A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Storm - Walterin

Walt

When the sun sets, the fog comes.

I got away from it, got out of the hollow I don't even know how, and thought I was safe, but then I remember that when the sun sets, the fog comes out of the ground. Even now I hear it whispering to me. I feel its hands.

So when the sun starts to set, I start looking for ways out. Up a tree. There are trees. When I try to climb one, I fall. The landing knocks the wind from me. I am used to discomfort. I can go with only two hours of sleep a night, if I have to. I can ignore bleeding and bruising. For the security of my nation, I could do anything.

But when the rebellion came, it turned out I could do nothing.

I was seventeen. I hadn't passed out of training, but they needed everybody. They sent me to the Silence Halls, to a gunfight. I had a man with me, a man called Vix, but the Avoxes tore him out of his suit and out of his skin. I got a few of them. Not enough. I had to retreat.

But it was better. It was still better.

When the Career districts turned I thought that my place would be in a quiet, white-walled room, with some scrubby district creature pressing a gun to the back of my head. That would have been better too.

They kept the Peacekeepers. Perhaps it was a sort of joke. If so, I didn't understand it - it wouldn't be the first time. That was their mistake. When the Capitol rose again, we were at the forefront. I fought on the line with my brothers and sisters in arms. I escorted people into the Bunkers. I followed my orders. I saw nothing that could disturb me more than what I had already seen. It was better.

When the Treaty came through, I only wondered if it would be the white room or the white suit.

Turns out, it was sort of both. And that's still better. Or it was, until the rat-like girl from Haematite took me into the fog.

I did as I was told, I cry out inside my head. I always did. "Do as you're told, Walt, or it'll only be the worse for you." So I did. I made it into my own little rebellion. And it got me nothing. It got me here. It lost me Probus Fidelis. I'm his guard. That's what I do. That's all I can do.

I should be trying to find him. But the fog is coming for me. It whispers my name. It sounds like my door creaking.

I try climbing another tree, next to the one I fell from. This time I don't fall, but I feel like I might and my buttocks go numb trying to keep me there. By now it is properly dark. The sun is gone. The clouds are hiding the stars. The moon is there somewhere.

And...there's no fog.

The ground is clear.

I stare at it for a long time, hardly daring to believe it. I still think I can hear it. But it isn't there. I look out among the gravestones and it's not there.

I should be relieved. I'm not. Instead I feel wrong. Not anything particular, just wrong. Why has it gone now? Something must have changed. No orders without reasons. These were somebody's orders. So - says a tiny part of my brain, the bit I had to shut away, the bit that got me into my troubles - why?

That is not for me to wonder. I shut it up and climb down from my tree. Then I stand there looking around. Nothing to do. Nobody to tell me where I should go. Nothing to make me move. The girl with the rat face might still be around, but I've not seen her. There are other tributes but I've not seen them.

No. I know what I've got to do. I was sent to do a job and I've got to do it. I've got to find some sort of food somewhere. Then I've got to report back. Yes. That's what I've got to do.