"Clothes will be on the back of the door." doc said and placed the clothes on the hook that was on the door.
"Thanks." I said.
Doc shuts the door, and then went to prep his equipment and the table. I take my clothes off and get in the shower. The three faces that I saw in my brief respite down in the sewers were Katniss, another was my wife Annie, and the last face was my mentor Mags. As I wash my body, I can feel the dirt and grime being flushed from my pores and the wounds I had acquired over the past three days since we've been on the run. I really have no clue what it's in these bottles that I'm using, but I feel like years are being taken off of my body and layers of my skin are being repaired. I can feel my body being rejuvenated in this shower.
As I'm finishing my shower, my mind wanders to the thousands of times I had done over the past nine years. I begin to wonder what I will dream of when doc puts me under. Will I dream of the times I spent in the district, or the years as the Darling of the Capitol where I was pimped out by Snow himself to keep the citizens happy, but at the same time I was used by Snow to entrap and remove his rivals. Those were very dark days, assisting in removing his rivals. Or will it be those nightmarish days when I was a contestant in the Hunger Games. The second wasn't so bad. The first time was ridiculous, I don't know how those kids in the past even survived. The shower turns off, and then the fans kick on to blow me off.
I never did like these fans. They always mess my hair up. I thought after the fans had shut off.
I get out of the shower and pull on the fresh clothes that doc had left for me. I exit the bathroom and turn left to see the table and all of the tubes and vials are that going to be used in this operation.
"Do you want long and drawn-out version, or should I just hook you up and get this thing started?" doc asked.
"Let's get this party started. The rebels will be here within a couple of days, and I don't have time to read the fine print." I said as I was getting on the table and lying down.
"Your going to feel a slight prick, but then everything is going to be just fine." doc said.
"Ah! That was more than a slight prick…" I trailed off.
I didn't get to finish my sentence because the drugs that doc had pumped into my system had already taken affect and knocked me out.
"Of all the people to have this life forced upon them, I never would expected you to have suffered it." doc said, and then started the detox.
S.D.D.
In the dark recess of my mind, I can see scenes from my past: the fight in the sewers against the mutts, the flight throughout the Capitol trying to stay alive, and undetected. The five months suffering while Annie was in the Capitol being tortured. The Quarter Quell Games. The Seventy-Fourth Games. The long years as the prostitute that Snow used to do his bidding, and keeps his constituents satisfied. My skin crawls every time I think of those days.
I think of my time in the Sixty-Fifth games and all the people that I killed to get out of that mess alive. I remember my district partner—Coral Ashbrook—she wasn't one to play by the books. I was willing to follow her, but somehow, we got strongarmed into work with the other Careers. I was perfectly content with the two of us striking out on our own. Wait a minute. Now that I think about it Coral changed her mind the moment we entered arena. I'm not exactly sure what sparked the change, but I went along with it anyways. When we gather to get our weapons Coral said that we should hang with the Careers. I didn't get to object because she literally put her foot down with an air of finality, so there really wasn't much to discuss.
I think of how my father explained that he wasn't my real father. He happened to be walking on the outskirts of the district we he saw a downed hovercraft. The vehicle was empty, but he heard the soft cry of an infant. He opened a hatch and found me inside. If I had to guess who knew the truth of my birth Doc would know, but he kept changing the subject every time I brought it up. When I wake from this nightmarish landscape, nothing about this blackness is comforting, I'm going to get him to come clean. Although some of my earliest memories were in a gaudy room. If I had to guess, I was born in the Capitol. Whether my father was from the Capitol and my mom was from the districts, or vice versa, I will never know. If I had to guess, whoever was from the district must have been a victor; that's the only reasonable explanation. That and the fact that Snow said that I was property of the Capitol.
I look at the screen and saw scenes of my life flash across it, and I made a wild guess as I reached my hand out. A holographic keyboard appeared in front of me, but I didn't have a lot of options. I take the stream all the way back to the beginning. It only goes as far back as the day I arrived in District 4. I try to take the stream further back, but it stops the moment my father opened the hatch.
I guess I will have to wait to find out the identities of my birth parents from doc when I wake up. I thought and then I lose consciousness.
S.D.D.
Twenty-five years earlier: Outskirts of District 4-
A man was wondering out on the perimeter of the district when he notices a weird structure. When he gets closer he realizes that it's a tarp, but what was under it is what really shocked him: a hovercraft. And it had a Capitol seal on its belly. The man had seen the people from the Capitol use these all the time, but why is a hovercraft all the way out here. He has experience of how they work, so he looks around to make sure no one is watching, and then goes under the tarp.
Fifteen minutes later, the man peaks out from under the tarp, checking to see if the coast was clear, and then makes a beeline back to the district. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, and the contents of the bag were squirming. The man softly talks to the bag, and it stops moving. He thinks of his wife, and how she just had a miscarriage two nights ago. It's a bit cruel, but this should brighten her spirits.
As the man approached his house, he starts to contemplate how it will now be a home because of the package he is carrying.
"Babe." he calls out as he enters.
"Yes, Neam." Aldera said, entering the kitchen.
"I have…um…a present for you." Neam said, entering the kitchen
"Pres…" she gasped when she saw the child that her husband was carrying.
Aldera was in tears when she saw the baby and didn't want to take the child at first.
"He needs to be fed." he said, approaching his wife.
Aldera had tears pouring down her face as she took the child. Aldera sat down, pull her shirt down exposing her breast, and held the child close to her breast. The child latched onto the breast and started to feed. Aldera had tears streaming down her face, and then she kissed her husband. Even if the child isn't theirs, Aldera is still happy to be able to give life to the next generation.
"What do you know about the child?" she asked.
"His name is Finnick Odair." he said shortly.
"That's it, just his name?" she asked.
"Yeah, just a name." he said, omitting the fact that he found me in an abandoned hovercraft on the perimeter of the district.
Neam knows that section of the fences doesn't have any cameras, so he goes out there to think. The miscarriage was rough on both of them, but Aldera was taking it much harder and lashing out often. It wasn't Aldera's fault, Neam knew that, but they've been trying to conceive for three years now.
"Um…what are we going to tell the others?" she asked.
"Technically, I found him abandoned on the outskirts of town." he said.
"A squatter's baby. Better here than in that dump." she said.
"Yes, better here than out there." he echoed.
Normally, Aldera could tell if Neam was lying or hiding something, but she was so enamored with me that she wasn't paying attention to her husband.
I stopped feeding, and Aldera burped me. I had a full stomach and fell into a food coma. Aldera went and laid me down in a crib they had purchased years ago. Neam went into his study and read the note again.
To whoever finds this precious child-
This child is the product of a union between a victor from District 4, and courtesan of a man who is in president's circle of advisors. The victor is not aware of the child, or that the woman became pregnant. Finnick was meant as tool to weed out Snow's rivals. On top of this, while he was four days old, Snow had Finnick genetically altered. The extent of the alteration is unknown, but the mother of the child did not want him to be a slave to President Snow.
The letter kept going, but Neam set a corner of the letter on fire. The only thing that stood out to him was keeping my existence a secret from the parents, and more importantly, President Snow. The fewer people who knew about me the better. Neam knew that he was going to have to register me at the Justice Building, no getting around that, but he still knows that my presences is dangerous. There's a very real possibility that Neam and Aldera could be murder for harboring me, but that's a bridge that they will cross later.