An Obsession with Words II: The Forever Storm
Author's Note: In case you haven't guessed, this is a sequel to my fic "An Obsession with Words" and I highly recommend you read that before reading this. In anticipation of new information to come with the release of A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I will say that this fic will be based off all information established in my previous story, regardless of new info yet to be released. Snow has just come to power after the 44th Games. Wiress won the 44th Games and Beetee won the 41st.
Chapter 1: Penumbra
Tatsuya and Intel are at my sides, escorting me down a long hallway. I'm trying to talk to both of them, begging them to forgive me. Neither of them act as if they can hear me, and I can't hear my own voice either. At the end of the hallway there's a glowing orange light. It's a vortex of pure flame. Suddenly, I realize my hands are tied behind my back.
Tatsuya, who's last act was giving me my first kiss as he lay dying in the rain…
Intel, who went to his fate with a graceful courage I could never muster…
A redheaded woman wielding a spear as tall as she is guards the vortex. Lustra, the Career who only came in second place because I was a faster runner…
How am I here? How am I alive?
Lustra nods to the two boys at my sides, and without warning, they shove me at the flaming vortex, and I begin to feel it searing my skin—
I awaken with a start.
I have no idea how I'm able to function during any given day. The average human needs at least six to seven hours of sleep. I don't think I've gotten more than four hours a night since I came back to District 3. Tonight, it's only been two.
Sometimes, I can hear Beetee scuffle above me when I wake. I know he has insomnia too, and he'll use it to work on some new invention, which explains the footsteps above me. I'll use that as a signal to run up to the Penthouse of the 'Victor's Village' and ask him to lie in bed with me. He never refuses me, and when he rings me back downstairs, I can usually sleep a little more. The best part is when I wake, he is always there. He won't leave me until I get up.
However, there isn't much noise above me tonight, so I'm on my own.
Ever since winning the 44th Hunger Games on what I still insist was a fluke of the system used in the arena, I've been seeing nothing in my dreams but bodies, fiery tornadoes, acid rain leaving scars on my hands, and hearing cannons go off. Beetee told me this was to be expected, and that occasionally a Capitol doctor would come to evaluate us both.
"They'll offer you a medication," he had warned.
"I shouldn't…?" I begin.
Beetee shrugs. "If you think they will help, you can choose to use them, but side effects occur. You'll feel numb inside, complacent, and submissive."
I decided that, even if the nightmares go away, it wouldn't be worth surrendering my personality. Granted, I've always been introverted and easily swayed, but I don't want the people who sent me to my near-execution to have the final say in how I am. So I refused the pills when the doctor offered them to me.
I climb out of my ridiculously oversized bed, which has a canopy and drawable curtains. The Capitol has always been ostentatious, but a part of me has always felt the small pocket of luxury they've given me in return for winning their Games was meant to serve as much of a warning as it does a reward. It says to me: We can take this away at any time, along with your life.
My apartment is larger than the entire floor of my old tenement in the Outer City of Three. My family didn't contribute to the official industry of the District, so we weren't particularly well off. Now, my family lives in a separate, only slightly-smaller condominium just below mine in Victor's Village. The name is a misnomer. Most Districts have mansions lining a street for their winners to live in. District Three is a large, lifeless, smog-filled cityscape. There is no room for a village to be built, so instead there is a high-rise luxury building, and each Victor lives on the floor they choose. Beetee was the first Victor for Three in a long time, so he had his pick of any of the condos, but the layout is mostly the same. A large entryway leads down a few steps into a living space, giving way on the left to a large kitchen and dining room (always stocked with food, drink, and the latest cooking tech), and a set of bedrooms to the back. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, but tinted on the outside. The floors are plush carpet so soft it feels like walking on a down pillow. The furniture is soft enough that my smallish body sinks right into the cushions. The screen on which Beetee and I will occasionally watch the District News takes up nearly half of the wall to the right, and underneath is a fireplace and mantle. Everything is in sterile white, which I am used to thanks to the summers I spent in Daddy's dental office as a child, but it is still unsettling to my mind. All of it is. It's all so…unnatural, like a person wouldn't have the capacity to decorate a room so pristinely.
I turn on a light and head to my favorite room in the place. Each apartment has three bedrooms, I assume to accommodate Victors who marry and have children. As that doesn't seem to be in my future, I took the liberty of having Beetee order on my behalf one of the spare rooms to be converted into a library, stocked floor-to-ceiling with every book I could ever want. The Capitol delivered. You can't see the walls through the shelves and shelves of tomes. By the window, there is a chaise longue with a lamp and side table. It is my haven, my sanctuary, the only place I feel absolutely safe without Beetee, though one of my new favorite ways to bond with him is inviting him down for tea and having us read to one another. My beloved words.
