Chapter 34: Conspiracy For Saving The Fallen
Author's note: Sorry for the lateness of my update, I was having writers-block, working on other projects, and I've been distracted because I've been take time out of my writing time because I've been reading the 'Divergent' series for the first time. I don't think I wrote this chapter very well. I was debating with myself and I wasn't sure which direction to take the plot, but I settled on one. Enjoy.
Day 16 of the Games, Caesar Flickerman's Talk-Show, 1 minute after the Games ended:
"And there you have it ladies and gentlemen!" said Caesar excitedly. "And what an unexpected ending that was!"
The audience cheered and applauded.
"This year's Victor of the 76th Hunger Games, Amanda Snow The Minotaur Slayer. And thanks to the mercy of both Amanda Snow, the Gamemakers, and our fair President, David Crane gets to share in the Victor's Crown. The Victors will take as much time as they need in order to recover. Please tune in at a later date for the 'Victor's Closing Ceremony'. In the meantime, that is all for now. Goodnight everybody!"
Training Center, 2 days after the Games:
Amanda lay in the medical ward at the Training Center in the Capitol. She had just woken up. She was wearing a hospital gown under a clean soft sheet. The last thing she remembered was being taken into an 'operating room' within the catacombs beneath the arena and then Katniss Everdeen's mother Doctor Everdeen saying that they were going to put her to sleep for the surgery, and then she was injected with a dose of sedative. She felt clean, as though she had just finished drying off after bathing. She still was in pain but it was significantly less pain than before, it felt like some slightly bruised muscles and tension and stiffness. She looked up at a face as her temporarily blurry vision came into focus. The face was orange-skinned and snow-white hair.
"Mom?" said Amanda, not sure, though the distinctive color was a dead give away that it was highly unlikely that it could be anyone else.
"Yes sweetie, it's me." she said tenderly in her strange Capitol accent. "I missed you so much. And now I'm just glad you're alive and safe. And will I ever have to cook again?"
They both chuckled at the last part.
"How long have I been out?" asked Amanda.
"Two days." said Amanda's mother. "They wanted to make sure that you would make a full recovery, which they have reassured that you will."
Amanda was then handed a hand mirror. Amanda then realized that her hands were wrapped in hand-braces, and were still hurting a little. Amanda looked at her reflection and saw that 99 percent of the scars on her face we're completely gone and the remaining 1 percent were hardly noticeable.
"And I'm not alone." said Ellizerella Snow.
Amanda looked behind her mother and saw her stylist Zoe Bluth, her Mentor Katniss Everdeen, Katniss's mother Doctor Everdeen, and her yellow-skinned friend Lisa Derrick and her ally Susanna Xavier.
Her full attention was on the last two. For a moment she thought that perhaps the electric signal from her eye's optic-nerve to her brain had made some kind of mistake. She thought maybe it had to be either the Sleep-syrup or the Morphling.
"Lisa? Susanna?" she said with shock and confusion.
Lisa looked perfectly fine, while Susanna had some half healed scars, a cast on one leg, and walked with a crutch.
"In the flesh. Alive and well." said Lisa.
She came forward and they hugged. Lisa squeezed a little too hard and Amanda felt a slight stabbing sensation in one of her ribs.
"Oww!" she grunted as she shut her eyes and scrunched up her face.
"Sorry!" said Lisa. "They gave you this super special miracle drug and medical operation that speeds up the physical body's healing process by like twenty times faster... or something-like-that. But you still need to take it easy for a little while."
Amanda still looked at her with surprise and curiosity.
"You're alive?" she repeated.
"Yes." Lisa confirmed.
"But how? Susanna, I heard your cannon fire while I held your bloody cheeks in my hands? And Lisa, what happened? I never saw you come up to the surface of the water when the grassland island sank?"
"My feet got tangled in the tall grass when the island sank." said Lisa. "As for me being alive, it was a conspiracy. The High Ranking District Officials that now run the Capitol that wanted to stop the killing of the kids and did not want the Hunger Games to continue. They made secret arrangements for the Doctors and medics to try to revive the dead tributes after their bodies were collected. We were to be held in secret until the end of the Games where everyone will be told that we are not dead and we would be returned to our families."
