A Game Of False Fates ✭ Cato Hadley

Thirty-One - Say Her Name

July 24th

Every single soul in Panem is constantly engulfed in the shadow of death. There's no way to escape it and everyone expects it every year - even Districts One, Two and Four know that it's an inevitable which they can't outrun, no matter how hard they try. But nobody was expecting the events of yesterday's feast, especially not after the rule change. And, as the morning sun breaks through the dark blinds, Clio finds herself still lying awake and unsure of whether or not she actually got any sleep the night before. The clock tells her that it's late morning and she refrains from moving at all, not wanting to wake Cato beside her in her grief. There's another blessed moment in the fogginess of her brain where she forgets what day it is, forgets what has come before, forgets what she is bound to feel today.

July 24th. Clove's sixteenth birthday.

She lies there silently, trying to will herself to sleep again and trying to convince herself that she's allowed to be tired and exhausted again. She closes her eyes trying to shut out all of the pain; the noise and thoughts and everything else that has come as a result of the loss. The void she feels is indescribable. She would do anything to see her again, to have one last conversation or a proper goodbye. She wishes that had a time machine, knowing that she would go back to Reaping day and say something different, anything and everything that would prevent her sister from volunteering. She looks at the clock again, noting that another forty-five minutes has passed, spent locked in her mind, before squeezing her eyes shut and feels the warm tears seeping through her lids and she forces images out of her head so she can sleep.

The next several hours are punctuated with broken sleep and muffled sobs, but no one dares to wake her up properly, each of them not wanting to bring Clio's mind back onto the day. They're all aware that she's now going to hate these two days in July, a death date directly followed by a birthday as the constant reminder that her sister never made it past fifteen. Of course, there was a time when that wasn't the case; a time where she would have the day off with her sister with gifts and cake under the blanket of stars that they would gaze at. But now there is nothing for her to celebrate, no one to celebrate with; and with all the memories, Enobaria, in the kitchen, has half a mind to bin the elaborately decorated chocolate fudge cake that they had commissioned to mark the younger Kentwell's birthday. There's no need for it now and she doesn't think that the older sister will wish to see the visual reminder. Eventually, they're called downstairs by Peacekeepers because something is happening in the arena that they apparently must see, and it takes the older victor twenty minutes to convince them to leave Clio upstairs, and another ten for herself and Brutus to convince Cato to follow them downstairs.

When Clio awakes again just before dinner will be served, her stomach is crying out for food but it takes her a while to ignore the burning emptiness in her chest and push herself out of her bed to reach the living quarters. She's still exhausted, nauseous and debilitated by a pounding headache from the dehydration of crying without replenishing her water supply. And so now, she sits paralysed on the couch with the lights switched off because she doesn't have the strength to call upon an Avox or return to her bedroom, afraid that now she's moved, she'll be unable to sleep peacefully.

It doesn't surprise her at all when the lift doors swoosh open, and she knows without looking that the silhouettes at the threshold of the suite belong to Cato, Brutus and Enobaria. She closes her eyes and dread seeps through her body when Brutus complains about being unable to see in the darkness. Thankfully, he flicks the lamp on rather than the overhead chandelier but Clio still sucks in a breath when she knows they've seen her because the three of them fall silent.

"Why are you sitting here in the dark?" A worried Enobaria asks. She doesn't want to have to ask the next question but she does. "How are you feeling?"

"Mhmm." The girl shrugs, a two syllable mutter the most of a response she can muster, which doesn't satisfy any of the others for even a single second.