Beetee has become nothing short of my skeleton. That is, he is my shape and support. He keeps the rest of me standing on stable ground…as much as he can. Even he can't do much when I have a 'meltdown.' Since winning the Games, I'd had more panics than I'd ever had up to that point. I can't control it. My mind goes away, I flail desperately, cover my eyes and ears, and shrink down into the floor. Sometimes I pass out. These attacks happen without trigger and without warning. Sometimes the slight bang of my family knocking on the door is enough to set one off. I lose a little more control every day.
When I came home from the Games, Beetee kissed me, and I wasn't sure how I felt. He said he'd wait for me to be ready to be with him. Beetee is, in my mind, attractive. District Three girls don't normally look at the face and body of a man they develop love for. It is in our nature to look at the mind and accomplishments first. Beetee is devastatingly intelligent. He passes his time inventing for both himself and the Capitol. Soon after I came home, he invented a device that plays music that supplements whatever book I'm reading if I put the title into the system. It times out the music so when I'm reading a climactic battle, the music picks up. If I'm reading about ancient times, the music becomes reminiscent of that period. He loaded hundreds of songs into this little box, and all I have to do is enter the title. It is my favorite possession, and Beetee is my favorite person.
For some reason, however, tonight I don't feel compelled to read. What an odd feeling. Then I recall something Beetee had told me the other day.
Tonight, there's a partial lunar eclipse due to appear in our sky at approximately 2:40am. The clock on the wall of the library says it is 2:13. I decide to put on a heavy coat (it is winter, after all), and brew some tea to take to the roof. Maybe the smog will be thin enough to see the shadow of the Earth cross the moon.
It takes a good twenty minutes to prepare the tea. I have always been a moderately clumsy person, but after the Games I can never seem to fully get the shakes out of my hands, so I've learned to slow down instead. I'm lucky enough to not break a cup this time, but I'm certain my habit for shattering glass is singlehanded keeping the mug-making industry alive. Nevertheless, I am able to make a cup of hot fruit tea with a little time to spare before the eclipse is set to begin.
I leave my apartment and head for the stairwell. I go up past Beetee's penthouse to the heavy roof door. It's already propped open.
As I step out onto the roof, chilly air stings my face. It's winter, and while District Three sees snow sometimes, it's not as frequent as it is the northern districts, and normally we just experience more bitter temperatures. The sting does more than hurt my face…it's a reminder of what is to come in the morning.
Beetee is here, standing at the edge of the roof, looking out over the city. The night, as I'd hoped, is clear. The moon is full and visible. His back is too me, though he must have heard me open the door. I slowly walk toward him.
"I had the feeling you'd be up," he says softly as I stand next to him. He looks at me with his rich brown eyes, which look huge behind his thick glasses.
I nod silently and hold out my cup of tea to him. He smiles and takes it, sipping for a moment.
"Thank you."
"It's almost time," I sigh.
Beetee looks at me with what I believe is pity.
"The eclipse? Or…?"
I widen my eyes and gesture up at the moon. Beetee looks down bashfully.
"I know the Tour starts tomorrow," I say. "But I want to forget it."
"It's unforgettable. If you fight it, it'll only hurt more when you lose."
Something I've noticed since Beetee mentored me to victory in the Games, is that while he sounded calm and optimistic during my training, once we came home, he's been much more of a depressing realist. I'm not the only one whose brain was affected by the Games. Beetee has what, according to my books, is known as chronic depression. He will spend some times locked away, refusing to see anyone except for me. During these times, he doesn't invent. He doesn't eat much. He doesn't sleep much. Sometimes I find him the way I see him now, staring either out a window or over the edge of the roof, as if he's contemplating flying away. He doesn't cry. He just doesn't speak much.
"I know," I reply.
"Are you scared?" Beetee asks.
"Yeah."
Ever since the summer, I haven't been able to articulate much. Beetee is the only person with whom I can speak full sentences. I can create endless monologues in my mind, but speaking aloud is almost physically painful.
The Victory Tour for my Games begins tomorrow. I will be dolled up by my stylist from the Capitol, Aloysius, before being escorted by Beetee and my escort, Plume Desrosiers, to each District in Panem. Then I will be taken back t the Capitol for a feast in my honor, where I will be paraded like a prize around President Snow's mansion, expected to thank him for his generosity and the Capitol's luxury.
"Do you have your hobby ready for the cameras?" Beetee asks, as if he's checking my homework.
