CHAPTER 11 - ICHOR
The cameras sending footage to Bliss' monitoring station panned away from the rape, but they didn't pan away from Basal smashing his skull into pieces.
The microphones broadcast the squelching sounds of his skull breaking, right into Bliss' ears.
Bliss saw blood blooming up from the floor, filling the monitoring room. Basal's body, and chunks of his skill, drifted by in the bloody lake. There was no warning, no buildup. The fact she knew it was a hallucination made it no less scary.
Her breathing hastened. Bliss shot to her feet and wheeled on the remaining career mentors, looking straight at their decomposing faces.
"You're a bunch of SADISTIC FUCKS, you know that?!" She screamed. "Fucking abusive, rapist, Capitolite-wannabes! You're a fucking disgrace!" Bliss stormed out of the room, away from the stunned careers.
She stumbled into the hallway. The blood followed her. The walls wept, the ground was covered. She held onto one of the bleeding walls to stabilize herself, even though it drenched her clothing.
The elevator at the end of the hall was elusive. Her legs were weak.
Someone took her by the elbow.
"Bliss. You're okay. You're safe." A voice with perfect pitch said.
Bliss looked up at Afflatus' face, but the skin was sloughing off in patches. Fascia, veins, arteries, lymphatic vessels, and muscles hung from her skin like strands of spaghetti. Bliss tore her gaze away, wincing, shaking her head.
"Come with me." Affy said, guiding her towards the elevator.
Only with Afflatus' physical support, did Bliss make it into the elevator.
It was a horror scene. Bodies flashed in the mirrors all around her, infinite decomposition and gore. Blood filled the elevator before they reached the seventh level. Bliss held her breath, and clamped a hand over her mouth, not letting the liquid into her lungs.
She didn't let go, even when Afflatus guided her off the elevator.
Stars danced across her vision by the time they reached the D7 apartment, blackness closing in between the spots.
Afflatus grabbed Bliss' hand, and separated it from her mouth.
Glorious air filled Bliss' lungs.
Afflatus burst through the door, not bothering to knock.
Harlem wasn't there.
"Fuck. Okay." Afflatus tried to think. She grabbed Bliss by the shoulders, trying to get her to look into her decomposing eyes.
"Bliss. Where are your meds?" Affy asked. Bliss twisted away from Affy's ugly facade, falling to the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest, resting her head on the caps.
Afflatus ran away, the sounds of her footsteps drilling into Bliss' ears.
Basal's screams played on loop in Bliss' brain.
She felt a prick in her arm.
The blood plastered to the back of her eyelids faded away.
…
Bliss woke up in her bed, Harlem and Affy sitting in chairs beside her. It was the middle of the night. They were both asleep. She studied Harlem, his expression relaxed. It was the most peaceful she'd seen him since coming to the Capitol.
She tried to go back to sleep, so her friends could continue to rest; to no avail, though, and soon she was crying powerfully enough that the sound of her sharp breaths woke Affy and Harlem.
Bliss buried her face in her hands, trying to stifle the noise, shaking her head. Her shoulders shook violently.
"Why the fuck would they not mute that?" Bliss asked the void.
The cameras may have panned away from the rape, but the sounds of Basal chocking and screaming and crying blared through her headset. She couldn't bring herself to take it off, to leave him alone. She didn't know if the mics on the other careers picked up the sounds, but Basal was roaring. Bliss thought it was possible everybody in the mentoring room heard the assault. It made everything worse.
Neither Harlem nor Affy had an answer.
"Did you tell him what happened?" Bliss asked Afflatus, looking at her through water-filled eyes, distorting the image of the other girl.
"Yes." Afflatus said, carefully.
"Thanks. I didn't want to." Bliss replied.
"Did the medication work?" Harlem asked.
Bliss looked around, expecting blood, but saw only the plain interior of her bedroom. She nodded.
"Afflatus called me after you went to sleep." Harlem said, a euphemism for succumbing to the anesthetic.
"Thank you for helping me, Affy." Bliss turned to the girl. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"I deserved it." Afflatus said.
"No, you didn't." Bliss replied, reaching for her hand. Affy took it.
Bliss managed to stop crying.
"Sorry if this is weird to ask, but do you guys want to hop in?" Bliss asked, opening the sheets to her california king-sized bed. All three would easily fit, with space in between.
Afflatus shrugged and climbed in on her right side. Harlem trailed after, tucking in on her left. He let out a sigh of relief as his weight collapsed.
Bliss patted his back. "You're a good friend, Harlem." He groaned a thank-you, already falling asleep.
Bliss turned to Affy, gently touching her arm. "How are you?"
Afflatus looked ashamed.
"Aff. Look at me." Bliss said, benevolently.
Affy raised her eyes.
"You can talk to me, you know. Whatever you say stays between us." Bliss said.
"I'm okay." Afflatus didn't sound convincing. "I think I'm too tired, tonight, but I appreciate that." She blinked, sleepy.
"Rest up." Bliss said, pulling the covers up.
"Night, babe." Afflatus said, half asleep.
Bliss was going to pretend she didn't hear the term of endearment, wanting to save Afflatus the embarrassment.
Sleep was elusive. Bliss considered calling her wife, Ambrosia, but never usually bothered her during the Games. She didn't want to burden her more than she already had. It was clear that Bliss' condition was difficult for her wife to deal with.
All thoughts returned to Basal. She tried to remember him as he as before the Games, the gentle smile that broke across his face when he'd told her he'd been asked to join an alliance. The memories of his screams were too intense, though, and Bliss couldn't shut them out.
