me to the other thing that left the biggest impact on the Games, the object that you yourself found in the cabin: the rifle!"
"It certainly shook things up," I say back, although I can't make a joke about that gun, thinking about its sleek barrel in my hands as I fired the bullet into Chavez's shredded gut.
"It was incredibly clever how you were able to decode the riddle to find it in the fireplace of the cabin. Also, it was truly the great equalizer, killing half of the Careers this year," Fabula continues.
"I wouldn't be here without it," I murmur, looking at my hands, trying to conjure more confidence to get through the rest of this. "I'm grateful it was there to help me get home."
"Yes, it was certainly your secret weapon, pun intended," Fabula snickers. "Well, let's watch how you got home, shall we?"
"Certainly," I breathe, thankful she hasn't asked me any direct questions about Miriam. I don't think I could handle those, questions about how I feel about her, felt about her, even with my body trapped in a suit of molten golden and the stagelights blinding everything around us. There is nothing that can make talking about her okay ever again.
The recap passes quickly, almost a blink of an eye. I guess it's because I don't really watch it. I just stare at one pixel in the top corner of screen that is broken. It flickers between green and lavender the entire time, as the Reapings and Pre-Games and Games themselves play out on the screen. It just flickers back and forth, a constant rhythm of shifting colors at the top of the screen. My eyes lock onto it and I watch it, smiling when I should, frowning when I should, laughing when I should, silent when I should. I just watch the pixel and I ignore the screen.
There are things I haven't seen on there before, little kids killed in the grass and poison in potato soup and a chainsaw shredding an already dead girl to pieces, but I don't really watch any of it, because if I really watch part of it, I will have to watch the other parts. I will have to see myself climbing onto the stage as my exes booed me, I will have to see myself naked in coal dust on the promenade, I will have to see myself sorting plastic plants in the Training Center with Soya, I will have to see myself cracking jokes on this very stage, I will have to see myself being too slow to stop Zircon's spear going through Soya's stomach, I will have to see myself running through the golden grass to the cabin, I will have to see myself deciding not to kill Miriam, I will have to see us finding the gun, I will have to see us bantering and crying and sleeping and her leaving, her leaving but not killing me, then me killing her later, a knife through the back of the neck, and I can't watch that, I can't watch that, ever, ever, I can't watch that or I will cry, I will die, I will lose everything and I will fall into blackness and never come out, I will never come back out again. So I watch the pixel flicker, green lavender, green lavender, and I don't watch the screen, not really, never really.
President Snow places the crown on my head once it's all done as the audience thunders with applause, like storm clouds bringing death as Miriam and I waited for Chavez to come and kill us. I don't really look at it, even though I know it's a little golden circlet. It's in the shape of a stalk of prairie grass with bullets threaded around its every edge, I can see that, but I don't really. I don't look at it, I don't feel it on my head, I don't feel anything, I just think of that flickering pixel until they guide me off of the stage and I can look into Eris's wild eyes, wild eyes like mine, and there I can scream a little in the dark until my eyes start crying and I can go home.
I sit in the back car of the train as it glides across the rails towards District Twelve. The walls are all made of glass, and I sit on the cushioned benches that circle both walls with precision. The shape reminds me vaguely of the hovercraft's belly, with its dark walls and blinding fluorescent lamps and cold metal gurney, but I choose not to think about that. Instead, I look out the floor to ceiling windows, pressing my forehead against the curved glass as the world blurs outside, pulling the plush gray blanket tighter around me. All I can see outside is dark green forest and hard brown dirt, blurring together as the train glides towards District Twelve, towards the shadows of the Seam where I can run and scream and be a little bit more free than before, where there are no clusters of black plastic with lenses always watching, always listening, always waiting.
The door into the car slides open, and Eris strides into the car. On the stage yesterday, she was dressed in a ridiculously long honey-brown gown, threaded with golden beads shaped like bullets, but now she's in gray sweatpants and a thin maroon crewneck. She sits down next to me and says nothing, does not even give me the waiting smile, just looks out at the blurring world outside with eyes as wild as mine.
