"ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴘᴇɴᴅ ꜱᴏ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴛʀᴀᴘᴘᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇꜱꜱ, ʏᴏᴜ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇꜱꜱ ʙᴇɢɪɴꜱ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴇ ʙᴀᴄᴋ."
Pitch black. In a split second their sliver of the arena falls pitch black. The four careers swivel in all directions, trying to locate anything in the area, only to be disoriented when they can no longer even find each other, let alone see as far out in the direction in which they believe the beach to be.
"Clio." She hears Cato's voice but she can't work out where it came from as their footsteps are hesitant trying not to think about the variety of poisonous, deadly creatures that could be in the jungle with them. Her breath catches in her throat as every rustle of leaves and distant call of unseen creatures sends a shiver down their spines. With each step, the sound seems to echo in the stillness, and their voices fall to a hush as if afraid to disturb the darkness, their laughter replaced by tension hanging in the air like a heavy veil when the segment falls silent.
"I don't like this." Clio says, heartbeat thundering in her chest as her eyes are lost in the dark of the faux night. "Where are you?"
"What's wrong? Scared of the dark?" Gloss jokes, though his voice cracks slightly with nerves.
"I am not overly fond of it, no." She bites back.
Gloss just laughs as they move slowly. "Everyone take two steps back."
"Gloss-" Cashmere starts.
"Two steps back." Gloss repeats, cutting her off, "There's no point in trying to find the beach so let's just stand back to back and wait for it to pass."
The jungle is eerily silent as they take two big steps back with their arms stretched behind them, jolting when they make contact. Each step causes Clio's imagination to take hold, conjuring shadows and spectres in the corner of her vision. She lets out a breath a couple of seconds later, her fear drawing out the time. "Cato?"
"You're fine, Clio." He assures her, "Sit down."
She slides to her knees, the overcasting darkness unsettling her and the loud silence sending goosebumps crawling across every area of her skin as she slips her legs out from underneath her to sit on the forest floor. She hears the sound of the others sitting nearby, the silence broken quickly by a loud gasp.
"What the fuck is that?" Gloss exclaims.
His loud words startle Clio, causing her to let out a yelp and back up because it sounded like the loudest, most deafening thing in the world in her panicked, muted state. Her back hits someone behind her and she quickly shuffles forward again; then is thrown into nervousness as she sees various red dots glowing from all angles in the depths of the jungle. Several bright red and large, others subdued in the distance
"Woah, hey, hey. It's just me." Cato says.
"Cato..." She croaks out.
"You're okay. It won't be long and we'll be out of this part of the jungle. The lightning was quick, remember? And I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."
"I have to get out of here." She shuffles, the leaves rustling underneath her.
Gloss breaks into hysterics, "Oh my god, you're actually scared."
"Gloss-" Cashmere tries, slapping her hand against what she hopes is her brother's leg.
"This is brilliant," he continues, ignoring his sister's warning. "Clio, the impenetrable defence, fearless, able to kill a man twice her size and barely bat an eyelid is reduced to tears by the dark."
"Gloss. Shut up." Cashmere hisses. "I know what's in here and if you don't shut up then we'll all be dead."
"What is it?" Gloss whispers.
"Not so fearless now, are we?" Cato mutters under his breath at the sudden alarm in the other man's tone.
"Everyone just shut up." Cashmere repeats in a low voice. "I had these mutts in my games, and they took out five tributes. They're giant spiders with venom strong enough to paralyse your nervous system and they track you by sound. If they hear us then we're all fucked. No one speak and no one fucking move."
The jungle seems to close in on them, towering trees and tangled undergrowth forming an intricate maze that seems to shift and writhe with invisible, undetectable movement, feeling like it spins even in the absence of vision, images of the pitch black nights in her first arena flooding Clio's mind. She tries to take a deep breath, but nothing enters her lungs and she clutches at her chest as she curls up on herself the best she can. Arms wrapped around her stomach she tries to force air into her lungs. Her jaw clenches as do her fingers, her arms moving to her shins as she hugs her lungs into her body. She hears her breaths start to whistle before she covers her mouth, forehead falling against her knees as she trembles silently.
Tears flood Clio's eyes but she fights her hardest to force them back. She doesn't want to cry and she certainly doesn't want for the light to return and the whole of Panem to find her bawling her eyes out for no reason other than it was dark. That would be embarrassing, she thinks, careers don't cry.