I nod. Each Victor must choose a luxury hobby to show off on camera for the Tour, likely to show Panem that we aren't affected in any negative way by winning a bloodbath. My hobby is poetry. I've written several short poems. They're terrible, but most people won't know the difference. They're insincere, about flowers, trees, calm winds, and other things District Three sees almost nothing of. Beetee looked over my work and said they will do just fine.
He is still looking over the edge of the roof. I feel a chill of a different kind.
I ask. "Have you ever thought about…jumping?"
A part of me expects Beetee to smile and shake his head. He is still pretty strong of mind. Instead, he takes a moment, then looks at me, his face stone.
"Yes. A hundred times. Every Victor does."
Beetee has told me about the time in between his Games and mine, where he had absolutely no one to talk to expect the Capitol doctor who evaluates his mind. Beetee has a sister, but she is much older than he is, and she never comes around. This doesn't hurt him, they were never close. As a result of the loneliness, he found himself losing hope. When I won, it's as if he had a purpose again.
I must admit, during and after panic episodes, it always occurs to me that death would be less painful and drawn out than living fully through all of this trauma.
"Do you think if you did…everything would feel better?"
The way Beetee looks at me is frightening. It's a combination of despair and hope, opposites combined into one.
"No. It's only a way out for myself. A selfish one at that. I can't leave…"
He pauses, deciding whether to hold off on finishing his thought.
"…I can't leave you."
I feel a momentary pang of guilt. If Beetee felt this way about me, what else was I keeping him back from? Was I a pet to him? I choose not to take what he says this way. I know how he feels about me. He feels love. Not familial or platonic love either.
"Then don't leave me."
Beetee hands the mug of tea back to me. I suddenly don't want it anymore. I set it on the edge and instead let him take my hand. One of the nicest things about Beetee: no matter how cold it is, his skin is always warm.
We spend a silent moment together before I choose to speak again.
"Tell me what happens tomorrow."
Asking Beetee to explain things is a good way to keep his mind happy. Sometimes I even let him explain things to me that I always know when he seems depressive.
"Aloysius and Plume will arrive at 10am. You'll film a brief segment for Dionysius Flickerman at noon, and then we'll go to the train station. We should be in District Twelve by evening. Plume will hand you a small speech to say to the crowd, and then we'll have a supper with the Mayor. The next morning, it's on to Eleven, and so forth."
I want to ask the camera people if Beetee can appear with me. There is simply no way I can do this alone.
"Look up, Wire," Beetee says softly. I do, and the moon is beginning to turn a reddish brown as the eclipse begins. "That's the penumbra. The shadow of the Earth."
It feels good to know that, in spite of everything, eclipses still exist. The Earth still revolves. The sun still burns and space is still infinite. Sometimes, when I need an anchor to keep me from spinning out of control, I take a moment to feel the air in my lungs and the ground beneath my feet. My life is in shadow, but shadows are cast by light, and light is always right next door.
We watch the eclipse silently for several minutes, until it is almost at peak.
"It's cold," Beetee mumbles.
"Yes," I reply.
"Maybe we should try and go back to bed?" he suggests. I nod. I don't even need to ask him, for I know he'll get into bed with me.
Still holding hands, we turn to go inside. I forget the mug I'd left on the ledge, but I don't care to go back for it.
We descend two floors to my apartment. Once in my bedroom, Beetee takes off his shirt as he often does for bed. I know it means nothing, and that he just prefers sleeping that way. I like his form. It's soft but with only a little belly. It's almost the opposite of mine, which is angular and bony in spite of the pubescent curves I'd developed in recent years.
Our bedtime routine is like a dance with steps to follow. Beetee climbs in under the covers first, then holds out his hand to me. I take it and go in next to him. I settle in the crook of his arm, and feel his warm skin against my cheek as I place my head on his chest. It's odd that I won't let him kiss me, yet it's in Beetee's arms this way where I feel the safest in the world. Maybe it's because during the Games, he sent me sponsor gifts with illegal hints on where to go to avoid the weather traps the arena created. Maybe it's because he's the only other person in the District who knows how I truly feel, because he's seen it too.
Beetee's breath becomes shallow and rhythmic. My mind swims too fast to fall unconscious so quickly, but soon I begin to feel drowsy, thank heavens. I try not to think about the Victory Tour and what I face. My only chance at a few more hours of rest is to live in the moment, to count the rises and falls of Beetee's chest, and to pretend that the darkness is a shield against all things terrible.
Tomorrow will be nothing but spotlights and microphones. All of Panem's eyes will be on me, just like in the Games. They will be looking to me for strength and hope. I know they will be sorely disappointed. I am more of a shadow than a spotlight.
But I know I can survive the shadows with him near me, no matter what happens in the morning.
Oh please, let the morning never come…