Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened that evening, or the next day. Time slipped away and only the dusk, darkness and then light again filling the room told me that time was even passing at all. There was no more noises from outside in the corridor, no one came to the door. We could have been the only two people left in the world.
There was no more food and by the evening of the day after I arrived I was beginning to wish I hadn't rejected all the first lot of food. When I glanced longingly towards the door Hazel followed my gaze.
"They only bring food some days. Occasionally it's a few days in a row. Though once it was three days wait." I looked across at her but she just looked away, turning her gaze back to the small window out of which she had been staring since sunlight had flooded the room that morning.
After her burst of communication last night she had barely said a word at all to me, even when I had asked her occasional things. Most of the time it was as if she simply didn't hear me, lost in her thoughts or somewhere even darker perhaps, as completely cut off from the physical world in her mind as we were in our bodies.
The night had been awful and I hadn't slept, though I think Hazel had. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes between her waking state and her sleeping state. There was a little pile of blankets in one corner which she had wrapped herself in after nudging one towards me. Even with it wrapped tight around my shoulders the cold mountain air still got through and I sat curled in a corner the entire night, shivering, and trying not to be transported back to the frozen night of my Arena. My first Arena I had to remind myself. Lord I never thought I'd have to qualify which Arena I was thinking about. For a few hours I even tried to think about the more recent one, in an attempt to banish the cold clutching at my body, with thoughts of the thick, humid air of the jungle and the relentless sun beating down upon the burning sand. It didn't work though. I was still cold and then in addition the screams of the monkeys and the feel of thick blood rain coating my body came back and refused to go even when I closed my eyes and firmly tried to think of other things. I was infinitely grateful when the first rays of sun crept into the room, though I don't know why. It wasn't as if the day represented the start of anything, which I realised soon enough as we simply continued to spend the day as we had the night, in silence and with Hazel staring at the window and me trying to appease the thoughts that were too loud in my mind.
I think it was probably by late afternoon that I lost it, though without a way of telling the time I really couldn't be sure. I had spent several hours at least just staring across the room watching Hazel as she sat perfectly still and stared out the window, her only movements the occasional blinking of her eyes. From here I couldn't even see the movement of her breathing. My control snapping in an instant I slammed my hand against the wall and shouted at her. "What the hell Hazel? Why are you just sitting there? There's got to be something, a way out, something!
They were words of desperation, even I knew that, but at the sound of my raised voice she just turned her head, looking calmly at me and it was enough to make me pause, breathing hard with panic and anger and staring wildly at her. She'd been here, what? Two years? Of course if there was a way out she would have found it by now. Realising that only made my panic increase though. I couldn't stay here, I could not stay locked up in this room with only Hazel to talk to for Panem knew how long. What if they just left us here till we died? How long would that take? Months? Years? Decades? I'd always like to be on my own, never had a problem with it, but suddenly now that it was completely out of my hands the thought terrified me.
My breathing picking up I rose restlessly to my feet and began to pace the small room. Three steps wide. Counting them just made me panic more and on the next stride I slammed into the wall, banging my palms flat against the metal door. It let out a loud clang that echoed through the building. I heard Hazel murmur something behind me but ignored it. My anger and panic were roaring in my ears now, preventing me from thinking logically. I screamed out at the top of my lungs and slammed my arms against the door again. The noise was satisfyingly loud. Again and again I hit and kicked the door, shouting at anyone all the insults I could think of. It made me feel better and when I heard a shout from outside and the heavy sound of footsteps triumph flooded through me. I had got a reaction from them, even though the logical voice in my head was telling me that was probably a bad thing, at this moment it felt the closest to control. I screamed again and kicked the door one last time before it flew open and an armoured Peacekeeper stormed into the room. Without hesitating I flew at him, suddenly wanting to take out all my anger and fear on this faceless enemy. My nails raking against him and my teeth sinking into his arm were useless with his padded armour but I felt grimly satisfied with simply attacking something, right up until he slammed me into the wall and everything went black.
It was evening by the time I opened my eyes, I could tell from the greyish light that filled the room. Blinking against the blurriness in my vision, and trying to ignore the aching throb in my head, I sat up and looked around the room.
"Evening, sleeping beauty," Hazel remarked from next to me, shoving something at me. I took it and blinked down, taking a few seconds to process that I was holding a bread roll. My stomach turned at the thought of food, even as unappetising at this, and I knew I couldn't give it to Hazel again. She seemed to agree. "Eat it, Enobaria. We're going to be here for a while, you're going to have to eat."
I lifted the roll to my mouth and took a small, cautious nibble. The bread was hard and flaky but it was food. I repositioned myself against the wall, bringing my knees up to my chest and took another nibble, looking at Hazel. She slid a tin mug filled with water across the floor towards me. "You must have been tired," she said conversationally. "You've been out for almost a day."
"What?" I said in surprise. How could I have been asleep for that long? Especially as I was pretty sure I felt more bone tired and terrible than I had before. I guess the adrenalin had finally worn off because now my body was just one big aching agony. Placing the roll down carefully on the ground I took the cup and drank. The water was cool and refreshing but it had a strange metallic tinge to it that made me pull a face.
"You get used to it," Hazel said dryly, and I had a feeling she wasn't just talking about the water.