Amanda was then curious.
"They can revive the Dead Tributes?" asked Amanda.
Susanna responded.
"Actually, with our modern day medical science, reviving a dead tribute is not entirely that difficult depending on the injuries that they have. For example, if a tribute dies of let's say a severe stab wound to the heart, it would not be that difficult after the body is collected from the arena for paramedics to keep the brain oxygenated while they transplant the tribute a new heart."
It seemed logical. It made sense there were plenty of tributes in the past in The Hunger Games who could have been revived after their bodies were collected from the arena had they gotten immediate surgery. President Snow of course would not have done such a thing, as it would have defeated the whole purpose of what the Hunger Games stood for, (also he was just plain evil). President Paylor however, though she was reluctantly willing to hold the Games, but Amanda got the idea that President Paylor just plain didn't have the stomach for killing Capitol kids that her grandfather had. It then made sense to Amanda that President Paylor, in order to make the Capitol suffer the Games but not hurt anyone, would secretly have the 76th Games just be an 'exhibition Games'. Though of course there would be certain physical wounds that medically could not be healed.
"Were all of the tributes able to be saved?" asked Amanda.
"No." said Zoe Bluth. "Dennis Green, of who you beheaded... was not able to be revived."
'No surprise there.' thought Amanda.
"Have you heard the nickname that everyone is calling you?" asked Susanna.
Amanda frowned in confusion.
"Nickname?" said Amanda.
Susanna then hobbled on her one good leg and her crutch over to the TV screen that was beside Amanda's bed. She then turned on the TV and began tapping on what turned out to be a holographic keyboard where some computer files were then brought up on the TV screen. She then typed in a function called, 'Hunger Games Tapes - Time Index'. When she selected a certain one and then hit enter a video recording appeared on the screen.
Amanda saw footage from what must have been a hidden camera on one of the Roman spires from the Egyptian desert zooming in for a close-up. She saw herself in her dirty Hunger Games clothes, half healed scars on her face, and long pink hair. The Minotaur was swinging its heavy chained spiked-ball at her again and again and she dodged out of the way every time. She then saw herself on the screen lure the Minotaur onto the stone ledge of the Ziggurat, impale the creature through the heart with her second sword, and push the stone gargoyle on top of it where it then fell to the ground and was buried in rubble. She then saw herself from add very dramatic camera angle as she slid down the Ziggurat and she saw how she then looked in that shot, she looked like a fierce wild woman, her long pink hair flying in the wind looked like fire on her head. Then she walked up behind the Minotaur, told The Legend of Theseus, defied the Gamemakers for trying to kill her and stabbed it through the head with her titanium sword.
Even she was in awe at herself as she watched this dramatic and magnificent scene of a Hunger Games peril by the point of view of the audience.
Susanna Xavier then hit pause on the video screen.
"Amanda Snow the Minotaur Slayer." said Suzanna. "That is what everyone is calling you. I know it's a little childish and stupid, but if you don't like it, well I'm afraid you're going to have to endure it because I gotta feeling that people are going to be calling you that for the rest of your life. But don't take it personally, take it as a compliment, the malcontents that wanted you dead in the arena, they all support you now. Oh yeah, and I stand corrected about what I said to you in the tropical paradise island when I made the anecdote about you and I fighting each other in the end. Well I will just say I am so glad that it didn't come down to you and me because after what I just saw with you and the Minotaur and then how you kicked David Crane's butt, I stand corrected when I say, I never would have stood a chance in a fight against you."
Amanda smiled consolingly.
"Don't talk like that Susanna. Me and David were just too evenly matched and I got lucky. In a fight against you and I, you would have torn me to pieces."
Susanna waved off Amanda's last remark as though it was nothing and said that she still stood corrected on what she had said.
"Oh yeah, what in the world was it with the mutts trying to kill me when I got into the top two?" asked Amanda.
"There was one Gamemaker that defected to the malcontents that wanted you dead. He reprogrammed the mutts you fought to kill you on the maximum difficulty level. But since you beat them anyway, it just gives you all the more credit."
