Exactly three months after the Twenty-Fourth Games have ended, Wonder finds himself in the rain-dark kitchen, lifelessly struggling to eat a bowl of cereal. He stares down at the milk and soggy corn hoops, ignoring the patter against the windows and the blare of the telephone ringing.
In the even darker hallway, his mother picks it up. Her voice is as dull as ever. Wonder ignores it as well.
His bowl sits there half-eaten, staring up at him apathetically. He stares back just as apathetically. He suddenly loses his appetite and pushes the bowl away from him. It slides across the table and tips over the opposite edge, shattering on the hardwood below.
Whoops…
Wonder gets up, steps around the table, and stares at the mess. The cereal, milk and creamy-white porcelain have exploded outwards into a vague star shape. He can't find it within himself to care a single bit about it.
And so he just stands there staring at it until a creak behind him brings his attention to his mother in the doorway. Right away something coils in his gut. His mother looks broken all over again, but there's a lacing of something else in her tear-soaked eyes.
Dread.
Wonder goes up to her, intending to give her a hug, but she falters slightly. She looks so full of horror and regret. Something creeps into his mind and it takes a while to register that it's his own fear.
"..." His mother opens her mouth but nothing comes out. Wonder waits. They stand there for maybe another minute before she tries again.
"...You have to go in."
Wonder blinks at her. She clarifies in a voice just as shattered as her heart.
"You have to compete in the Games."
"When?" The question takes himself by surprise. He doesn't care to wonder why that was the first thing he asked, however.
"Before you age out." It's followed up with two of the most frightening words Wonder has ever heard in his life. "President's orders."
Then they collapse onto each other, letting their tears flow as freely as the rain outside.