After Heartbreak and Utter Defeat. [Cici]

Tristy Traverson

Tristy watched the hovercraft disappearing in the sky, shame creeping on her slowly. What had she done? She had just let them take her daughter; she had just allowed the Capitol to torture her. Wasn't that Tristy's job though? She was supposed to be a supporter; she was supposed to turn people like her daughter into the Capitol. Tristy shrugged, pulling the guilt off her shoulders quickly. She desperately wanted to escape from the Capitol's grip. Tristy wanted to be a free individual, with everything to live for. But she knew, she told herself, that working for the Capitol was her only chance at survival. Stay on the Capitol's good side, and the rest would come easy.

Tristy began running, away from her house, away from the trap she was stuck in. She just needed a few minutes--that was all--to regain herself again, to find her intentions again. She needed to clear her head for a few seconds. That was all. She kept running; she knew exactly where she was headed. She was going to the place she knew so well, the place she used to visit in her childhood when everything was all too much. It was an underground chamber, probably built by the rebels a long time ago, but forgotten and discarded. Tristy remembered finding it when she was ten, she remembered escaping to it whenever she felt lonely. She remembered the guilt she went through as a fourteen-year old when she went through spy training, when she agreed to help them; she remembered hiding in her little secret place, where no one could find her.

Once Tristy got to the fence, she slipped beneath it and started and carefully tiptoed shallowly into the woods. She reached a tree quickly, and she knew it was the one. She swept some leaves and branches away and saw the entrance, a hole that led to the little underground room. Carefully, she slipped down the hole, finding herself in somewhere so much more modernized than before. She looked around and saw multiple tunnels leading to other rooms. Tristy gasped quickly. What was this supposed to be? It came to her: some of the peacekeepers must have found this. It must be a base, a hideout. A look of suspicion crossed Tristy's face. They had never told her about this; they were keeping secrets. Some spy or peacekeeper must have found it and decided to use it. How could they not tell Tristy? Tristy knew that only meant she needed to try harder. They were keeping secrets from her because they didn't trust her. She needed to earn the trust back.

Tristy panicked a little, but decided to take her chances and walked down one of the hallways. At the end of the hallway was a door, and she opened it softly. She ended up in another dark room, with equiptment and everything. She looked around and suddenly heard a faint noise coming from behind one of the control panels. Tristy tried to peek at whatever was behind it, taking slow steps towards the sound. "Hello?" She said. She didn't want to sound menacing, but she didn't want to sound weak either, so she said it with a regular sort of tone. Tristy had a knife in her jacket pocket; it wasn't much, but if she needed it, she knew she could use it. She wouldn't take it out yet at least. Slowly, she moved closer and closer, until she saw a flicker of brown hair.