Another Step Forward

I consider my awakening a miracle. I was shot in the head at close range, why am I still alive?

My eyelids flutter open in exhaustion. I'm lying in a hospital bed. To my left is a device that monitors my heartbeat. The light above my head is set at perfect brightness, my eyes can wander effortlessly through the room.

The last time I lay in such a bed I was tied up and trapped in a dark room for weeks. I'm not tied up this time. Surprisingly, I don't feel any pain either.

I open my lips slightly and let the air flow deep into my lungs. Only when I'm absolutely sure that I don't feel any pain do I sit up. Where the ribs pressed against my chest, I only feel a dull throbbing. I can breathe freely and have no discomfort. Relieved, I let my gaze wander down my body. My skin tone looks more vibrant. I gently slide my fingers down my left arm. The skin feels surprisingly soft. Only the scars spread across my arms, with their pale white tone, contrast starkly with the rest of the skin. Most are long thin lines, but I know there must have been larger remnants of torture and agony elsewhere. With a sigh, I look away.

Only then does the man come into my field of vision, leaning out of nowhere in the door that was just closed. He wears a white coat with short blond hair and dark eyes, from which he examines me carefully. He must be in his late forties. I don't know him and he doesn't look familiar to me either.

"On a scale of one to ten, how surprised are you?" he asks in a pleasantly warm voice, sauntering into the room. In his hands he holds a clipboard.

I look at him puzzled, but don't answer his question. "What happened?" My voice sounds surprisingly calm and relaxed. My fingers automatically go to my larynx.

The man stands at the foot of the bed and gives me an encouraging smile. "You were lucky," he says. "If you can call that luck. Almost a week has passed since your... accident. I was surprised at how long it took you to recover."

I nod slowly as I take in what little information there is. Recovery from what?

Suddenly he hits his forehead. "How stupid of me not to introduce myself," he says, shaking his head. "I am Dr. Aurelius, senior specialist in the fields of general surgery, internal medicine as well as psychiatry and psychotherapy. I've been working here for many years, but in the last few months my services seem to have become more and more indispensable ..."

I know immediately what he means. "I still don't understand what happened."

Dr. Aurelius sighs as if the answer is obvious and jots something down on his clipboard. "The execution of you, Miss Trinket, was nothing more than a mock execution. You were made to believe you were going to be killed so that, like a real execution, you would go through different emotional stages. This type of psychological torture is actually rather unusual, but very effective."

My fingers start to tingle. All this should have been nothing more than a well-acted show? "So– Any of this was true?"

Dr. Aurelius shakes his head. "You received your verdict at the beginning of your stay. The people in front of the stage were all just extras. You weren't really filmed on camera, nor was it published anywhere. The Peacekeeper's gun was loaded only with blanks."

He goes to a table and comes back holding a hand mirror. "Look." He hands me the mirror and I look at my forehead. No bullet hole, not even a small bruise.

It makes me sick to think that this horror was just another attempt to break my psyche. Torturing someone until they break is not enough. Instead, you hire a dozen actors and pretend to execute someone just to push you a little further down the abyss.

"That feeling– It was awful," I say, looking at him. For some reason I don't understand, the doctor's presence doesn't frighten me. He doesn't strike me as someone who would intentionally harm other people. After all, he's a doctor. "One of the Peacekeepers injected me with something. Through some kind of ampoule. The content was orange."

Dr. Aurelius nods and begins leafing through the pages of the clipboard. "Interesting" he says and writes something down again. "You have a good memory, Miss Trinket. You were actually injected with a serum. It promotes the flow of certain brain regions in which emotions such as fear are controlled. Intended effects are rapid breathing, tachycardia, as well as panic attacks and temporary hearing loss."

A fear serum. I vaguely remember the panic in my chest. And I really couldn't breathe. The other effects that Dr. Aurelius listed also match.

"And what happens now?" I finally dare to ask. "I mean, can I go back to my cell now? If so, then I don't understand why they bothered to heal my body."

"I'm a doctor. When people are sick or injured, they are brought to me. In your case this was no different. I fixed your broken ribs and stitched up several older wounds. In addition, I monitored your healing process and by orders also performed skin regeneration. Normally my colleagues don't order this when the prisoners just get–" He gives me an apologetic look. "Well, you know. I therefore rather suspect that they are pursuing a different plan with you. Of course, you can never be sure."

I nod gratefully. Without further ado, I decide not to hate Dr. Aurelius. Something about his manner tells me that he doesn't really agree with the practices of his colleagues. He certainly knows what's happening down here. However, he doesn't question much either. He seems to me more like one of those people who are so passionate about their work that they can ignore everything else around them. Like you did when you helped murder innocent children all these years.

A knock on the door makes us both sit up and take notice. We look at each other, finally his eyes soften a little and he smiles reassuringly. "I'll check." A moment later he has slipped through the door and locks it behind him.

