Calm Before The Storm {Finnick Odair}

The Girl That Dances With Sparks

Behind her eyes, sparks of light danced. They were bright, and the girl followed them as they moved across her field of vision. She lay back on the plush ground and looked up at the mesmerising lights, unable to let her gaze stray from the tiny sparks. Every now and then they would form together to make some kind of shape. A star. Then a flower. Then a circle.

As she watched them move, she felt all emotion ebb from her body, flowing outwards from her into the ground where it was absorbed into the earth. Her breaths were slow and relaxed, her movements small and graceful. It was like this place had transformed her. She didn't know what she was like before, but she was certain that this was preferable.

The girl also didn't know where she was, but she hoped it was heaven. It would be nice if this is what heavens like. And although she didn't know how to leave, she didn't feel trapped in that place. Instead it was a warm security she felt, like a thick blanket during the cold winter.

But she couldn't stay there forever. It was like the lights knew she couldn't stay, and soon they started forming together totally, until they were one shining white circle flooding her vision. She stretched her hand forward, and pulled herself out of the void.

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Her eyelids fluttered open, and her vision was crowded with unpleasantly bright sparks. Her body felt taut and anxious, her breathing quick and laboured, her arms and legs thrashing in sharp jerking movements.

She still wasn't entirely conscious of where or who she was, until she heard the voice coaxing her out of unconsciousness. Soon Hebe recognised herself as the one who had awoken from the slumber, the girl lost to the heavenly place. She also noticed that the signature sterile spotlighting of the Capitol was responsible for swarming her vision.

"Hebe? Hebe?" The voice said again, cutting through the shouting in her head. She turned her face to the side and was met with concerned eyes of sea-green staring straight back at her, a pretty face contorted with worry.

"Finnick?" She asked, her voice hoarse and her tone confused. She wasn't sure if she fully trusted her judgement at this moment.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me." He breathed. He sounded so relieved?

"Why am I here?? What happened?" Hebe felt her voice break slightly at the end, her desperation clear on her face.

Finnick looked at her pityingly, holding tight onto her forearm. She couldn't tell if it was to ground her, or to possibly restrain her.

"You were in the games, remember? But you're safe now, you're back."

People who survive near death experiences describe their lives as 'flashing before their eyes', however most have never experienced this as purely and rawly as Hebe did that day. Her fantasy was immediately shattered, the foundations of her dream world collapsing as the memories flooded back into her mind. The girl from the heavenly place flitted away from her, snuffed out like a candle. All that was left was her husk, filled with the screams of the dead, the ghosts that would plague her for an eternity.

She felt herself begin to hyperventilate as she watched her games all over again. Luca speared, Niamh beheaded, Ampere eaten, Gaia poisoned, Anise mauled. Each of their own unique cries of agony merged together, creating a symphony that would follow Hebe until the day she died.

Finnick desperately tried to calm her down, holding her down and talking to her, attempting to rationalise. But she couldn't hear him above all the noise in her head. She watched as the doctors began to rush over to her with a needle, witnessing Finnick desperately trying to reason with them, but it was no use.