Bliss ducked under the covers, pressed her back against Harlem's and made herself small. Guarded on both sides, by people she trusted, Bliss drifted off into sleep.
…
After Afflatus and Harlem lifted Bliss into her bed, Affy retreated to Harlem's bathroom for some privacy as the man tended to their unconscious friend.
She couldn't look at herself in the mirror, and couldn't face her fellow career victors. The group of career tributes this year was disgusting, right from the jump. She had no idea if their mentors encouraged torment, but they certainly hadn't done enough to drill honour into them.
They deserved what Bliss said to them, the berating, honest words. After Bliss had left the room, the careers sat in a shocked silence. It was the only time Afflatus had heard the air go out of the room, entirely silent.
Afflatus had run after Bliss, away from the pair of hyenas. She'd found her friend stumbling down the hallway, murmuring, panicked, hallucinating. She'd almost blown a gasket worrying, when she couldn't find Harlem in the apartment.
She'd found a syringe in Bliss' bathroom cabinet labeled 'emergency' and plunged the substance into Bliss' arm without a second thought.
After, she'd pulled out her phone and called Harlem. He'd been a few floors up, sleeping in Violet's room. He came rushing back immediately, when Affy called. It was incredibly painful to tell him what happened, but she updated him, telling him about the careers' cruelty, Basal's rape, how all the other mentors heard it through the mics on their tributes, and how Basal killed himself after. She also told him what Bliss said to the career mentors.
Harlem rubbed his face anxiously as she told him, but thanked her for letting him know.
She'd left him, then, to tend to Bliss, and found his bathroom to close herself in.
It was useless to try and keep the memories of her Games away.
Afflatus approached her final battle, strong, fit. She'd taken out everyone she'd come across, racking up the most kills of any tribute in the Games. She held her own against alliances and powerful tributes, alike, barely incurring a scratch on her body.
She was confident going into battle with Walan, and motivated to kill him.
The metal of their weapons clanged together, a symphony of battle. They traded strikes and blocks, until each grew fatigued. She hoped the battle was as majestic to watch as it felt.
Afflatus was self-actualizing, becoming her best self, achieving her true purpose, all until Walan grabbed her by her hair as she spun, knocked her off balance.
She jabbed, and manage to skewer his abdomen with her short sword, but he kicked her off her feet, and held a sword to her throat.
Just like that, it was over. Afflatus' hopes and dreams as dead as she was about to be.
The killing strike didn't come, though.
"What are you waiting for?" Afflatus demanded.
"It's just us here, now. And you pissed me off, bitch." Walan replied, caressing her throat with his sword.
Fireworks exploded in Afflatus' brain as he knocked her out with the hilt of his sword.
She came to, back on the dirt, limbs drawn and tied to four different trees. The sun beat down on her.
Walan cut her and beat her until there was almost nothing left.
She couldn't end it herself, entirely immobilized.
Afflatus thought he was finally going to kill her, when he approached her with a smaller knife. Give it a couple jabs to the carotid, that should do the trick, Afflatus thought.
Instead, he cut off her pants.
She hollered and resisted with what little energy she had left, but it was no use.
Walan raped her in every way possible.
Afflatus suppressed her reactions after the initial wave of panic, not wanting to give him- or the Capitol- a show. Her mind floated above, as her body was brutalized.
It didn't matter in the end, that she'd kept everything inside.
The gamemakers killed Walan with a mutt.
Afflatus was declared winner, and rescued from the arena.
They heavily edited the footage from the final battle, and completely removed her torture from the final cut of the Games.
The President of Panem, himself, had visited Afflatus as soon as she woke in the hospital and warned her to never share the truth, lest she wanted everyone she knew to die.
So, Afflatus had to pretend it never happened. She had to pretend to be the confident girl who entered the final battle. Not the girl who'd been tortured for days, who prayed for death. Not the girl who was too traumatized to be touched.
The President had adjusted her quickly enough, though.
Afflatus reached under her shirt with her metal nails, and slashed at her stomach. The bathroom slipped back into existence. She cut herself, again and again.
Finally, memories of her Games started to fade away as she drifted into numbness.
Blood dripped down the hem of her shirt, splashing onto her pants. She put a towel over the wounds, so she wouldn't mess up her clothes any more.
Before she could make the decision not to, she picked up the phone and called Muse. To her surprise, the girl answered.
"Muse…?" Afflatus said, voice shaky.
"Yeah, Afflatus, what's up? I'm just out with Kyle right now, we're at a party." Muse answered over blaring music.
"Do you have a minute to talk?" Affy pressed, desperate for someone to turn to.
"Uhh… yeah. One sec." Muse said. The background noise quietened as she presumably walked away from the party. "What's up?" Muse finally asked.
Afflatus tried to gather her thoughts, but the hurricane inside her brain made it difficult. "I'm just having a bad night."
"I bet, Areti told me what your tribute did to that boy… It was fucked up." Muse said, referring another D1 victor.
"You think?" Afflatus snapped.
"Just saying…" Muse started. "Do you need something, Affy?"
Anger burned through Afflatus at the use of her nickname. Muse didn't get to call her that anymore.
"No, I guess not." Afflatus responded.
"Okay. Have a good night." Muse responded. The line went dead.
Afflatus squeezed the phone with her metal hand, but stopped when it started deforming. 'Have a good night.' Afflatus was speechless..
Anger and loneliness and pain burned Afflatus' heart. She reached under her shirt and cut herself again.