Dionysus Bacchus, District One male (17)
I am going to die. I am dying.
Not in the Games. Now. I was dying. Sour-tasting vomit was all over inside my mouth and on the floor below me. I was in the bathroom, I thought. I didn't remember getting there. How did I have a hangover? I hadn't drunk in three days.
DRINK
It was in my head. Alcohol was in my head. I could see it. I could taste it. My mouth watered and the taste of vomit heightened as my tongue moved to lap up what it imagined was alcohol.
My heart shouldn't be this fast. Is it going to explode? It has to explode it's too fast.
At first I just couldn't sleep. I lay for hours in bed, my legs twitching, wishing I could just get to sleep to stop feeling this horrible headache not just a headache it was like air pockets behind my eyes pushing outward I thought they were going to pop out. Just let me sleep and not feel anything.
I sat up suddenly and vomited all over the edge of my bed. That's not a healthy color, I thought in a panic. It had to be my guts. I was throwing up my guts. I'm dying. I threw back the blankets to jump out of bed and call for help.
The toilet seat was against my cheek. The smell of the bowl turned my stomach but when I tried to turn my head away the movement made my head pound. There was vomit in the toilet that I didn't remember putting there. I couldn't breathe. My lungs kept going sideways inside me instead of filling up. I shuddered all over and heaved, a trail of thin spit drooling out onto my cheek.
One thought blinked clearly into my head. I need to drink right now or I am going to die. But I couldn't stand up. I could barely move my head.
Help. Someone help. I'm dying. The room was so hot the room was so cold why was I shaking all over? The room was moving I didn't know which way was up how could I stand if I didn't know which way was up? Help me someone help me Enigma help me.
I slid off the toilet seat and learned which direction was down by faceplanting into the floor. I lay there for a while, my nose pressed flat against the white tile, using all my brainpower to remember how to breathe. I slid my arm up the floor in front of my head, the movement sending off streaks of pain in my head. I dug my fingers into the floor and slid myself forward. The room moved all around me as I went, unsure which way was up and not entirely certain I was moving toward the door.
There was soft carpet under my cheek. I was in the bedroom, then, probably smearing my own spew all over the plush floor. It'll smother me I'll suffocate I latched onto the thick fibers and pulled myself forward on them. I reached the wall by the door, the one with the button to call for assistance. I'd used it before to call for room service, or more often bottle service. But it was so far above my head. It was five feet off the ground and I was face-first in the carpet.
I was leaning against the wall, gripping onto the tiny button so I wouldn't fall over. I must have been saying something. I think it was "Enigma".
"Oh my god, I didn't think you'd do it!"
When did she get here? I looked up at Enigma's face and started crying. My throat clogged and I lay gasping for breath, my slack limbs out of my control and jerking like something was pulling on them. Above me Enigma pressed the button again.
"I need a doctor!"
Ceto Preston, District Four female (18)
My parents always took care of me. But Uncle Gill loved me.
Mom and Dad wanted a little girl they could spoil. Sometimes I thought they'd have been just as well off if they got one of those little purse dogs. They liked to buy me things and send me to good school and make sure I had all the proper lessons for someone of our station. They always listened to me when I wanted to talk to them. They'd say surely I was right and what a clever girl I was. It seemed like they were never mad at me. So I started saying sillier things, waiting for them to react. But it was always just nods and smiles and empty platitudes. I didn't want two best friends. I wanted two parents. I guess, silly as it was, I wanted them to get mad at me sometimes. To say I shouldn't do this or that. To notice when their daughter started sneaking out at nights. I wasn't even going to parties. I was just sneaking out to see when they'd notice I was gone.
Uncle Gill never had kids. Try as he might, he'd never managed to find someone to start a family with. He first babysat me one night when Mom and Dad were out at some boring party. It was one of the most important days of my life, looking back. I would always remember the moment I opened the freezer to take out some ice cream.
"Hold on, there. You have to eat dinner first," Uncle Gill had said.
"No!" I said, astonished that he'd even gone that far. "I want it now!"
Uncle Gill closed the freezer door firmly as I glared up at him. "Now, Ceto, you're a growing little girl. You need healthy food so you can grow up strong. Sometimes we can't have what we want."
No. The word rang in my head, alongside the miraculous knowledge that Uncle Gill didn't care about pleasing me. He cared about doing what was right for me. From that point on I cajoled my parents to go out and do this or that, leaving me, of course, with my beloved uncle, who was overjoyed to have a loaned child if he couldn't have his own.
Four years later I watched with all the other students as the live riot footage played on the academy television. I bragged about how my uncle would put down the stupid rioters and keep Panem safe. We all went silent when the bomb went off. When uncle Gill's face shield filled with blood and he landed so unnaturally on the ground. As I waited for him to get up.
Agrippina found me in the weapons room, crying in a corner. She crouched by me and I shrank away from her offered hand.
"Your parents are coming right now, okay?" she said in a soothing tone I'd never heard from her.
"I don't want them. I want Gill," I sobbed.
"I'm so sorry, honey," Agrippina said. "But you know what you can do now? Something like this will never go away unless you make things right. Cry for a while and when you're ready, pick up your trident and make him proud. Make them pay for this. Avenge him. A life for a life- balance. Give him his tribute and one day you can feel whole again."
I dried my tears that day and gripped my trident like I never had before. Gigi and Connor were mine. Gill's blood was on their people's heads and I was going to take what he was owed. Then this awful, ragged hole in my heart would finally go away. If I didn't do this for uncle Gill how could I ever claim I loved him? All that matters in life is blood and its due. Once I did this ten years of pain and loss would be over. Once they were dead I would be whole again. Agrippina promised. She promised.
