(Sleep) Walking Amongst the Tomes // [Open]

D'Arcy had lost track of the time, nestled in one of the cozier corners of the library with a lamp by her side, poring over a book in her lap. Not that she particularly cared, though. In the early days she had tried to sleep as if it was just another night, a field trip away from home for a week or so, with family waiting to welcome her back into their open arms. There was no fooling her dreams, however. The longer she slept, the more time there were for the nightmares to start up.

Sometimes she was trapped up an ever growing tower, her family below looking up as she grew farther and farther away. Sometimes she was sinking below the dirt of her meadow, pleading for her sisters to turn around and see her, reach for her arm before it too sunk into the soil. Sometimes it was as simple as seeing her parents crying, trying to console them, only to find out she was no more than a ghost.

No, she no longer cared to be in bed at a reasonable hour.

At least the library had no shortage of worlds for her to lose herself in. Castles and kingdoms and queens and right triumphing over wrong. It was so simple to dive into the problems, knowing that the solutions would appear in the matter of a few turned pages. If only she could keep turning the pages on the problems of her own. Flip and flip and flip until she was back home and the Hunger Games were no more than a memory. If only.

Her late night reading had a limit, though, and at this hour D'Arcy could feel her eyelids growing heavy under the weight of sleep. It was time for her to give in, return the books and the lamp to one of the tables, and brave the night of sleep beckoning her into its arms. She only had to endure it for a few hours, and then she could -

"Hello?"

D'Arcy jumps, adrenaline instantly wiping the sleep from all corners of her body as she arches back behind her with the lamp in hand. She had thought herself alone here with the books. It seems she had been wrong.

Logic starts to drain the fear; it must have been another tribute, come to do what she had been doing herself. She was torn on whether to ignore them and rush off to bed, or heed their call. A moment of hesitation, and then a turn back down the row of books. The weight of sleep was gone now and this seemed preferable to the nightmares she could expect.

As she grew closer the voice called out again. "Please! Please I just need to know - have you seen my sister?" The request confused D'Arcy - surely she would have known if any tributes were siblings? - but as the girl between the shelves came into view she could see the disorientation, the stupor of someone coming out of a dream and struggling to make sense of the world again.

So she wasn't the only one facing nightmares here. The thought that even some of these older kids might be feeling as scared as her was, in an odd sense, comforting. Enough so that D'Arcy braved a reply out to the sleepy girl in front of her. "S-sorry, I haven't seen her." she began gently, timidly. "I don't think she'd be here, would she?"

D'Arcy moves closer again, recognizes the girl from 9 now up close. "It's okay, though. I miss my sisters too, very much. They're always in my dreams. What is your sister like?"