free from me [dorothy&flynn]

It already feels so suffocating being here.

Only three weeks in the Capitol’s facility and I am already feeling institutionalized. Nobody expected me to come back today, so it was easy to slip from the train station and back to the house. It’ll be easy to accept that nobody expected me back at all. A resurgence of a pandemic is never welcome, and neither is Flynn Garner to District Six. A bout of the rose plague is more survivable than being a friend or family member of mine.

I need to be somewhere open and not contained like here. Like Four and its beaches. The sea and its waves. It could take me away, the ocean. Swallow me whole and not even a trace of my existence would be left behind. There is Ten too, there is so much in Ten, but does it want me?

Anywhere but this epicentre of my hell.

All the Capitol discharged me with were more tablets, they’re different this time. Stronger. It feels like they’re doing something, I am focused. There’s a mission I must accomplish, and no emotions will get in the way. I just need those tablets and District Four’s sea air or District Ten’s youngest victor.

Everything in the house is exactly how I left it on the morning of the reaping. There are even the breakfast plates still left in the sink from when Nessa came round to walk to the square with me. They need cleaning.

Hot water bursts from the tap and I squeeze the dish detergent into the sink. Steam rises from the pouring water that splashes against the plate and onto my skin. It burns but I keep scrubbing the breakfast food from weeks ago from the porcelain. It is fucking painful, but it is nothing that I don’t deserve. I switch off the tap and watch the dirty water disappear down the sinkhole. My hands are now red, covered in soap bubbles and tingling with first degree burns. Oh well.

I am not going to be here long; I only need to pack one bag for wherever I am going. One night in this house is too risky, too many people have a key to this place, and they could simply walk into here. I could pass on the radiation poisoning to them. Or the plague. Or if the Capitol see them with me, their name could be pulled next year. All the nightmarish possibilities because they simply know me.

Knock. Knock.

Hear that? I am not just riddled with anxieties, it is true! Being here just twenty minutes has been too long.

Knock Knock.

I made sure to leave my key inside the door, so whoever it is trying to unlock it with theirs is not getting in.

I stand in the hallway, watching as their shadow disappears from the glazed door. They gave up quickly.

Fuck. But what about the back door?

It is the fastest I have moved in a long time as I sprint across the house, back into the kitchen where the back door is but she the door is already ajar.

My entire body pushes against it, not caring whether a finger or toe is trapped between the door and the frame. ”Just fucking leave me alone.” The door slams and my feet keep it shut as I look through the spy hole, it is my sister. ”Go away Dorothy, I am not here!”