As I walk by one of the doors I hear a quiet sob. I stop walking and press my ear to the door. I hear the sob again and then a voice.
"I'm so sorry." I immediately recognize the voice as Athena. I remove my ear from the door and knock gently. All sound in the room stops and I hear a pair of footsteps approach the door.
Her new face appears and it takes me off guard for a moment, I'm still not used to the new faces.
"Are you okay?" I ask her, noticing the wet lines on her face.
"Fine." She says curtly, her tone higher than usual, as she begins to close his door. I slip my hand in the way before the door closes and prevent her from closing it.
"Let me help." I tell her, looking her in the eyes. She sighs and opens the door, allowing me access. Her room is similar to mine, however hers lacks the many medical machines that mine holds.
She closes the door behind me and crosses her arms over her chest as she looks at me, a slow stream of tears creating a shiny path down her face. We stand in silence for a few moments before I speak.
"I'm not very good at this." I announce, hoping to change the mood.
"I gathered." Athena says in reply, her voice sounding tired and beyond hope. I run a hand through my hair, slightly surprised when I find the new strands of thin hair as opposed to my usual thick locks.
"How do you take it so well?" Athena asks me in desperation. Her tone is exhausted and I can tell theres something seriously wrong.
"What do you mean?" I ask her, taking a step toward her. Athena rolls her eyes, which I take as a good sign.
"I mean all of this." She gestures around us at the room we're standing in. "You woke up this morning after we were supposed to be dead, found out your brother albeit everyone else thinks we're still dead, get completely made over and told you'll have a completely new life and here you are, fine and dandy. How the hell are you not messed up?" Athena stands panting after nearly yelling her speech. I stand before her, stunned by her words. She'd been so happy all day, showing no signs at all of being scared or affected by this. I look to my feet and still feel the blank, affectless feeling sitting deep within me. I raise my focus once more to Athena.
"I don't feel anything." I tell her. "Its like I'm watching a film, totally removed from what's going on, just along for the ride. I feel like I haven't registered what's happening." Athena scoffs.
"You have no idea how much I envy you right now." Her words confuse me, and I feel this is evident on my expression.
"You envy me? I don't care that I killed eight kids in the past week. I don't care that my entire family thinks I'm dead. I don't care that my brother is alive somewhere out there, thinking I died in his arms! I don't care that my fiance watched me fall in love with someone else! I don't care about anything at all and you envy me?" I'm shouting loudly when I stop, and Athena seems so small I could crush her between my fingers. I glare at her for a good minute before I open the door to her room and storm out, not regretting a single word I said. I slam the door behind me and see a girl poke her head out from her own room. She sees me and quickly closes her door once more.
My heart is beating so loudly I can hardly stand it. The rhythmic beat reminds me of how I shouldn't be alive, how I should be cold in a casket by now. I find my feet absentmindedly carrying me somewhere, and it isn't until I stand in front of a door until I realize where I am, or rather with who I want to be. My hand is raised in a fist in front of a door after knocking three short taps on the processed wood. After a moment Cassius' new face opens the door. I quickly launch myself toward him, needing some sort of comfort, some sort of feeling.
He takes a few steps back in surprise before I feel him lay a hand over my shoulder and back, embracing me. He closes the door softly behind me and we stand in silence for what feels like a long time.
"This is so wrong." I whisper, more to myself than anything else. Cassius' grip on me tightens.
"What's wrong?" He asks me. I don't reply.
Another long period of time passes before he speaks to me.
"It'll get easier." I shake my head slightly.
"I should go." I say, unwillingly removing myself from Cassius' arms.
"You never told me what was wrong." He says. I look at him with his new face. He looks so stern and intimidating right now, with his black hair messy from what I assume was sleep. He'd make a good politician from his looks, intimidating and stern. He looks like someone who would stick to their guns.
I look to the ground, trying to formulate a reply however no words seem to describe my feelings, or lack there of.
"How do you feel about all this?" I ask Cassius, studying his new light blue eyes. He pauses for a moment, thinking over the question I just asked.
"Shame." He decides. "My little sister is going to be living alone and afraid, while I'm here, living among the richest people in Pamen while for all I know she could be alone in the streets." I see him zone out for a moment, his eyes focusing on something in the distance that I can't see.
"Tell me about her." I request, realizing I hardly know anything about Cassius outside of the games. He looks at me briefly and then zones out once more.
"She's thirteen. You wouldn't be able to tell from just seeing her though, she looks about sixteen. Although she's nothing like me. She's a brunette for starters and the sassiest kid I've ever met. But she's sad. She was only really getting to know our parents, they left when I was reaping age, I was twelve and she was seven. She would wake up in the night calling for our dad and I'd have to remind her it was just us. It killed me every night. We were far from rich, but we were off the streets. I had a job in a brewery, crafting beers for the Capitol. She took jobs here and there selling perfumes, they took a cute kid and guilted others into buying goods from her. We never starved and were happy for the most part. But then I lost my job. It was hard to make ends meet and I couldn't pay the rent anymore. One is expensive to live in. I was sixteen and knew the only way to be able to secure a good life for both of us was to enter the games. I enrolled in one of the illegal training schools in the district. The night before my reaping I told her what I was going to do. She cried a lot that night. I can't say she was the only one. When she came to see me in the visiting rooms I told her to lock the doors and stay inside while I was gone and not to talk to anyone unless they promised her something in return. She was so sweet and innocent. And now she's afraid and alone." When he finishes his eyes are distant and glossy as silent tears cascade down his cheeks. His lips quiver with his final words.
I want to comfort him in some way but despite only knowing Cassius for a short period of time I know he'll find more comfort in touch. I pull him into a hug and I can tell this was the right thing to do as his sobs begin to dissipate after a few moments.
"Look at me blubbering like a baby right in front of you." He says when we separate, drying his eyes with the sleeve of his white, long sleeved shirt.
"What's her name?" I ask Cassius and he looks at me seriously for a moment.
"Reina." He says as I watch his face go distant once more. We stand in silence until a loud bang erupts from outside the window. Cassius remains where he is, now sobered from his distant mindset while I quickly walk over to the window and peek out at the Capitol below.
It's dark apart from the artificial lights of the many neon screens that have begun to flicker from their videos and a white screen. I watch as a large group of people in white uniforms run into the square and tackle two others to the ground. I cover my mouth with a hand as I hear two more bangs and watch the peacekeepers drag the two limp forms away. I look back at the screen and see the white has taken over, displaying a line of red writing over the white background.
I have to squint to read the writing but it soon comes into focus and I read the words:
'Free the Mellarks'