I'm BACK :) I've been writing this new one for you and editing (chapters 1-5...I think they are way better now LOL), so take a re-read if you want and enjoy the new chapter. I'm motivated by reviews so let them fly friends.
Chapter Text
Katniss
Swiping a hand over the fogged-over mirror I take in my reflection. Now that I'm clean I can now see the sun damage I received on my face and lips during my days in the woods. I dab on some of the lotion I found with the bath products and sigh. Despite the reasonable amount of sleep I got last night, I can feel exhaustion niggling at the base of my brain, thankfully I'm used to the unpleasant feeling of being sleep-deprived as I've been perpetually so since my first games. Snagging the piece of leather I use to tie up my hair, I quickly plait it into a rope as I head down the hall to the vault. In my earlier inspection of the space, I'd found a couple of maps pinned above a desk and a computer covered in plastic. I take in the maps first, but just like earlier, can't make heads or tails of them. There isn't a single landmark, border, or body of water that's familiar to me. It's not as if we studied maps in school, after all the Old Panem depended greatly on our ignorance to get our compliance, but you can't fight a war and not know where you're going, so my time in 13 had given me a crash course on the country I had been born in. This landmass, it isn't Panem. I don't know if that means I'm outside of Panem or if this is even of a place that still exists. The times that led up to the Dark days changed everything, including landmasses on the planet, Panem had don't been spared, so this could be just a very old map? I don't know, I just know that it's not helpful on its own.
I pull the yellowed plastic off the desk, sending dust motes flying around the room and cough as some choose to settle in my throat. I take a set in the accompanying chair and start pulling up the attached desk drawers. Is filled with boxes of pencils, reams of paper yellowed around the edges, and other office supplies you expect to find in a desk, but nothing useful. I slam the bottom drawer closed and curse under my breath. The chair squeaks noisily as I flop back into the cracked vinyl of the chair. My only other option is the computer, but next to the knowledge of maps, my computer know-how is nonexistent. My only exposure to items like this was during my handful of times in the Capitol, and even then it was limited to ordering food, showering, and calling the elevator. Shrugging, I reach over and toggle on a small red switch that usefully has the word "on" printed on it.
A humming admits from a small grey box on my right and the screen slowly comes to life. Before long, small boxes dot the screen. The majority are labeled the same as the isles in the vault. I click on one I know I took items from this morning and find I'm right when the boxes I took down all show in the "In Use" category. "Not overly helpful," I mutter, clicking back to the main page. Under the isle information are a number of boxes labeled for things directly related to the systems for this place, but following those are four items that look like folders instead of boxes. They are labeled: US Before and After, CAD Before and After, MEX and SA Before and After, and finally one simply labeled WORLD Before and After. I key over to the US Before and After folder and open it. Inside are more folders with varying descriptions such as Water Levels, Food Production, Conflicts, Pollution, and Warming, but the one that catches my attention is the one labeled Maps. Inside there are more folders inside this one and I sigh. My choices are Atlases, States, Transport, Sat Images, and ISS Images.
I pick the first one, States, and am greeted with three more choices. Before, After, Overlay. I decided to just start at the top. Before. I open it and tiny images populate the screen, each labeled with two letters. The first AL, the last WY. I toggle to the AL and the tiny image explains into a map. It kind of reminds me of a district as it's a piece of land outlined with a thick board to show its boundaries but that is where the similarities end. This piece of land is kind of shaped like a rectangle that narrows a bit at the top. Rivers, lakes, and terrain are mapped out, but additional lines crisscross the whole surface, some blue, some pink, each with a number or a name. They seem to connect small dots or stars each with their own name. At the top of the map is the word Alabama – AL. I stare at it in puzzlement for a long time before clicking randomly on the one marked MN. This one is Minnesota – MN and like the AL one it's a plot of land, but this one is shaped more irregularly. This looks more like a rectangle that has been pulled in on one side in the middle, but other than the shape it's like the other map, lines with numbers or names, dots, and stars with more names, these are stranger than those Alabama's. What is Chokio or Mahtomedi? I decide to check out one more image, the one labeled with 3 letters. It takes a bit for this one to enlarge but when it does it's huge. At the top, it reads United States of America - USA. Finally, a light goes off. I know this from my Dark Days history. This is what Panem was before. I study the brightly colored map, spotting both MN and AL maps I clicked on earlier within the bigger country. AL is in the southeast quadrant of the map and MN is kind in the middle at the top. I sit back in shock. These are the states that revolted against each other. Each outline I see is a state, and each state has its own map. All together they make up the United States of America. "Whoa," I mutter. As a kid, when they described the country from "before" I never could really picture it, and even now with the image right in front of me I can't imagine Panem, this country is huge. That's when I remember the Overlay folder.
