This story is not over yet; I'm planning to take Terra through her return home and into her Victory Tour before the ending comes. You'll know it when it ends! Take care everyone, and thank you for you kind words in your reviews. You are all so nice and I love reading what you have to say.
Chapter 56- Terra Coppersmith
My legs hurt and I'm terrified as I stand on another metal plate, this time under the stage. The last time I was waiting to be lifted by metal, I was being transported into the arena. Considering I just woke up this morning, I'm doing rather well by not running out of the place.
It's okay, Terra. You can watch this movie, and then you can go to bed. I wonder if I'll go back to my old quarters in the Training Center after this. There are too many memories in that place. How am I going to manage District 8?
The plate under me starts to rise, and I almost fall off. I don't have my balance yet. Suddenly, I'm blinded by bright stage lights and deafened by the cheer of the crowd. I try to smile, but I'm squinting in the light and I really just want to sit down and howl.
I'm glad that my family can't see what's happened to me yet.
My prep team and Postumius are already onstage; Postumius beaming under the attention. Damius takes a few bows, but is a gentleman, not going insane like the man in orange. Shuttle and Woven wave too, standing off to the side. As I rise up and stop at the height of the stage, Marcus steps over to me and takes my hand.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Terra Coppersmith! The victor of the Thirty-sixth Hunger Games!" he cries, holding my hand up in victory. I smile as much as I'm able. There're too many people; I need to get out of here. They cheer and stamp their feet, chanting my name. Every camera is on me, and I just keep smiling and waving a little.
I'm honestly relieved when Marcus leads me over to the red velvet chair and lets me sit down. I almost slip, but I manage. I don't want anyone to know what's happened to me. I don't want to know, even.
"How are you feeling tonight? Excited?" Marcus asks, and I nod. "Let's get this show on the road!"
The lights dim and the Capitol seal appears on a screen behind me. I can't move; I'm frozen in horror. I don't want to see this; don't want to see what I did, what the other tributes did, how they died, and how I killed them.
I can't see Fletcher.
The movie is going to be three hours exactly, and the first half hour focuses on the reapings, our scores, and our interviews before we entered the arena. All the other tributes only get to say a few words, but my interview is played in full.
"I promised my sister I would go home to her, and I intend to keep that promise."
Well I kept it, but I'm not the same person who made the promise.
They play half of Fletcher's interview, because we were allies, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying. He was confident, witty… and now he's dead.
The Games start then, and it's bloody and horrible, especially when the girl from 2 kills the little girl from 9 savagely, and they show me shooting the boy from 11, which makes me sick.
I get to see other things throughout the Games that I didn't know about beforehand. Like the siblings getting attacked by spiders, the girl from 11 being killed by Alyss, the giant bird that attacks the Careers. It's like any other Hunger Games that I've ever watched.
The movie focuses on me mostly, of course, and by doing that it also focuses on Fletcher. I see what the audience saw now, and I want to turn their eyes away from my private moments. My cheeks heat up when he kisses me, and half the audience sighs. I know now that Deecey saw everything, and I don't know how to feel about that either.
The tribute who surprised us that one night was the girl from 7, I find out. She gets killed later by the girl from 6. Later on in the Games, I watch the girl from 3 be ripped apart by a mutt, and the boy from 6 be killed by a snake. The deaths are gruesome, but no more than any other Hunger Games I've seen in the past.
And then Fletcher says he loves me, and I can hear sighing and some weeping in the audience. I sit stone-faced, trying not to cry my eyes out. I'm sorry, I'm sorry Fletcher!
Now I see what everyone saw, when the weather turned and Fletcher sacrificed himself for me. How I ran away, sobbing, while he stood and faced his death bravely. The Careers didn't even give him a chance to speak before the boy from 1 stabbed him. Fletcher crumpled to the ground without even raising his hand in self defense.
The end is as horrible as I remember. There's blood everywhere, and then I lash out blindly and rip the girl from 4's throat open with my knife. The movie ends with me standing, bleeding heavily, watching the hovercraft descend.
The lights come back on and people cheer and clap for me, giving me a standing ovation. For killing innocent people. None of the tributes in the arena were very old. The boy from 11 was younger than me, and I killed him.
The anthem begins to play and I rise just as the president enters holding a crown on a red velvet cushion. He smiles as a girl takes the cushion away and he is left holding the golden crown. I stand before him, discovering that I'm taller, and he reaches up to place the crown on my dark curls. I smile and curtsy as best I can, but I go off balance and Marcus has to grab my arm so I can right myself.
"Don't forget to watch tomorrow night when we have our final interviews with Terra Coppersmith, our victor!" Marcus calls to the audience, and then I'm led away by Shuttle, off the stage. As soon as the cameras are off me, I burst into tears.
"Hey, it's okay. It's okay," Shuttle says, pulling me to her.
"I shouldn't have left him," I sob. There's a lot more than that going on, but that's the only coherent thought I can get out.
"You didn't have a choice. You're here. It's what he would have wanted."
"I killed them. I killed them to get here," I say, breaking down completely. Shuttle grabs my arms and squeezes them so tight it hurts.
"We're going to have a talk tonight about what winning means, okay? But for now, you're going to the Victory Banquet, and you have to look like a happy victor, to keep up the façade. Can you do that?"
I nod, wiping my eyes and smearing my mascara at the same time. Lem is passing by and lets out a cry of horror at my smeared face.
"Lem, get your team over here. We need to get her presentable and looking normal before she goes anywhere," Shuttle says authoritatively. Out of nowhere, Tiffany whips out a makeup bag, and the three stylists fix my face up in a matter of minutes.
