A/N: Photo is an edit made by mwah. Love Don't Die by the Fray (I just love that song)
CLOVE'S POV:
I awaken to a dim, sick light. I can't feel anything. I vaguely remember being shoved into a van, but then something was thrust into my arm and I fell into a deep sedation. Where am I now? Have I been whisked through time again?
No; I still remember everything. Being beat up by those freaks like I was nothing more than a rag doll; it made no sense to me at the time, and I still don't get it. I mean, I'm Clove. The girl with the knives... How, then, was I able to be thrown around by those scrawny kids?
I didn't have my knives.
And then Cato came and rescued me... sort of. My heart starts to hurt when I think about him. Where is he now? Where am I?
Little waves of feeling creep into my limbs as I gradually wake up to the room around me. I struggle into a sitting position and examine my surroundings.
I have never been in a duller, uglier room. Concrete walls surround me and I lie on a thin pallet on an iron floor. The only other piece of furniture is a low, bare wooden table. A small iron-barred window admits only a little light. A barred door is the only exit.
Call it an asylum; I call it a prison.
I look down at myself. I'm still wearing the same T-shirt and pair of jeans as before. I guess they didn't bother to change me into asylum clothing... Merely the thought of that sets my heart rate up. I'm not insane; I know I'm not. So why am I here and why did they put us here without a second thought?
I realize now that this is why Marguerite was also sent here to keep an eye on us. To make sure we wouldn't remember who we were--now I'm seeing the consequences of that. We don't fit in here and we can't pretend we do. Chills race up my legs and I hug my knees. I've never felt so alone like this. Even that moment where I was dying in the arena, I still had Cato beside me. Where is he now?
I stare up at the unfriendly walls and ceiling of my cell. I long for anyone else to be here right now; anyone, even Glimmer. The physical form of another human being beside me to prove that I'm real, that this is real, that I'm not crazy.
Footsteps clattering in the hallway draws my attention. I raise my head. The outer door opens and a masked face peers through the bars, and then I hear the rustle of keys as the door is unlocked.
"How are you feeling, Miss Kentwell?" asks a woman's voice as she steps carefully into my cell.
"Let me out!" I shout at her.
She sighs. "I am sorry, Clove, but according to our tests, you are very mentally unstable, and we must keep you here to ensure the safety not only of others, but of yourself as well."
Anger burns inside me. I'm not crazy!
"Listen to me, woman," I hiss at her. "I don't belong here, and neither does Cato. The reason you think we're weird is that we come from another time!"
She lets out another of those hopeless sighs, and I've never felt so indignant. "It was a time machine; I swear! We come from the future, and not only that! There will soon be a war ravaging your city! You have to listen to me!" I scream at the top of my lungs.
She, sensing potential personal dangers, shields her chest with her arms and forces me onto the mat again. I fight back, but she will not let go. I struggle beneath her arms, which feel as firm as tree trunks. Why am I, Clove, being pinned down by a woman?
Yet she must be practiced; I can tell by how she handles it. She straps me to the floor. I continue to struggle, but the straps hold me fast.
I have never felt so caged. I start screaming at the top of my lungs; maybe not such a bright idea if I'm trying to prove my sanity--but I can't stand this confinement.
CATO'S POV:
I wake up to the sound of screaming. Something inside me rattles, jerking me forward. I'm pulled toward the voice. I know it. Clove.
I try to move, but it's no use. I look down and see that they've already tied me down. No... This is so far from how it's supposed to be. Maybe we would have been better staying with Marguerite, naive and unknowing of our past. No, I realize. No. We would be better off dead in that arena like we were supposed to be. Not here. We should never have come here. Who sent us here and why? What could they want by sparing us from the arena and dumping us in this place?
What was worth landing us in a mental hospital to spend the rest of our lives in seclusion, never able to voice our thoughts or warn the others of...
The war! I jerk upward--or try, but the bands still hold me back. I remember Clove now, as she spoke of the war that must have occurred sometime between our own time, Panem, and this place we are now in.
I fight. I will be free... I struggle against the straps, but they're made of some titanic material and I can barely force them to bend.
The door opens unexpectedly and a man wearing protective gear (seriously?) comes over and checks me out. "Heart rate... Regular. Body temperature... Normal," he murmurs.
"What did you expect it to be like?" I blurt out indignantly.
He gives me a short glance from behind his goggles. "We must approach every patient with caution," he says quietly and indifferently.
"I'm not a patient, and I'm completely sane," I spit at him. He still ignores me.
Ugh. I try to sit up again, but his hand clamps on my shoulder and lowers me back down. "Stay."
"Can I see Clove?" I plead. At least he can give me that...
"No," the doctor replies firmly. "We must keep the insane separate or there could be disastrous occurrences."
My face feels hot as I glare at him in the eye. "I'm not insane, Doctor. I can recite the formula for Pi: 3.14159265358979--"
He cuts me off. "Being sane doesn't mean the same thing as being smart. The police say you were trying to murder someone as an act of revenge for mere childhood antics."
"Those weren't childhood antics!" I scream at him. "Who knows what those freaks were going to do to Clove?! If I hadn't stopped them, they would have killed her!"
The doctor regards me with a sad, almost sympathetic look which I despise. "I don't believe you know how the sane operate here, Hadley. Killing is regarded as a capital offense. You could have been arrested for attempted murder! If we hadn't discovered your mental instability, you would have been!"
"How can you prove I'm mentally unstable?" I yell at him. "You can't!"
"If you claim to be mentally stable, then we are dealing with something even worse," he continues. "Voluntary murder with full knowledge of seriousness and crime!"
My heart feels like something cold has clenched it. "I did not have full knowledge of the seriousness of the crime!"
He glares at me. "How could you not? You look like a perfectly capable, nearly grown young man. How can you claim to not know the offense of murder?"
"I'm not an American citizen."
"What country are you from then? What country legalizes murder?"
I open my mouth to answer, but then I close it, deciding that to reply "Panem" would only increase his conviction that I truly am insane. So I do not reply.
Another scream echoes down the corridor, shaking me. Every time I hear Clove scream I feel the same burning desire to rush and free her from whatever holds her captive. But this time I am truly a prisoner, buried as deep as she is. I've never felt so terrible.
CLOVE'S POV:
When the doctor comes in, I lose it.
"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" I scream at him. "YOUR COUNTRY WILL SUFFER WAR IF YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO ME! LET ME GO!"
He shakes his head and begins to poke and prod me, listening to my heart rate and taking my temperature. "Well, your boyfriend in there may think he's sane, but I know for a fact you aren't. No ordinary human can truthfully predict the future."
"I'm FROM the future!" I shout. "Please! Just... listen to me!" I'm almost in tears. No one has ever disregarded me like this. Ever. "I'm from the future and I know! There WILL be wars and your country WILL suffer! Then there'll be a nation called Panem, and they'll be brutal and mean and their capital city will starve them and they'll send kids to kill each other in the Hunger Games, and..."
Something metal, like a needle, is plunged into my arm and I feel the world fading away like it did after I got taken away by the police. My words die in my mouth.
A/N:
What'll happen now that Clove and Cato are stuck in the mental hospital? Will anyone listen to them?
I'll post Chapter 26 soon. Thanks for reading!