That then made sense to Amanda.
"So, all of our allies are alive?" asked Amanda, thinking of Blaze.
"All but one." said Lisa sorrowfully.
Susanna typed in another time index on the holographic keypad of the TV screen and it showed the bloodbath fight at the cornucopia. On the screen Amanda saw Giovanni Leon bury the head of a short handled sledge hammer deep into May Salmon's skull.
"I'm afraid that May Salmon's injuries were too severe for her to be revived." said Susanna.
"I asked a moment ago if all of the tributes could be saved and you said no, and that Dennis Green to whom was beheaded did not survive?" said Amanda with humanitarian concern for her fellow tributes. "Who else didn't survive?"
"Joyce Harrison, Harley Dillon, Janis Miller, Giovanni Leon, and Randy Bing." said Katniss. "Relatively, any Tribute that died of excessive brain damage, or a severed spinal-cord above the fourth vertebrae down the back of the neck, could not be revived."
"So, the other three Tributes I killed, besides Dennis Green?" asked Amanda.
"Breanna Crane and Sherman Griffin's injuries after their deaths were relatively mild and easily repairable by the medics after their bodies were collected after the bloodbath fight." said Zoe Bluth.
"And Irene Avion?" asked Amanda.
"She's still in recovery." explained Doctor Everdeen. "Her injuries were a lot more extensive than the other two. Multiple cuts, lacerations, stab wounds, broken bones, severe bruising, blood-loss, punctured lung, multiple organs impaled by weapons, and a severed forearm. After we collected her body from the arena, we managed to keep her brain oxygenated until we could restart her heart, and we also managed to surgically reattach her arm. She will make a full recovery in patient time and be beautiful and married to her boyfriend before long."
"Well, that's a relief." said Amanda. She then looked around the room for more people. "What about Blaze and Hector?"
"Both Hector and Blaze's wounds were not too severe." explained Doctor Everdeen. "Fortunately for Hector, Martha Filmer's barbaric torture method deliberately avoided vital areas of the body. Basically he just bled a lot and died of blood loss, an easily fixable problem. When we collected his body, we just kept his brain oxygenated until we had fully replenished his oxygen carrying liquid volume inside his blood-veins and then we restarted his heart. As for Blaze, he had a small handful of cuts and bruises, which were non-fatal. Then with the deep slash in his neck he basically died by his lungs drowning to death in his own blood. After we collected his body from the arena, closing the wound on the wall of the inside of his wind pipe and then draining the blood out of his lungs was not too difficult, and then restarting his heart."
"Where are they?" asked Amanda wondering why they were not there in the room waiting for her to wake up.
"Hector stepped out of the room briefly." said Katniss. "Blaze is still in recovery after his neck was slashed, but he will be up and about in a few more hours."
"What was the point of even holding the Games if President Paylor was just going to bring them back to life?" asked Amanda.
"Well actually, she didn't know." said Susanna. "The other Officials who didn't want to hold the Games made secret arrangements without her knowing. They told her right after the Games were over. She was not upset."
"What about David Crane?" said Amanda, a note of concern in her voice. "I sacrificed my victory for him!"
The looks on their faces were then half amused half disappointed.
"Oh Amanda. You really did a number on him." said Elizarella.
"Umm, Hello!" said Amanda gesturing to her own formerly battered body, now half healed. "He did a number on me!"
"He's in a coma." said Doctor Everdeen. "Multiple whip lashes, multiple cuts and stab wounds, three broken ribs, severe head trauma, brain damage, shattered skull, and more than enough blood loss that he should have died. I don't know how he was still alive when we got him out of the arena."
"Guess he was just lucky." said Amanda. "And since his sister is alive, he won the Games, and I didn't kill him, hopefully he'll have no vengeance on his mind when he comes out of that coma."
Everyone was quiet for awhile.
"Can I get up and walk?" asked Amanda to Doctor Everdeen. "I feel like I just need to get the blood flowing, you know what I mean?."
Amanda was then allowed to move around as long as she took it easy.
Later, her prep team gave her her long awaited spa treatment, as she relaxed and luxuriated in their professional hands.
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