3/15/18

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The Manipulation Games 3: Rebellion

Chapter Eleven: District 13

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I wake up inside a shiny metal room, a hovercraft maybe, laying on the cold floor. I can't hear a thing, except for a loud roaring sound. The room feels like it's being shaken as the other people in the room run around frantically. I try to identify them, but my vision is blurry. They all look like fuzzy gray mounds of human flesh (or at least, I hope they're human). My mind feels foggy as well, and I don't even notice that I'm being lifted off the floor until I find myself sitting in a wheelchair. I try to feel something, anything, but my emotions are absent. Someone (or something) takes my arm, and I feel a slight pinch.

I blink.

Suddenly, I'm not on the hovercraft anymore. Instead, I'm in what I assume to be a hospital. The walls are gray. Everything is gray. Except for the sheet that covers my body- that's white. The bed, while uncomfortable, is an improvement over the conditions I've been living in for the past who knows how long. My vision has cleared up, and emotion-wise I feel… peaceful? I look to the side and see a morphine drip. Of course. My eyes trail a little to the left, and I see Dalton sitting in a chair next to my bed. Despite how clearly drugged up I am, a bit of anger still manages to seep through.

"Why did you save me?" I snap, jostling him out of his sleep.

"You're awake," he says with a sigh of relief.

I glare at him, feeling all the artificial happiness ebbing away. "You weren't supposed to save me, but you did! You got me out of that heck-hole, but you left your own sister to rot? What the actual heck!"

"Now Johanna, just you wait! Annie's just fine. I saved her myself," he says. "Gale Hawthorne was the one who got you. If it were just me who went to the Capitol, no one could've gotten Peeta or Enobaria, or that little girl."

Little girl seems like an odd thing for him to call Annie, but I wave it off. I've never had a little sister. One could argue that Ava and Cashmere were close enough, maybe even Annie herself, but it still isn't the same. Perhaps growing up in different districts has made Dalton forget that Annie isn't the terrified 16 year old who won the Games anymore. I know it's been easy for me to forget that myself.

I bite my lip. "You're sure Annie's fine?"

Dalton nods. "Yeah, she's all right. Not a scratch on her. Her clothes were so caked in blood she had to change into a sheet until we got back, but otherwise she was fine."

"It was probably my blood," I say, trying to make my tone light. It was a joke, though there was seriousness in it. I reach up to smooth my hair, only for my hand to make contact with bare skin. I rub my head, certain that I've made a mistake, but surely enough it's just… gone.

Dalton sighs, noticing my confusion. "Yeah, we're not sure what happened there. Can't be worse than what happened to Peeta though."

"What did they do to Peeta? Pee on his dog or something?" I ask. I'm not particularly upset about the hair itself. I'm just bothered, I guess. My hair was never something I cared about too much, but the fact that my tormentors were the ones who decided it was time for a haircut makes it hard for me to feel comfortable. It serves as a reminder that the Capitol is always in control- just as I'm sure they intended it to be.

Dalton frowns, and there's a look of concern in his eyes. Almost as though he doesn't want to say what happened.

"They hijacked him," he says.

I feel my heart sink.

"What does that mean?" I ask. Fear grips me in a tight embrace, and I find myself dreading whatever explanation Dalton has to offer.

"The Capitol… they messed with his brain somehow. Made what's right seem wrong and what's wrong seem right. He thinks Katniss is the enemy."

I swallow, and my dry throat screams out in agony. I try to imagine what he's going through, what it would feel like to have the Capitol inside your mind. To have your memories changed, and your thoughts dictated. But I can't. It's a horror unlike any other, worse than even I've faced. The Capitol may have gotten into my head, but at least my mind is my own.

"Sounds like Snow all right," I say bitterly. "Is there any way to fix it?"

Dalton shakes his head. "Not that I've heard. But don't go worrying your pretty little head off. I'm sure Beetee'll think of something. Just you wait."

I nod. My gaze wanders to the foot of my bed, resting there for a moment. How did things get this hopeless? I thought after I was rescued, things would be easy. I thought we'd all march up to the Captiol, capture Snow, and end the Games forever. But now that I'm here, I see things for how they truly are. No amount of change can be inflicted that easily, no matter how much I want it.

"Are you doing all right?" Dalton asks.

"Yeah," I sigh, unable to look him in the eyes. "Would they shoot me on sight if I got up? I need to find Finnick."

Dalton chuckles sadly. "Well, I don't think any of you are really supposed to be up and about yet, but I know Annie's probably seen half the District by this point. I'm sure you wouldn't get in too much trouble if you're feeling up to it. I can stay here and let Prim know where you went if she comes back."

Prim. Isn't that Everdeen's sister? She must be helping in the hospital. I mumble a thanks and unhook myself from the morphine, regretting it the moment I do. I become aware of just how much everything hurts, and it becomes clear that I should stay in bed and rest. But I'm a woman on a mission, so I push forward and leave the hospital room.

District 13, or at least the hospital in District 13, is pretty much how I expected it to look. In a contrast to the Capitol, nearly everything is gray. From the uniforms worn by nearly everyone to the walls and floors, gray surrounds me. It's a lot easier on the eyes than the plethora of rainbows and eye numbing whites of the Capitol, though I still long for the muted browns and greens of District 7. No one roams the halls, giving them an eerie feeling of abandonment. The silence in the air is louder than any of Peeta's screams.

Where is everyone?

The quiet beeping of a life support machine begins to peek through the silence as I walk further down the hallway. That seems to be a good sign. After all, where there's patients there's doctors, and while I don't want to ask for help finding Finnick it seems to be my only option. Besides, the worst they could do is make me go back to my room, and if they do that I could always ask them to find him for me. I follow the noise to a room at the foot of a dead-end hallway. The door stands cracked open, beckoning me to open it. And like a puppet of fate, I enter the room.

Inside, Ava lays comatose.

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Quote of the day:

"And then Caesar ran into our knives. Julius Caesar ran into our knives 23 times." -Tumblr (credit: marisatomay) (because I can't not make an ides of March joke)

May the odds be ever in your favor,

Spectrobes Princess