Puzzle Pieces • Finnick Odair

C H A P T E R 5 2

Pain.

It's something Jessica Miller now welcomes with open arms like an old friend. She would wake up from a deep sleep and wait, expecting it to come for her. And it always did, without fail.

Whether she was being heavily beaten by hand or a peacekeepers weapon of choice, slashed with electric whips, engulfed in poisonous fog to then be almost drowned in water, or tracker jacker venom causing her to see and hear hallucinations.

She had found a way to cope, in some ways. Of course, she couldn't make the pain go away but she could distract herself.

With the brutal beatings, she would distract her mind. Instead of focussing on the pain being inflicted onto her now frail body, she would think of other things. For example, she'd try guess the peacekeepers name. She'd been through the whole alphabet of both male, female and gender neutral names by now so she had now started back at 'A' for the third or fourth time.

With the poison fog, though it was followed by a few seconds of relief once the water had ran over her body before being repeated, was harder to distract herself from. There wasn't anyone else in the room with her and whenever it happened, her mind would subconsciously remind her of the first time she had felt the blistering flames of the artificial gas. She could almost see the vast greenery of the jungle, hear the birds singing, smell the nature and trees, feel the mossy ground under her feet, see those sea-green eyes wide with concern as they ran. She struggled to bring herself out of her self inflicted delusions mostly because she didn't want to. She would go through the pain without a second thought if she could see those sea-green eyes for even a split second.

The electric whips brought no mercy as they were not only extremely painful in the moment, feeling like flames were erupting throughout her whole body (despite it only being her back that was struck), but the aftermath was like it's very own torture. They would always throw her back into the cell making sure she landed roughly on her back so that when she woke from her unconscious state, she would be in immense pain as her bruised, marked back full of blood would make her stifle screams as she was forced to sit up. The only position she found even partially comfortable was sitting with her back against the cold wall but, as soon as she would make even the smallest move, the deep gashes in her back would stretch causing her more immense pain.

Though the tracker jacker venom would bring tears to her eyes and a lump in her throat, she had found a way to separate reality from hallucinations. They would look and sound as real as the cruel reality she lived in but she couldn't touch them. If she reached out, her hand making contact with the dying person in front of her, the illusion would evaporate into thin air. She found this out the hard way.

She had woken up in her large, empty bed back at the district 4 victors village. She walked downstairs to find it eerily quiet. She went back upstairs, her heart beating a million times a minute, as her feet took her to her to her brothers room. She saw the door cracked open. She allowed her legs to drag her in and the sight was atrocious. It made her sick. Two peacekeepers stood, crimson blood on their once pristine white uniforms, guns still aimed at her bleeding brothers on the floor, her younger sibling already dead and unmoving. She choked back sobs as she ran towards them but, once she was close enough, she reached out her hand to place pressure on her brothers wound to look up and see the whole image around her disappearing. She had gasped, her eyes shooting around the room to assess her surroundings, to find she was lay in the same bed she had been minutes before, her limbs still strapped to the bed confining her movements. The only difference she could tell was her tear stained cheeks and sore through from cries and screams as well as the nurse who held a now empty needle that had previously been filled with venom.

It was safe to say that the world was against Jessica Miller but she would not give Snow the satisfaction. She would not let him hear her screams anymore, despite the pain she endured. She would do everything in her power to appear strong, to hide the broken person inside behind a wall of obsidian.

Jessica Miller refused to let President Snow break her more than he already had.

AN: poor Jessica, my baby :((