BLAZING FLAMES
Chapter Two: JARRING
By: The Scarletclad Mage
It took me another day and a half to recover enough to stand up out of the hospital bed. Prim and my mother hardly left my side, nagging me to eat more and chattering away constantly. Something was off however. Their smiles were a little too bright, their voices a little too high. It didn't match the haunted look that was still etched into their matching cerulean eyes. I knew they were putting on a show for me. I knew they wanted to distract me from thinking about Peeta or home. I knew they were trying to hide their own pain to avoid causing me more. I appreciated it, even if it didn't work. To their credit, it hurt much less when they were around. There were moments when I even forgot how horrible things were. Also, with my family surrounding me, Gale had not tried to finish our earlier conversation. Another thing to be grateful for.
"I've had enough soup already," I push the mostly empty bowl of broth away from me with a sigh. Mother looks doubtful. "I've probably gone through all the soup on this hovercraft by now anyway."
"There's a lot of food here anyway. There has to be, to feed all the people," Prim took my bowl from me and set it on the table. I sat up more attentively.
"Who else is here?" No one had ever mentioned to me that anyone else was on the hovercraft. How big could this thing be, anyway?
"Lots of people," Mother says slowly. "We've been flying around the country rescuing people that are loyal to the cause."
To the cause? "Since when have you been political?" The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I am too surprised to care. My mother, the healer, who had never dared to say anything controversial about the Capitol, is going on about the cause? It is too bizarre.
She looks at me and I am suddenly struck how old she looked. My mother looks like she has aged ten years since I left for the arena the second time. "Since they drew one of my daughter's names and my other daughter went in her place," she replies in a low voice I've never heard before. "Since I watched them torture my child in mind and body on live television. Since they burned our home to the ground." I stare at her. The woman looking back at me is not the woman that left us to fend for ourselves after my father died. This defiance that is written all over her face must be the same fire she had in her when she ran off with my father so many years ago. In this moment, I am ashamed of myself. I am done with being an invalid. I don't want to stay in this bed a second longer.
"I want to see them," I say quietly, sitting up more and pushing the blankets aside. "Show me." I stagger to my feet and stumble a little. Prim reaches out and steadies me. With Prim helping to support me, we walk through the door.
I've never actually seen how large this hovercraft is. It feels like we pass miles of the gleaming metallic walls. It reminds me of the Capitol's hovercraft that transported us to and from the arena; only the Capitol hovercraft is built for comfort. This one is colder, sleeker, and seems to be welded from a single piece of steel. To someone who prefers the woods of all places like me, the sterility was unnerving. Unfazed at all, Prim moved through the unnaturally white light without comment. Maybe she had gotten used to it already, but I know it doesn't matter how long I am here, I would never get used to it. The cold of the floor seeps into my bare feet and I shiver. After navigating through the hovercraft for a while, Prim stops at a handrail and motions for me to look down at the first level.
Row after row of refugees huddle, tattered and dirty. It is clear that everyone here escaped with merely the clothes on their backs and nightmares. My eyes slide from one to another, scanning for familiar faces but not recognizing any. Although the number of people crammed in here is staggering, the petrifying realization was that the entire remaining population of District 12 could fit in this hovercraft.
Prim glances over at me. "They said that we are almost there."
I look out the window nearby and see that the terrain in this area is very different from District 12, different actually from any of the districts I had visited on tour. The red sandy ground is very flat and dotted with scruffy little plants. There are mountains and sparse rock formations that seem almost to be painted by a larger than life hand with great bands of colors. Even the dirt is colored, tinted red, and the variations of the reds and oranges of the land contrast captivatingly with the blue unending sky. It was beautiful in a very alien way. Yet, I could not see a way of living in this quiet place. Where would the game hide in a land barren of vegetation? I couldn't see any source of water in any direction. How could we grow what was needed without a source of water? How could anyone survive in a land where there is no water or nourishment to be found off the land?
We approach the biggest mountain of any of the ones we've seen and start to descend. To my amazement, the mountain splits open to create a gaping hole of darkness within. The hovercraft slips inside and begins to fly down vertically at a heart pounding speed in utter darkness. I feel sick and want to sit down but I don't, the curiosity and disbelief at the prospect of witnessing the survival of District 13 firsthand nailing me to my place at the window. We go down and down, until it is readily apparent that we were now traveling not within the mountain itself but in a deep catacomb underneath the earth. After a while, I begin to see the darkness lightening into a soft reddish glow. Craning my neck, the glow begins to solidify and I begin to see District 13. It is the strangest city I've ever seen. Buildings of all different sizes and shapes are crammed together on the floor of a gigantic cavern. They are not made of stone or any metal that I recognize. They are arrayed from bright steel to an ominous orange metal and despite the fact that the city is completely metallic, the city seems fused with the earth like an extension of the same design. I see as we approach closer that the buildings have the same bands of color that the rock formations at the surface level. The intensity and prevalence of the foreign orange metal caused the lights of the city to bounce off an eerie crimson glow.
"Copper," Plutarch had come up behind me so quietly that I jump at his words. "The city is made of a metal called copper. It's one of the natural resources of District 13 as well as uranium. The people of District 13 built this city a long time ago. They knew that there was always a chance that the Capitol would turn its technologies on them. Precautions were made. Look closer and you will see the staircases."
I squint my eyes and I see a multitude of half-crumbling rock staircases weaving steeply and dizzyingly from all directions into the city.
"They knew it was coming. There are entrances hidden all over the surface, marked with a sign that only those who belong here will recognize. Tell me, do you remember seeing anything at the surface level?"
"There wasn't anything except this mountain and some rocks."
"Precisely. The Capitol bombed it until there was no traces left of humanity here. They bombed everything until all that was left was dust. The people fled here as the city above was completely demolished. Of course, not everyone in the District was that lucky."
"So they have been living underground for seventy five years?" I stared at the city in disbelief. To never see the sun for a week would be devastating. But to never see the sun for years, even lifetimes for many of these people, to never know the feeling of its warmth on your face was horrifying. I felt a slight panic in wondering if today was the last day I would see the sun. How many times I had taken it for granted! Is this where my tomb will be, me the caged-bird pawn in the impeding war?
"Yes," Plutarch replies shortly, breaking my train of thought. A sudden lurch in my stomach announced the landing of our hovercraft. "It's good to have you back." He turns, presumably to go supervise the exodus of the refugees or something. There is still something about him that I don't trust. Is Plutarch the grand architect of the revolution, the puppet master of us all? Maybe. I look out at the city bathed in unnatural red light. I will be watching you, Plutarch. If it is you that is responsible for Peeta's death, I will kill you.
"Oh, and Katniss?" He turns back, a wry smile on his thin lips. I stare at him. There is definitely something reptilian about him.
"We need to talk."