Author Games: Panemdemic

Entries Recalled

Apologies for any italics that did not stick.

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District 1 Female: Aroma Fastner

Aroma awoke with her head aching and the taste of mildew on her tongue.

Eyelids heavy she opened her eyes to the dingy white of a wall.

Aroma felt as if she had been asleep for years, the last memory she had was hiding in the hospital bed from Wavelet and the mildew of the bed cover as she had hid. Then the mist came and Aromas world had fallen into darkness.

Aroma sat up, her body as cooperating as a sack of rocks, then she froze.

She was no longer in the mildewed hospital bed, she lay on the floor of a white walled room that she had never seen before, but that wasn't what sent a chill down Aromas spine.

Glass lay around her in a mosaic of jagged shards of different colors, mixed with liquids that pooled around her legs and seeped into the grey fabric of her clothing.

The scent of alcohol filled the air with the smell of decay and mildew, causing the pain in Aroma head to rise to a new level.

But the pain wasn't only in Aromas head, her stomach ached as if something inside was clawing its way to get free.

Once again a lump rose in Aromas throat, but this time the lump was not one of nerves but of vomit.

Aroma felt as if she was in a whole other body, like her limbs were jelly and her insides were coils of barbed wire.

A wave of nausea and pain filled Aroma and she clutched her stomach. Warm liquid spilled onto her arm and the pain in her stomach increased.

Aroma drew her hand away, her limbs going numb as she stared at the scarlet blood staining the pale skin of her palm and the gaping bleeding hole in her stomach.

There was a shard of glass embedded in her sternum, the clear shard stained a rosy red with blood.

Nausea washed over Aroma, she heaved, but nothing came up. Her stomach was empty.

Aroma closed her eyes, gripping the piece of class with shaking fingers and ripping it from her abdomen.

Pain gushed over Aroma as dark blood spilled from the wound. She grit her teeth, the tears she had tried so hard to hold back trickling down her cheeks.

Aroma gasped for air, her lungs suddenly unable to breath.

"It's okay," She gasped. Trying to calm her shaking body.

The liquid pooled at Aromas side rippled. But the liquid wasn't medicine like she had thought, the liquid was the rich scarlet of blood..

Aroma went numb. There was so much blood, it couldn't all be hers, no one could survive losing that much blood. Where had it come from?

Aromas eyes trailed down the river of blood to where a body lay.

The body looked like it was female. The tributes face had been half ripped off, revealing teeth and lidless eyeballs. Clutched in the tributes hand was a half broken bottle, the color of the glass matching the piece that had been stuck in Aroma's stomach.

Aroma clamped a hand over her mouth, vomit rising in her throat.

"Oh god," She gagged, smelling the scent of carnage mixed with alcohol and rot.

Tears filled Aroma's eyes as she crawled over to the mutilated body. Glass scraping against her knees and blood seeping from her stomach.

Sobs wracked Aromas body as se reached the corpse.