A Few clicks later I'm opening the one labeled USA-Panem. This map opens and my breath catches. There on the screen is a semitransparent image of Panem on top of the map of the United States of America that I've just looked at. Panem is smaller by at least 30%, if not more. Wherever water met land, it disappeared. My finger goes to the screen, touching the section labeled 12. I let them drift over the names of the states or partials states that made up my home. Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina. It's a gigantic area. We starved to death when all along they knew we could easily live off the land just beyond the fence. Tears sting my eyes, and my fingers find the small dot that represents where my feet call home. I squint and look under the superimposed dot indicating 12's center to find another on the old USA map, this one labeled Matewan. My home had another name. Home. My heart squeezes at my new realizations, but tuck it info away for later examination and refocus on my goal; figuring out where I am so I can get out of here and headed towards home.
Leaning back in the chair I stare up at the maps on the wall, specifically the one I believe marks my current location in yellow marker, then back down at the overlay map. I spend at least an hour trying to match the two but none of the lines match up, no lakes, rivers, or terrain. Frustration grows and I lash out at the monitor giving it a thump and tiny shove. "Where the fuck am I?" I yell, shoving away from the desk. Standing, I stalk around the room, trying to calm my breathing that's hitched up with my aggravation. My stomach has started to grumble and I need a small break anyway so I march out into the living space and flip on the stove. I fill a pot and a kettle and put them on to boil. When the water comes up to temp in both, I toss some dried pasta into the pot, then go about making myself a drink from freeze-dried coffee I found. Plopping into the couch, I sip on my bitter drink and stare down the hall at the door to vault with a look of contempt. Faux Peeta's face comes to mind and I grind my teeth. This is all that psycho's fault. "I should be sitting at a round table with district leaders discussing shipping issues, ordering hot chocolate at every meal, and skillfully ignoring the kiss I shared with Peeta in the park just before I was abducted, not in some bunker 500 feet down in mystery country!" I nearly shout. Of course, my stubborn mind catches on to the image of Peeta and I under a tree and not on the problem at hand. I can see his eyes wild and so deep blue they are almost black. My stomach knots as my train of thought follows the memory I've been due diligently pushing away all day. It was only last night that I recovered it in full. Whatever fake Peeta knocked me out with seems to have blocked out at least a few hours if not days of my memories, but over the past, 12 hours or so things have started to resurface. The Black eyes rimmed in a blue is the strongest of the memories, and I can't stop the tingle on my lips when I think about it. If screaming at the top of my lungs would help me to keep my focus I would do it. "Not Now!" I growl as the self-indulgent fantasy. "You need to get out of here…you need…you…" a realization bubbles up to the surface as I unleash a verbal tirade on myself. "Mystery country…"I mutter spinning my words of a moment ago around in my head. Realization lands on me and hard. I'm instantly off the couch and running down the hall to the vault.
I nearly fall over the desk chair trying to reach for the keyboard. I quickly click on the World folder and then on the overlay. I've never seen a map of the world, I knew it existed, but Panem deemed our life in mines didn't require us to know more than necessary to use a pickax. The image on the screen shows the globe and then the same image but all flattened out. Just like the USA map, there is an image of the one from before, and the current one. My mouth falls open as I stare at the world, at all the other landmasses. Are there people on those? Is it like Panem in all those countries too? I heart is pounding at possibilities. I consider the landmasses one by one. Could I be on one of those?I shake my head, I think they are too far away from the Capitol, which he clearly lived in for some part of his life. My eyes travel to the border of the Panem map and see the area labeled Canada/The Wilds. I zoom in and look closely at the map then up at the one posted on the wall above me. They are the same. I'm suddenly found, I realize just as an alarm goes off echoing loudly in my cement dwelling.