"We're almost in Twelve, so you should get dressed," she tells me. "Doesn't have to be nice, but Edna won't be happy if you go out there in shorts and no shirt."
"I'll wear this blanket, too," I say softly, not sure if I'm joking or not. "I'll wrap it around my shoulders and wear it like a pretty shawl."
"Take the blanket if you want, just put on a shirt please," Eris replies with a small smile.
"Okay, okay, I will," I pout, pulling myself away from the window so I can look at her better. "Are you going to wear that out?"
"Of course not," Eris gasps, almost offended. "I'm not that lazy."
"You should be that lazy, sometimes, you deserve it," I mutter.
"Well, now that I'm going to be unemployed next year, with you stealing my job and all, I guess I'll have the chance to explore this 'laziness' you speak of."
"It's a real pleasure, being lazy," I sigh, wrapping myself even tighter in my blanket.
"I'm sure it is," she nods, going to stand. "Well, I'll leave you to it."
"Wait," I implore, grabbing her by the shoulder and pushing her down.
"What is it?" she asks, brows knitting together as she looks at me, searching for the problem on my face.
"I'm just..." I trail off, not sure what I want, what I need. "Are they going to let you stay?"
"Not forever, but they said I can stay for a week to help you get settled in the Village," Eris murmurs.
"And after that?"
"I'll find ways to visit, I promise. You're an unstable young Victor with no one to watch out for you, they'll need me to come help you sometimes."
"Especially if I act a mess?" I laugh, slouching back against the bench a little.
"Well, I wouldn't recommend it, please...but yes," Eris says with a wry smile. "If you act a little bit more messy than you already are...might help."
"I'm on it. Messy as possible."
"Now go get dressed pleased, I was serious about wearing a shirt, I don't care how hot it is outside," she demands, waving her hand towards the door that leads to the rest of the train.
I don't say anything for a long while, just staring at her. The words I want to say crowd in my brain. It's hot outside and I'm tired so I don't want to put on a shirt but that doesn't matter, because you have the wild eyes like me, shining hatchets in your eyes, I can see you want to kill them as much as I do, you want to cut them all apart and I don't even really know you and I'm not sure I'd like you at all if we weren't in this situation but I need you because the world is blurring outside and I can still feel the dagger in my hands as I pressed it into Miriam's neck, and she had wild eyes and so did Chavez and so did the rest of us, so did I, I still have them, you have them too, please stay with me so we can have wild eyes together and so I don't have to feel her blood on my hands, the mud under my feet, hear the words Chavez didn't say as the rain fell down on his eyes that will never close again, please, Eris, stay with me, stay with me in Twelve forever and we can dance in the shadows of the Seam and scream so loud and they won't hear us, they won't hear us with their little black plastic lenses, and our wild eyes can shine and you can help me forget all of them and we can dance until the asphalt breaks underneath our feet and we fall into the center of the world, and we'll keep laughing because our eyes are wild and not our skin, and we will fall and fall and never see Miriam's dead eyes pressed into the dirt again, I need you Eris, please stay, I need you to stay like my birth parents and Mom and Mama and Soya and Miriam and everything else never did.
"Okay," I tell her before I stand up and walk out of the car. It is the only word I can muster, but Eris seems satisfied by it as the door slides shut behind me, separating her from me. My body is heavy with the words I cannot say as the velvet floors whisper secrets under my bare feet. The world rushes past green and brown as my eyes flash wild and my skin stretches taut, dull and angry in the train's soft lamplight.
A/N: I don't really have a lot to say here, I'm going to save the massive rambling final A/N for the last epilogue, but thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed this. I got a bit more experimental with my writing here, trying longer sentences and heavier description, so I hope it paid off and y'all enjoyed it. Thanks again for reading, and I love you all.
See you tomorrow with the final epilogue of this chapter ever. It's going to be bittersweet to finish this story after all this time, but I'm also ready to be able to move onto our new adventure and finally put this story to rest.
Until Next Time,
Tracee