Just as they're done, someone else grabs my arm and I'm pulled outside into a waiting car. Shuttle and Postumius crowd in beside me.
"Isn't this just so exciting?" Postumius says, looking even more manically happy than he was onstage. "This is the greatest Hunger Games we've ever had!"
I don't speak. Guilty or not over killing the tributes in the arena, I don't think I'd have a problem taking this moron out. He's lucky I don't have my bow.
The Victory Banquet is elaborate and beautiful, but I don't get to eat much of it. There're too many people coming by to congratulate me, patting me on the shoulder and getting their pictures taken with me. The cameras are everywhere, and I have to smile until my face hurts. I stay sitting as long as I can, hiding the silver and black apparatuses that are carefully tucked under my skirt.
Everyone's scattered; I see Woven sometimes, talking with different people; Postumius goes by every once in a while, and every time I see him he's more intoxicated. I wonder if they might really replace him next year, even though he's had a successful run of being escort. Or maybe he'll be reassigned somewhere else, which would be a blessing to us all.
I see the president sometimes, which makes sense since I'm in his home. He frightens me a little, but I don't see him often enough to dwell on it. I'm too focused on smiling for the cameras and trying to hold myself together.
"Congratulations, Terra! Can you tell me how you're feeling?" says one man with a microphone in my face.
"Happy," I say, then I'm relieved to see Shuttle approaching.
"She's had enough for one night. You'll see her interview tomorrow," she says, shooing the press away from me. She leans in to me, whispering in my ear, "We can leave within a half hour. Woven is trying to find Postumius."
"We can just leave him here and see if he makes it back," I say.
"I wish, but that would reflect poorly on us. Oh, here they come," she says, straightening up. An attendant has one of Postumius's arms around his neck, Woven has the other. Postumius is flat out drunk, still giggling a little.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" Shuttle says. Postumius lets go of Woven's neck and throws up on the floor.
"I want him fired," Woven says, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Don't we all. Let's get him to the car," Shuttle says. Two more attendants arrive, one to clean up the floor, and the other helps drag our escort out to the waiting car. Shuttle offers me her arm and I take it gratefully. My legs begin to buckle on the stairs going out, and on all sides I'm being pressed by curious guests and cameras. I give one last smile and a wave, then I step into the car, the doors slam, and the driver peels away, leaving the mansion behind.
Inside the Training Center, level eight, Woven and Damius dump Postumius on the ground, not even bothering to put him on the couch this time. As soon as I step in the door, I collapse, my legs not supporting me any longer, and I burst into tears.
Shuttle pulls me up and helps me to one of the couches in the living room. "There, there. I know. I know exactly how you feel." She holds me close and rocks me a little while I cry, which is comforting.
She pulls back and holds my face in her hands. "This is how it is to win, Terra. They say you won, but you won nothing. You survived the arena, and you had to do some god-awful things to get out. Don't let the guilt overwhelm you, Terra, or you'll be drowning in it for the rest of your life. That or alcohol, which is what plenty victors turn to."
"They're all dead, Shuttle! I trained alongside them, I barely knew them, but they're all dead!" I sob.
"Everyone died in my Games too, Terra. And in Woven's. We've been where you are. I had allies that I cared for too, even though I was told not to get attached. I killed my ally myself, when it was just the two of us. I lived, she didn't. The Careers turned on each other at the end of your Games and killed each other; Fletcher sacrificed himself for you. He died a noble death for you. That's better than what all the other tributes got."
"If I hadn't run, then maybe I could have saved him," I say.
"You would have died alongside him, and a Career would be the victor, getting gifts for their already privileged district. You killed two people, Terra, but you've provided for your whole district. You're saving more lives than you took."
"I-I'm not whole anymore," I sob, and I look at my hands with the missing fingers. "They took my legs and my fingers."
"They took our souls when they put us in the arena. Nobody is going to even look twice at your legs, Terra. They're your reminder that you lived, that you were the strongest. That you need to keep strong. You'll be seeing your sister soon; you'll have to be strong for her."
I cry for a while longer, and Shuttle holds me. She whispers in my ear, "Your missing parts make you safe from the Capitol predators, Terra. They're not going to want a victor who's damaged."
I pull away and look at her. She's deadly serious. "You're only damaged to them, and that makes you safe. You can go home and live as normal a life as you can after this. Woven and I can never do that."
I understand what she means, and it strikes horror into my heart. Postumius snorts and groans behind us; we all ignore him.
"Your last interview is tomorrow at two. You should get some sleep before that happens," Woven says, breaking the silence that's fallen over us all.
"Come on, Terra. Let's get you to bed," Shuttle says, giving me a hand up and letting me lean on her all the way down the hall to my room. As far as I know, Postumius has been left on the floor for the night. My quarters are familiar, but hold painful memories.
Shuttle stays with me as I wash off the makeup, take down my hair, and change into a pair of soft pajamas. She helps me take off my new legs, placing them on the bed next to me once I've climbed in.
"I can't sleep alone!" I say, suddenly panicky as Shuttle gets up to leave. Her face is sympathetic.
"I couldn't either. Still can't, actually," she says.
"Can you stay with me?" I ask, and I feel like a little kid when I do. She pauses, then nods.
"Of course I will."
An attendant brings in a folding mattress and places it next to my bed. Shuttle climbs in and pulls the covers up over her shoulders. "You alright?" she asks me. I don't know what to say to that.
"It's okay. It's okay to not be alright. Go to sleep; you'll feel a little better in the morning."
The lights go out, but I find myself staring at the ceiling until I drift off into a hazy half-sleep. I don't like the dark, and from the tossing and turning Shuttle is doing from the bed next to me, I don't think she does either.