Something awful twists inside Clio's gut, the feeling nauseating and icy - the snowstorm erupting inside her chest a stark contrast to the humidity of the air around her. The sweat on her brow opposite to the ice travelling to her mind, spreading throughout her head as she clenches her eyes shut and wills herself to think of the flashes of paranoia that are contorting the fragments of her memories. It's too dark in this heightened atmosphere to drown away the ghosts of the various tributes in the abandoned city that have come to haunt whatever was left of her mind. Each turn of her head, each sound of a crumbling building, each fabricated sound of footsteps was a glass shard stabbing into her memory like an infinite recurring nightmare that she can't wake up. Sometimes it was the sight of deserted streets in dim lighting, sometimes the taste of slightly rusted water from the busted pipes, sometimes the sound of a cannon blaring through the empty room, sometimes the texture of blood as it drips from her hand, sometimes the brain matter of a thirteen year old girl painting the wall of the cornucopia as multiple weapons split the bones apart.
She lays her cheek against her uncomfortable, bony knees; breathing unsteady, humid air and trying desperately not to look at the bright red dots that threaten her vision. The sound of scratching of the spiders over the leaves and branches makes her skin crawl and infiltrates her brain like a toxin, reminding her of the scurrying of the giant rats. She can see the rodents, almost, painting vivid imagery of the hoards of tribute-eating vermin, with their eyes glowing a bright orange as she scales the sides of buildings, bolting her way up sets of desolate stairwells and out onto barren rooftops; bathing her in true darkness that demanded to constrict itself around her breath. Like a snake wrapping around its prey. Like the hands of the District Ten male squeezing at the flesh of her neck until her bone threatens to shatter like glass.
There was still something inside her - something festering, something evil - and it had been so easy for the gamemakers to bring out that part of her. It had been so fucking easy for Zeus Melia to subject her to her weakness. It had been so easy for him to shatter all sense of control she felt. Her hands run through her hair, as if it would help to soothe her mind, while her movements cause her lucky pendant to fall against her collarbone underneath her wetsuit and remind her of the searing pain she felt when her scar was inflicted upon her.
There's pressure on her chest as her grip tightens on her hair. I'm dying, she thinks, Please. Someone help me, please. There's pressure on her chest as if someone has forced a spear through the front, squeezing her lungs and forcing out shaky air. "Please." She whimpers quietly.
"Clio, you're okay." Cato whispers, "I'm right here, baby. You're fine, I promise."
"Cato!" Cashmere and Gloss reprimand him in a low hiss, quickly forcing the four of them in silence again once a few more pairs of glowing red eyes appear.
She tries to repeat the words she heard, unsure of who vocalised the words in her panic as she begins to dissociate, trying to force the words through her mind, feeling her brain rebel against them, agreeing with her throat as it begins to constrict further.
The oxygen deprivation was getting to the point in which it felt as if she would collapse, as if her head would become too heavy for the bones in her neck and send her tumbling towards the ground, and then to her impending doom. Don't touch me, she thinks, head consumed with fragmented memories as she flinches back against her allies with a shiver, as if the ice spreading through her body was a dagger, only to be used against her own imagination. She shakes her head, huffing a painful breath as she attempts to rid her mind of the thoughts. The pain in her chest is getting heavier with every passing moment and her eyes are pained and afraid as she screws them shut against the burn of water threatening to spill down her face that she can no longer hold at bay. Resorting to shoving her head between her knees, holding herself up by her shoulder, she stares straight down at the soil, now dampening with her tears as she wordlessly begs for the darkness to lift, for her mind to think of anything but the loneliness and paranoia of that uninhabited cosmopolis. Nothing changes as she rocks back and forth slowly, in a display of failed self-soothing, it still felt deathly cold and she still couldn't breathe; stuck in a repetitive, unsuccessful cycle for what feels like days.
The cold that eats into her body fights against the vibrancy of colour that burns in through the thick rainforest canopy as suddenly the morning sunlight flickers back around their segment of the arena. Cashmere and Gloss immediately jump to their feet, ready to leave their area of the jungle as they bring up the different types of mutts that may be in the other slivers of jungle. Various expletives pass their lips, because the idea of more mutts - even potentially in the water - was undesirable. But Cato isn't focused on the siblings at all. He's staring at Clio.
Clio, who remains frozen in place on the floor, face emotionless and silent. Clio is always the first one to respond to any suggestions or ideas, always the first to communicate, giving some kind of sarcastic comment after any type of experience; especially the traumatic ones. Her not saying anything is the first thing that clues Cato in to the fact that something is really wrong.
