Haze // - Katelyn Oneshot- Part 1 of a series
Jan 19, 2019 23:24:05 GMT -5
Post by charade on Jan 19, 2019 23:24:05 GMT -5
KATELYN PERSIMMON
*The following post is set during the year of the 75th hunger games.*
How long had it been?
Weeks? Months?
She was sure it had been months at least, and fervently prayed that it had not been years. The 74th hunger games had drawn to a close and—
But that was neither here nor there.
Katelyn Persimmon ran a dry tongue over cracked lips and stared balefully at the walls of the six by eight room she was in. Had been in for some time. There was a single cot. A toilet. An avox brought her meals three times a day and a fresh jumpsuit once a—
Once in a while.
They’d come for her one night, the peacekeepers. She knew that. She knew where she was. The detention center right outside of district two. But it was so hard to think sometimes. There were fractured memories dancing in her head, waking nightmares of being strapped to a chair. People in lab coats. Pain. Needles. It was real, she thought. Or had it been? Her eyes drifted over to the cot in her room. She’d lost track of how many conversations she’d had while sitting on it.
The person who stood by the door of the cell and questioned her varied from time to time, but the questions never did.
What did she think about the Capitol?
Why had she opened up an orphanage?
Was she planning to train careers?
Did she harbor any thoughts of rebellion?
Had she ever tried to incite rebellion?
Had she had any contact with any insurgents?
Did she know their names? How many were there?
The answer was always no. No,
It was always the smell that got to her first. How clinical it was. Clean. Like soap and drain cleaner and peroxide. There were chairs in that room too. And the metal chair. Mustn’t forget the big, big chair. There was a doctor there.
They all called him doctor.
Look at these readings doctor. How high is too high of a dosage, doctor?
He was a rotten, vile little man, and she hated him. Like the dreams, how she hated the dreams. The dreams were the hell that followed the half-remembered slumber of the room. It always began the same. The one-eyed demon laughing at her.
Ke-kiri-to - Ke-kiri-to—
Chirping like a goddamn bird. Twittering in her ear until she thought she was going to lose her goddamn mind. Shutupshutup—
Then the giant. That towering shadow pursuing her relentlessly down the roads, never a word, just staring at her accusingly. Because it is my fault, always has been. It is it is is it is it itisisisisis—
The one-eyed demon and the giant, they had her, they pulled on her arms and pulled and pulled and pulled until she tore in half. There was something familiar about them. Something evil.
Murderer.
She’d killed someone hadn’t she? Had she killed the one-eyed demon? No, he was killing her, dancing in her blood, on her corpse. The corpse by the cornucopia. There were so many. One was still crawling, missing limbs, but it was a mercy, a mercy, she wouldn’t have lived much longer right?
Right?
Left?
Red. Red and white and white and red in the snow. There was a little boy who didn’t want to die alone. Ch-ch-Ch-chattering teeth, rictus grin. She’d broken bones, played xylophone with ribs?
I killed them you know.
Iknowiknowimsorryileftyoubehindididntwanttokillyoubutiwantedtostayalive
Angels in the snow. Her angels. Three of them. Lambs. No, Lions.
Hi. High? hi. High? There's a halo around her head, but its red. January, February, April. Nononogobackthereitsmissinghesmissingaleg Doctor, doctor? I need a nurse, mine isn't working properly. Send her back to district six. Silly, silly, victors do not come from there. So where do they come from?
There was a man who fought on the snow. He’d outlived the girl with the bow. Coin flip, heads down, tails up, the brown haired boy burning in a boat. It was snow but it wasn’t the same snow no, she knew the man with the sad grey eyes didn’t she? So who was that standing next to him?
He was a flirt, wasn’t he? The boy with one leg? He carried a precious stone.
No, the stone carried him.
What was it? Emerald? Diamond? Pearl? O-o-o-o—
Strawberries. She smelled like strawberries. No, she loved strawberries. No, she loved potatoes? One potato? Two potato, three potatoes, seven potatoes more?
She had a kind smile. The best.
There was something important she was forgetting. It was on the tipriptrip of her tongue.
What had who, done to her? What day was it? She was exhausted, like that night after the club. Out on the bay. With the bay? No, it was at a restaurant. There was a man with a beard, or was it a girl around her age? Roses. Red Roses. Red, a girl with red hair who fought in the dark, became what she was in the dark, hot-tempered. Nonono. the redhead was small; she stood in the shadow of the man from the snow. The redhead had died, a tiny coffin for a tiny tribute, leaving a letter on the nightstand.
We’re all dead here.
Metal. She tasted metal in her mouth. She opened bleary eyes she hadn’t known were shut. It was so hard to think. What had they done to her? She was in the chair, the one with the restraints.
“You’ve quite the story, Katelyn Persimmon. The ice queen that saved her district three times over. But are you ready for this to end?”
Katelyn’s eyes slid into focus. How long had that man been sitting there? It was him, the vile doctor.
“Stories don’t ever really end,” she heard herself say thickly. Her own voice sounded far away. “They live on. Maybe not in the way the storyteller intended, but they do. They fade into the background. The hero of one tale is just the girl walking down the street in another.”
“You’re wrong, Ms. Persimmon. They do end. Why do you think graveyards are full of plots?" he said with a chuckle. "It’s how all stories end eventually.”
“If my story is over, then I know I gave everything I had, until I had no more to give. It was worth it, in the end. Ask whatever questions you want. You'll get the same answers you always have.”
Tired. She was so tired.
"That…is extremely unfortunate, Ms.Persimmon.”
Katelyn briefly wondered if that was his way of saying she was going to die now.
It would be a relief.
The restraints tightened, and she closed her eyes as the needles pierced her skin.
table coding (c) ghosty
