Rhythms and Enemies

The rhythm of District 13 quickly captivates me. The puzzle pieces all slowly come together to form a single picture. My recovery continues to progress with each passing day. At least from the outside. I've gained some weight and I'm happy about it, even though it will take a while before I get back to my old dress size. The color of my skin has taken on a healthier tone and even my hair is regenerating. The dark spots on my body that are the last remnants of my time in the Capitol have now vanished into thin air. Where I was hurt, pale marks now adorn my body. These scars will never go away. They will remind me for the rest of my life what I went through. What I survived.

In my head, the rehabilitation is not progressing as quickly. Dr. Jennings says it's normal and it will stay that way for a long time. She has the impression that I downplay my trauma and even underestimate it. I don't do that. All I want is to move on with my life, forgetting what happened to me. But these memories, the dreams, the fear ... all these feelings in my chest stop me. So I try to push them away. As good as possible. A lot has happened in the last few days so I manage the dance on knife's edge for the moment, but Dr. Jennings fears that just one wrong moment could cause shock to take over my mental state again.

Nevertheless, she considers me stable enough to leave the infirmary permanently. At the beginning I was pleased with her decision and the signature on the official discharge paper confirming it. But the euphoria in my veins only lasted long enough for the man in a gray uniform, who picks me up one morning and accompanies me to my new room, to introduce me to my new roommates. Given District 13's politics, I should have realized much sooner that Coin wouldn't be keen on single rooms. After all, that would be a waste of one of the most important resources available here: space.

The official who escorts me to my new room carries a clipboard and appears to be crossing several things off his list without giving me the slightest notice of its contents. I don't know him, have never seen him and he hardly says a word to me. His grim face makes it clear that he's probably not the type to talk. Only when we arrive in front of my new sleeping complex does he briefly explain some rules to me and informs me that I will have a job in one of the laundries starting tomorrow. When I get up, I'm supposed to put my hand under the designated scanner to get my first plan for the day. After breakfast someone will pick me up to show me the way to the laundry. That's all he tells me before he says goodbye with a curt nod and disappears into the corridor.

My room is located away from the infirmary, on a higher level dedicated solely to housing the residents of District 13. Haymitch's rooms are on the same level, but hardly closer than the medical complex. The District is a lot bigger than I first thought and I'm glad I know some ways to get around without having to ask anyone else.

As it turns out, I share my complex with two other women, Dasha and Betha, both refugees from District 5. If my guess is correct, they are sisters. At least they look similar enough with their light brown hair and green eyes. But I can only speculate because, as expected, they don't say a word to me more than necessary. They know who I am, I can see it in the furtive glances they give me every day from the corner of their eyes.

They must have a grudge against the Capitol, that's for sure, but in a place like District 13 it's unlikely there'll be anyone with an opposing view. Everyone here hates the Capitol. I don't know what the sisters had to go through to be here today. Everyone has their own burden to bear and not everyone will let the horror they have experienced show in their eyes. No matter what motivated the two to flee, it couldn't have been good. Dasha's face, with a long, chalky scar running down her left cheek, speaks more than a thousand words.

Living together with Dasha and Betha is difficult. My background makes the situation worse, as does my past. Not only do they know my name, they also know about the role I played in the Hunger Games. They know about the blood on my hands. Neither of them shouts or openly denounces me, but their behavior is enough to make one realize that someone like me wouldn't live a long life in their ideas of a fair Panem.

The overwhelming fear in my body puts more obstacles in my way. Every walk to my room causes my heart to pound uncontrollably because I don't want to look them in the eyes. The hostility that I feel more and more outside my four walls with each passing day is enough for me. The nightmares that wake me night after night with a whimpering scream also do little to create a peaceful feeling between us. I don't feel safe. I can't let myself go because I'm always afraid of being judged for my every move. I can't breathe in peace without a dangerous mix of fear and guilt filling my lungs that makes my fingers tremble.

So I try to avoid Dasha and Betha as much as possible. Just like before I had my own room, I'm usually with Johanna. Sometimes, when I can't stand the tension in my accommodation or the thought of returning there only lets the ice spread further through my body, I even sleep here. In the uncomfortable, gray chair next to Johanna's bed. Unless they send me away, which sometimes happens when the wrong doctor works the night shift.

