TW FOR ARACHNOPHOBES
I didn't see it happen in person. I only got to see afterwards, when I was watching the Games with the Capitol, sitting up on that stage with Caesar in my uncomfortable formal wear. No, I didn't see it in person, but sometimes, in my nightmares, I live through it.
The girl from Eight. Jessie, fourteen years old. I met her and her district partner in training. She was a nice girl, but even then I knew she was going to die. She had gotten away from the Bloodbath with her life and nothing else, and wandered off into the city to find shelter, where she had refused to move, huddled in the corner of an old building. Her dress, which had once been a brilliant blue silk garment, was filthy and in tatters. She hadn't eaten in days.
She was asleep when it happened, shivering in a little ball on the ground. When the spiders came. She didn't even get to run.
They poured in through every opening in the building – there were thousands of them, wave after wave, so many of the horrible little things it looked like an ocean of them. They crept in, and they swarmed her. They were horrible looking things – large, about the length of my thumb, their bodies black and green and shiny, like beetles.
She woke up screaming. The spiders burrowed into her skin, into her eyes, into her ears. You could see them crawling around under her skin – it looked like her skin was bubbling, melting from her bones. They were eating her alive, inside out. It wasn't quick, either. Five whole minutes she spent, screaming in agony as the spiders ate away at her flesh. Her eyes – they were gone in ten seconds, gaping black holes crying blood. Her lips – gone, the bones around her mouth visible, a horrible, screaming smile. Soon, they ate her vocal cords, and she couldn't scream anymore. Then there was only the horrible sound of the spiders pulling away her flesh and slurping up her blood.
My mentor told me later that Cecelia was screaming with Jessie. As if she was being eaten alive like her tribute. Maybe she was. Maybe she thought she was back there – maybe she felt what Jessie felt as her flesh was stripped from her bones. I understand that. I have experienced that.
Sometimes, I am Jessie. I feel the spiders as they burrow into my flesh, as they eat my skin, my muscles, my organs. I feel the flesh stripped from my bones. I feel my face stretched into a horrible, eternal smile. Sometimes, I am the spiders. I'm the one causing her so much pain. And sometimes, I am the Gamemakers who sent the spiders to her.
What did Jessie ever do to deserve such torture?
Yeah, so, this is fucked up. Sorry about that. I have arachnophobia and I had a nightmare similar to this, so I guess this is based off that.