The Hunger Games: Staying True. (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-Eight; Heavy, Dirty Soul. [Edited]

I never knew dying would be so difficult. I assumed living was the hardest part of existence, but dying seems to be just as painful.

It feels like someone is sitting on my chest. A very heavy someone who likes to wiggle. It hurts, and I can't breathe, and it's so hard to get air into my lungs. My eyes won't open. My fingers won't move. My toes won't curl.

This can't be death. Surely, surely there's something more than this. Maybe this is the in-between period. Maybe this is where I wait to go on to the next place.

Consciously, I know that I'm a bad person, and I've done bad things, and maybe this darkness and this frozen state is exactly what I deserve. But I still hoped, hoped that everything that had been done to me sort of... Balanced out all that I'd done to everyone else.

Somehow, I thought something would be waiting for me. Perhaps something awful, and I'd know once and for all that was all I deserved. But I'd still hoped, hoped for something... Kind.

I guess not.

So I sit in the darkness and contemplate the dirtiness of my soul, and I wait.

And wait.

****

I wake all at once. One moment I feel like I haven't moved for an age, suspended in a state of numbness, the next the pain washes in and I jerk out of my sleep, eyes panicked, heart quick, my whole body bending in agony.

My hands dart outwards, reaching to grab anything closest to me. Anything at all. Because I must still be in the arena, must be curled on the dusty ground, and if they haven't sent someone to get me and they've left me to die, surely they'll send someone else, anything else, to finish the job.

"Emerald, Emerald!" The voice is stern, and it takes a couple of moments and a pair of large hands on my wrists to place it.

My eyes swivel round to be met with a pair of hooded dark ones, framed with dark lashes and bushy brows. From this close, I can see that there's shadows in the hollows beneath and red veins standing prominently within.

I guess Birch isn't having all too good a time either.

"Stop struggling, girl. You'll hurt yourself more."

It takes a moment for my taut body to release the tension caged in, but when I've gone lucid Birch gives a single nod and backs off, still eyeing me warily as he takes a seat in the high backed chair next to my bed.

"What are you doing here?" I rasp. My throat aches something fierce. "Where's Astrid?"

"They wouldn't let her in." He says, clasping his hands in his lap. "She kicked up a fuss, but it's not like 13 listens to the stylists."

My eyes dart around the room. It's the sterile white of a hospital, but it's bare. Looks more like a prison cell. Surely, there should be flowers and the like. But there's nothing. My bed, the monitor next to me, two doors, and the chair that Birch is sat in. Not to mention the camera held aloft in one corner.

It's a poor welcome for a Victor.

"What happened?" I ask, my breathing picking up speed. The beeping that signifies my heartbeat starts chirping alarmingly. "Birch? Where's Peeta?"

My voice cracks, and Birch looks away. That look of guilt, of absolute desolation, causes the monitor beside me to let out a little shriek as my heart rate sky-rockets.

"Is he dead?" I demand, trying to wrench myself upwards. Agony ripples through me. "Did she kill him? Birch? What happened?!"

"Calm down!" He growls, leaning forward sternly, "Or they'll come pouring in here and pump you full with all sorts of shit!"