The next is her hands. Her hands, normally steady and possessing great accuracy - he'd watched her throw knives into the centre of moving targets with her eyes closed - were shaking. Badly. As if she were cold. But Cato knows full well that she can't be cold. They're in a tropical climate with intense humidity and burning sunlight. Clio isn't cold. Clio is shaking, and she isn't saying anything and he knows that he needs to find a way to snap her out of her trance-like state before their allies realise she isn't fully present and use it as their long-awaited opportunity to remove her.
"Clio," Cato mumbles under his breath, trying not to draw attention to her.
"Come on!" Gloss announces, "what are we waiting for? Let's move."
The three of them come to stand around a still dazed Clio. Cashmere reaches out to catch her attention, ignoring Cato's warning. She places her hand on the girl's upper tricep. Reacting to the touch, Clio jumps up, grasping the blonde woman's arm and twisting it until she yelps in pain. At the noise, Clio goes for her throat, tackling the other woman to the ground and grabbing her neck with both hands.
"Gloss!" She cries out.
Her brother reacts immediately, pulling a spear from the harness slung across his back and aiming it at the short woman who kneels above his sister. His arm flexes as he pulls it back in preparation to let the weapon fly but stops when he recognises the familiar feeling of sharp metal digging into the skin underneath his chin. He turns his head slowly. Cato watches him carefully, pressing the tip of his sword harder into his neck threateningly. "Drop the spear or I'll take your head clean off."
"Control your bitch man, she's going to kill her!" Gloss shouts.
"Maybe she should have listened to my fucking warning." Cato argues. "You can't win without us. Now drop the fucking spear and I'll sort it."
Reluctantly, Gloss brings the spear down to his side and releases his grip with a roll of his eyes. At the same time, Cashmere kicks at Clio's stomach, pushes her off of herself. Still dazed, Clio immediately rolls from her back onto her front and begins to push herself to her knees to attack again when she feels a pair of arms wrap around her body. She lets out a piercing scream, kicking and flailing at the body lifting her from the ground.
"It's okay, I've got you." A familiar voice rings in her head. "I've got you."
Her scream cuts off abruptly as she stops kicking. Gasping for breath, the hot tears fall thick and fast down her face. Curling up over her arms she tries to stop the images flashing in her head. Tries to stop the pain in her chest, in her mind.
"Clio, angel, breathe. Please. I need you to breathe." Cato whispers to her.
She can't seem to get it to work. As hard as she tries, no air fills her lungs. He turns her in his hold, hands moving to rest on her face to make her look into his eyes. "Breathe. You're okay."
She watches as he takes a deep breath in through his nose, trying to follow suit. Clio focuses on his face, watching as his eyes worry as she tries to breathe deeply, to get the vital oxygen her body was craving. Letting out the long breath, he takes in another and keeps repeating this until each of her breaths become easier and she leans her head on his chest, watching Cashmere climbing to her feet beside her brother out of the corner of her eye.
"It's okay," he whispers, "it's okay."
"I'm broken," she chokes out a sarcastic laugh.
His hold tightens around her for a moment before moving one of his arms to cup her face and look down at her. She can't meet his eyes, knowing he'd see the broken state she was in if she did but he simply brushed the stray strands of hair from her face and watched her whilst carefully taking note of what the siblings standing to the side are doing. "You're not broken, maybe a little cracked but that's okay, who isn't?"
She shakes her head with a gentle laugh, "thanks for putting up with me."
"I love you, it's my job," He says, placing a kiss to the top of her head. "Besides, you put up with me too."
"I love you, so it's my job." She repeats quietly before shuffling back from him to look at her allies. Her friend, who probably wouldn't be her friend for much longer. At least they're giving us a fair chance at the fight, she thinks.
"Clio-"
"I'm sorry Cash," she apologises. The siblings seem taken aback by her honesty so she continues to explain, "I spent a week alone in the dark. It makes me a little paranoid."
"A little?" Gloss scoffs.
"Yes." She shrugs at the man, focusing her gaze on Cashmere. "Can we move? I'm alright now but I don't want to experience that again."
"It's fine." Cashmere gestures, but it's clear that the altercation has shaken her somewhat. She nods her head to one side and motions for Clio to join her as she walks through the jungle, moving upwards to gain some ground.
"Hold on-" Gloss objects, but is interrupted by Cato walking closer. He doesn't stop until he is inches away from the other man's face.
"If you ever talk about her like that again." He spits. "I will fucking skin you alive."
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𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙀𝙎!
Clio after the darkness like:
Ciao! Another double upload for you because I want this book completely published by Christmas so that I can get started with publishing book two (it's half way written I'm ahead of the curve ;P)
This is part one of two of course.
Finally, if anyone recognises where the quote in the summary is from you'll have to let me know!