The room has no windows so all I can do is wait. It's only now that I can think of a crucial question that I should have asked him much earlier: Is Adrian actually still alive? I can't figure it out. Now that I know they injected me with an anxiety serum, I guess I just imagined it. As terrible as it sounds, I killed him. He stopped breathing. There is no other explanation for this.

The door opens and Dr. Aurelius enters the room. His face has frozen into a serious expression. The look in his eyes bodes ill. I sigh.

"They're here to pick you up," he explains, his voice sounding dissatisfied. "From a medical point of view, you're much better than you were a few days ago, but not nearly well enough. You've bruises, a minor concussion, healing fractures, and a mental state that urges me to keep you here under observation for a long time. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem reason enough for my colleague here." He shrugs and jots something down on the clipboard.

An uncomfortable feeling spreads in my stomach area. "Is it– Is Adrian waiting to take me?"

This brings Dr. Aurelius to look up. His eyes stare at me in wonder. "Adrian? From what I can gather from your file, you eliminated him only recently."

Eliminated. This medic really has a weird way of communicating. I shake my head, relieved that Adrian probably hasn't risen from the dead after all. "Never mind."

At that moment, the door opens again and a Peacekeeper walks in. His facial features look a little familiar, so I guess he must be one of my previous tormentors. A shiver runs down my spine, but for now I manage to stay calm.

"I'll take you with me now," he says and stands at the end of my bed, where Dr. Aurelius remained seconds ago.

Dr. Aurelius nods. "Speedy recovery, Miss Trinket." He gives me a twisted smile.

I thank him and stand up cautiously. I've regained my strength to stand on my own two feet. There is no dizziness or pain. I sigh in relief. Then I glance at the Peacekeeper. His dark eyes rest on me and seem to perceive every little movement on my part. Perhaps I shouldn't brag too much about my regained health. But Dr. Aurelius is right: I feel a lot better, but I'm still not really well.

The Peacekeeper leads me out of the sickroom and down the corridor. The longer I stand on my own two feet, the more I realize how stiff my limbs are. My movements seem jerky and spasmodic, like I've been torn apart and put together the wrong way.

We'll soon be back in the cell blocks I'm familiar with. When I smell the well-worn musty smell, my stomach tightens uncomfortably. My body is on guard because it associates nothing good with this place.

Already I miss Dr. Aurelius and the medical wing. Even though I hardly spent any time there, it was minutes in which I felt neither fear nor panic. Now that I have to face my bitter reality, there is nothing left of the calm I was able to maintain. If I let my fear show, they will only do worse things to me later. My change of heart must not reach him. I ball my hands into fists.

The cell block we are in right now is unknown to me. Where I was previously housed, there were larger distances between the cells. The corridor here is narrow, less than two meters wide, and the cells are lined up close together. Each door even has its own little window, just big enough to put a hand through, but still.

The Peacekeeper presses his fingers into my arm and brings me to a halt. Another comes to his aid and opens one of the cells with a metallic rattle.

The cell is small and square, no more than four by four meters. Bed, sink and toilet. To my regret, I'm too small to see through the window, let alone put my hand through. Only my fingertips manage to touch the lower window frame.

Only when I sit down on the bed do I notice that I have been put in fresh clothes. About time, I don't even know how long I had to wear those rags before. After all the torture nothing more than shreds had been left.

Tired, I lean against the cold wall when I hear footsteps from outside. Two men are talking and for a moment I think they're stopping in front of my door. But a moment later I hear the cell door next to me being opened. I press my lips together uncomfortably. I guess I'm not alone down here.

A scream makes me jump. I'm so startled I want to grab the covers. I realize too late that there aren't any. They are hoarse screams, as if the person has lost their voice. Maybe these windows are more of a curse than a blessing.

The screaming comes at irregular intervals. It mingles with laughter from the Peacekeepers and another high pitched mechanical note that I can't place. Judging by the pitch of the screams, I suspect the victim is female. Although I first perceived her screams as frightened, they seem to sound angrier than anything.

My body is paralyzed from this show. My limbs don't want to move, I sit in the dark and can't catch my breath. It all reminds me too much of a distorted version of my own torment.

At some point, it feels like an eternity, they abruptly stop. I listen spellbound as they leave the cell with heavy steps. I expect the door to slam shut and the Peacekeepers to retreat.

Instead, she calls after them. "Do to me what you want but you'll never get me to talk, Capitol bastards!" Her voice boils with anger and yet there is a distinct vulnerability, as if she were only saying the words to prove something to herself.

The voice makes me jump. Not because I'm surprised by her words or the anger in her voice, but because she sounds incredibly familiar.

Her voice is even rougher and scratchier than usual and the words that come out of her mouth have only become more radical.

My cell neighbor is Johanna Mason.

-

Wohoo! A new character is introduced! What do you think? :) 

Skyllen