"Some people don't want to be found when they run away. Some people don't want to stand up when they've been pushed down. Some people don't want to be helped when they've been beaten and abused. Some people don't want help when their lives are in shambles. And yes some people don't want to live when they've killed themselves."
I wake slowly and am incoherent, it seems, for much longer than I know I wish to be.
I feel people near by me. I hear the steady beep of a heart monitor and know where I am.
Six people sit around me. They are unfamiliar to me. Two blonde women rest their heads on one another on my right. An old man with sagging skin and a young-looking bronze haired man to my left. A man with dark hair lays farther to my left, and one final boy holds my hand.
I rip my hand from this man in disgust. They all begin to stir as I try to find a way to escape.
"You should have kept me locked up!" I shout before punching the bronze haired man between the ribs and then to the face.
The old man tries to grab my arms but I snap around to get a good blow to his neck knocking him down.
The man with dark hair comes at me next. I jab his groin before knocking him down. I try to run but the two blonde women get in my way. One knock to the head and the taller woman is down.
I shove the little one in the stomach so she too falls to the ground.
"Katniss!" The blonde boy grabs my hand. I whip around and grab his neck.
I begin to cut off his breath while I let out my rage, "Should have kept the little whore in cuffs shouldn't you?" He tries to speak behind my grasp, "Blubbering idiot! You'll pay for this!"
I feel arms take me away. The blonde crumbles to the ground.
I kick and scream against the strong grip of my enemy.
"Kill me already! Goddamnit kill me! I'm fucking done!" I scream and wrangle myself free and slap the old man who held me. "What are you going to do to me!? YOU'VE TAKEN EVERYTHING!" I scream and toss the man across the room.
Doctors run in and surround me. "Get sedatives! She could reopen her stitches!"
"Kill me!" I shout and struggle against them. I see the people I've knock down begin to come back to themselves. "I know that's all you want! Kill me! Just get it fucking over with!"
The doctors have strapped me to the bed by now and have shot my neck with something. My skin begins to crawl like the serum made me feel. Then I remember the flesh-eating mutants.
I scream and thrash against the mutants, they're there I know they are.
"She's not responding!" I hear a frantic voice say.
"Fuck off!" I remember the tortures they put me through, being on fire, being electrocuted, the whipping. Oh god damn.
"Why isn't she responding?"
"Leave me to die!" I shout at the voices. The voices of those who want me dead, no the voices of those who want to fuck me, and the voices of those who want me to burn.
The doctors move about and give me another dosage of something. My breathing just intensifies. The images of rape all flood back to me.
I begin to cry hysterically, "You've taken everything" I say defeated, "Leave me to die."
It is then I realize that they don't listen to prisoners pleas... Ever.
I feel more medicine plunge into my blood stream and I slip away into the endless void of sleep.
I wake up alone, well, at least I feel alone.
"Morning sunshine" I hear. I try to move as my eyes adjust to the light. "You told us to Sweetheart." The old man is sitting at my bedside.
"Where... Fuck that who are? When will Snow get here?" I ask.
He looks at me sadly, "Sweetheart, Snow isn't here. You're in District Thirteen."
"Yeah right you fucking bastard just tell me what you're going to do to me next!"
"Calm down, you really are in District Thirteen."
"...Who are you? Why should I trust you?"
"Do you really not remember sweetheart?" He asks.
"I can't allow myself to remember." I say thinking back to my confinement, to that room where my blood will remained forever.
"I'm Haymitch, remember? I was your mentor for the Hunger Games." I think back, at one time the Hunger Games had been the worst thing to happen to me, but now...
"It's vague." I say.
"What is?"
"Those days... The days before... If you're from District Thirteen for real then you know what happened to me since I was captured!" I realize.
"All those transmissions were so badly received we didn't understand them." He says.
"Lair." I say.
"I am many things, a liar is not one of them." He states.
"...What happened?"
"Katniss... You have to tell us that, so we can help you." He looks concerned but I feel too strangely and undecided about him yet.
"I can't be helped." I say.
"Everyone can b-"
"No you don't understand, I've seen too much. I've done so much wrong... I can't... I" I feel suddenly very angry at his prying. I try to free myself, he just wants to hurt me. He wants to hurt me like Snow hurt me.
"Kid, stop it!" He pins down my shoulders, "Look at me kid! Come back to me, you're safe"
"I'll never be safe" I retaliate calmly. "Never... Never."
"You're safe here I promise." I shake my head still. He gets off me because my anger has faded away. "All we know from your torture is that Snow put something in your system that makes you have 'episodes'." He says to me.
"He did more than give me a little fucking episode." I say.
"I know," He sighs.
"Tell me who were those people in here earlier?" I ask.
"Those women were your mother and little sister." He pauses as if I'll remember something. "Finnick was here... And your best friend Gale... And Peeta."
"Did I hurt anyone badly?" I ask.
"Not physically" He sighs.
"What does that mean?"
"Do you remember anything at all before your capture?"
"I don't want to try." I shiver.
"... Your family... Your friends they need you back."
"I can't" I say.
"Seeing you like a Capitol drone is killing them."
"I'm sorry, but what do they want from me? To forget every time I was..." I swallow the word rape. I can't even say it. I see every face who ever violated me and instead start to cry.
"It's okay now Sweetheart." He says.
"It will never be okay." I say back through sobs. He's silent then. I like silence better than words. He takes my hand but does nothing more than lets me cry. "How long?" I ask.
"You were gone for about four months."
"And-And you don't know what happened to me?" I stutter.
"We don't know. Only what Johanna has told us."
"Jo-Johanna?"
"She's safe. She's here too." He again lets me cry until I can't anymore, "Katniss, I want to you to remember this okay?"
"Why?"
"This is rock bottom, this is the lowest you'll sink. Remember it and never come back."
"... What?"
"Get better" He says and leave my side so a nurse can come and insert an IV drip.
Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese Proverb
