Spark to Flame: A Finniss Story

Pt III: Clear to Tremor

Pt III.

Her name is Katniss Everdeen.

Her home is in District 12.

She won the 74th Hunger Games.

She was in the Quarter Quell.

She escaped.

Peeta was left behind.

These were things that Katniss kept telling herself to stay sane. Facts. Nothing but cold, unfeeling, unbending truth...truth. What was that word? Really? Could it really be described without using the word itself as an explanation? What was the point of it? Why was truth important? Or lies? Or deception? What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she think straight? Was her mind coming undone?

Wait...who was she?

"Miss Everdeen?"

She is jolted from her reverie by the sound of a woman's voice, echoing and foreign to her ears. She wants to say that this person is a stranger to her, but in her current state of mind she honestly can't say that she hasn't heard their voice before...wait, what was honesty?

"You can't be in here," the woman goes on to say.

Here.

Where was here, again?

Oh yes. District 13.

On one of the many underground levels in one of the many dark rooms, concrete and secure.

Hiding. Waiting. Rotting...falling apart.

Katniss' brain is jumbled beyond the point of recognition, even in her own mind among her own thoughts, but she is somehow able to pull together a reply for the woman she may or may not know. "I...I had a nightmare. Just five more minutes?"

"You need to sleep," the voice calls, closer this time. "We can make that happen. Please, just let us help you."

She sounds sincere, sympathetic, even. But really, with the way things have been going lately, how is she to know what's true and what's false?

"No, please, just five more minutes. I won't be any trouble."

There's nothing but silence greeting her ears, and she begins to think that maybe she'll get her wish. She relaxes her muscles and slumps back against the large set of metal pipes she's been hiding behind when a set of heavy boots march up to her and she's heaved her to her feet.

"No, please, just five more minutes!" She pleads, struggling beneath their grip. "Just five more minutes!"

More hands come and grab her, and her brain kicks into full panic mode as adrenaline rushes out from her head and into her veins, flooding her system; she kicks and twists and writhes, trying to wriggle free of their grip, but the more she fights it the more hands are on her, forcing her into submission as she's dragged from her place on the floor and back to her room. A needle punctures her skin somewhere on her arm, and with the last remaining bits of her energy she puts up one last fight to get away.

"No! Don't touch me! No, get off of me! NO!"

Her screams are the last thing she hears before everything goes black.

~*~

When she wakes up, she's in her room.

Or rather the enclosed space of the hospital she's come to call her room, tucked away in one of the many levels of District 13.

Katniss sits up, looking around at the empty space and the beeping computer screens beside her bed and on the walls, working diligently away to monitor her health and ensure her 'safety'. Except that it isn't empty in her little space, not completely; Finnick Odair sits in one of the visitor's chairs a few feet past the foot of her bed, tying endless knots in a spare length of rope wearing nothing but his hospital gown, and she has to blink several times to make sure he's really there and she's not just imagining things.