Slowly I lowered the cup and looked at her closely. "How do you do it, Hazel? I can't stand it. How have you done it this long?"
She held my gaze for a long moment and then it flicked away, towards the window again. She was absently pulling pieces of her roll apart in her hands. "What's the alternative?"
I couldn't answer her question. We both knew there was only one alternative and as Victor's our survival instincts were too strong to let us truly contemplate that. It was one thing giving yourself up to circumstances that involved death, as I had when I volunteered for the Quarter Quell, but it was another to actively pursue death. We'd both been through too much to make that fateful decision now.
"Besides," Hazel added bitterly, pulling me back from my thoughts to the small room. "It's not like we don't get visitors." I frowned in confusion and she looked back at me, her gaze steady and solemn but completely hollow. "Sometimes the guards get bored," she explained flatly.
I think it was about six night times before I understood what she meant and I really wished I didn't. Deep down I'd known, but I'd been to afraid to ask her to properly explain so I'd left it. Somehow we survived each set of light time and then dark time. I honestly don't know how, except for what Hazel had said. We didn't have a choice. There really was nothing to do but wait and every minute you thought surely you couldn't survive another second of it but then ten of those minutes had clumped together and then an hour and then it was dark again and somehow you realised that you had survived another day. I almost envied Hazel the long amounts of time she could simply disappear into her head. I was left with almost every moment painfully aware and counting and wondering and worst of all thinking.
Six nights and five meals of exactly the same food and then just before dusk was creeping in there was the unexpected sound of the door opening. I had had my head buried in my arms, simply hoping I could just fall asleep, but lifted it when I realised the noises I'd thought were in my imagination were actually real and in front of me. There was laughter, then the clunk of the door, then footsteps. I blinked and crept so that my back was against the solid surface of the wall and glanced apprehensively towards Hazel. She was watching the door too, finally broken from her thoughts, but when she looked at me I felt panic rise in my throat almost like a scream that I couldn't get passed my lips.
Three men came into the room, one of them laughing at something another one had said. They wore white guard uniforms but didn't have their heavy padded armour or their helmets on and I could see their faces. They weren't Capitol, they were district, obviously. Almost all Peacekeepers were. Anxiously I studied their faces, wondering if they were from my home as most Peacekeepers were. I wasn't even sure what I hoped if I recognised one of them. Mercy? They were unfamiliar though and their eyes skimmed over the two of us as the Capitol people's did, as if they didn't even recognise us as human, let alone as one of them.
After it was over I stayed where I was, curling into a little ball on the cold floor and covering my head with my arms, surrounding myself with darkness deeper than the night time that by then had flooded the room. It didn't feel better though and it couldn't take away the reality of what had just happened. My throat hurt and I vaguely thought it was from screaming, though I didn't recall consciously doing it. Everything hurt.
I couldn't even cry. I couldn't think and at times it felt like I couldn't even breathe. This was worse than the Capitol, so much worse, and there definitely wasn't any Morphling now to take away the reality of the situation. I found myself drifting and remembering a conversation I had once had with Hazel in my apartment in the Capitol. Raven had vanished, Ramona had just left with her smug smile, and Hazel had barged her way in, confidant, bold, and dark, ignoring my anger and offering me something surprisingly kind. She's always been kind to me, in her own dark, distant way.
I was pulled from my memories by the light press of fingertips on my shoulder and I jumped, arms tightening instinctively around my knees and head, curling into myself like I had watched beetles do as a child, turning from a defenceless creature in seconds to a small silvery ball of armour that nothing it seemed could penetrate. I imagined myself as one of those beetles and wished that I wasn't instead a useless, vulnerable human being. All the fighting and killing skills in the world didn't help me now did they? The fingertips paused and then trailed lightly till they were tangled in my hair and I felt myself shaking. It was Hazel though, I knew that. We were alone again, alone and locked away. It didn't feel like we were alone though, because there was nothing but a door between us and the outside world, a door to which there were many keys. I felt a strangled sob catch in my throat and was ashamed at myself for the response even as it happened.
Hazel murmured something that I couldn't make out, though I don't know whether that was because of the level of her voice or the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears. A part of me knew I was being pathetic, that I had to be stronger than this. Much worse things had happened, could happen, probably would happen. I wasn't defeated by anything. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't win the argument in my head so I just stayed there unable to move and shivered every time Hazel's fingers ran a light, gentle course through my hair, before lifting and doing it again.
It was comforting after a while, or numbing, I'm not sure which, and the rhythmic pattern lulled me into a sleep I wasn't sure was entirely welcome.
The following morning I kept my eyes firmly closed against the persistent morning light. After my first torturous night in the Capitol I remembered thinking 'I'm 17, I'm too young to deal with this', but it seemed age and experience made no difference because now I was 25 and still just as unable to comprehend it all. As always I dealt with it the only way I knew how. I simply stopped thinking.
A/N: I want to thank Vertiser so so so much. Your reviews of my various stories have all given me so much encouragement and happiness. Thank you, you are so very kind. Especially your last review on Steel, which I read the morning of my birthday and I swear made my whole day! You are my motivation to keep posting these chapters now so thank you for giving me that too. I hope you enjoy the chapter.
- Lu