Even outside these four walls, which were supposed to be a safe haven for me, the hostility is slowly increasing. More people notice me. My meetings with Haymitch no longer go unnoticed, but word gets around. As the only person far and wide with a hair scarf on my head, I'm easy to spot. Individuals are beginning to dare to speak to me. It's happened twice that someone just stands in my way somewhere and to remind me that I haven't been forgotten. Allusions to my actions as an escort. Criticism of the close connection to Katniss and Haymitch, which is definitely not approved here.

They are nothing but words. There were also enough resentful people in the position I held in the Capitol. Envious people, haters, critics. District 13 makes no difference. At least that's what I'm trying to tell myself. However, one thing that struck me through the hostility was that they were never original residents of 13. Both times they were people from one of the other Districts, although I can't say which one. It is easy to distinguish refugees from locals. People from here usually behave more neutrally and show less emotion. Their posture is more rigid and precise, and years of discipline radiate from within.

Although neither of the two hostilities was an attack or anything like that, they scared me so much both times, so that I hid with Johanna for the rest of the days and didn't set foot out of the hospital room for lunch or dinner. Even though the young victor found my behavior strange, she didn't speak to me about it. She probably attributed my strange posture to my trauma, to one of the panic attacks.

I'm glad about Johanna's incorrect derivation. I can't imagine what she would have to say about that. I didn't even tell Haymitch – especially Haymitch – anything. He would want to spend even more time with me than he already does. Not that I have anything wrong with his company, quite the opposite. For years, the relationship with Haymitch felt like a wild, bumpy dance; sometimes slow, sometimes quick, but never in rhythm with the music. In District 13, now that there are no more secrets, no more hostile sides between us, we finally feel the rhythm of the melody and are able to adapt to one another. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that there are still years of horror between us. Overcoming and forgetting the Capitol, the Hunger Games and all the losses that came with it will be a task that we, but especially Haymitch, will have to face one day. Right now, we live day by day and are grateful for what we can get.

And yet I need time for myself. I need air to breathe. When I'm around Haymitch, everything around us feels so surreal that I sometimes wonder if the Capitol hasn't played a big trick on me in the past few weeks. Whenever he is there, I fear that I will be woken up from a deep dream. Only my time alone reminds me that everything here is actually real.

Another key reason why I didn't tell him about the hostility is his ability to protect the people he cares about. I now know most of Haymitch's facets. This instinct runs deep within him and there isn't much he wouldn't do for his family. Especially not after what happened to his blood relatives. He has joined a rebellion against the system he has feared and loathed for years in order to save Katniss's life. He sold his soul to the devil to protect my younger self from the true face of my home. I can't tell him about this because he would move every stone to satisfy his need for security.

One of the few bright spots right now is actually the new job I've been assigned. Most of the other workers in the area also give me suspicious looks but leave me in peace. In the laundry, each employee has their own area with several dozen washing machines that need to be monitored. Almost every process is automatic: the clothes move in and out of the drums by themselves and the washing process also starts without outside help. The technology behind it is clever enough to weigh the laundry and add the appropriate dose of detergent. All we have to do is assign new loads of dirty textiles to the empty machines and redirect the fresh ones via the digital systems to the associated complexes from where they were sent to the laundry.

It doesn't take a lot of brains to do the work and it's too monotonous to really enjoy it, but it demands my attention. Attention that I can no longer devote to the thoughts in my head. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm just postponing coming to terms with my trauma. However, most of me hopes that I'm already doing that with everything that's happening around me.

Come to terms. It was my last conversation with Dr. Jennings, in which she advised me not to suppress the thoughts that remind me of what lies behind me. It would only make my suffering worse in the long run. I should live my life, but if any situation reminds me of my time in the Capitol prison, I should step back and reflect on the causes of my panic. To help me understand what triggers may be serving as outlets for my anxiety.

I'm not really good at coming to terms with my past. Repressing or ignoring it would probably be more accurate, which is what I have done in the past few weeks. Maybe I'm working things out after all, I can't say for sure. All I know is that I'm slowly getting better. Haymitch is good for me, even if neither of us wants to describe the bond between us; or can. Our relationship has always been a dance on a knife's edge and even though we are already learning to get along, it will probably be a long time before we know the real people behind the fake facades. Effie Trinket and Haymtitch Abernathy are nothing more than public figures who had their own little game to play year for year. Independently of each other. For the cameras. Me for my family and the people in the Capitol that I wanted to impress. He for his District. For the children he couldn't save. For the parents who were left behind, whom he had to look in the eyes every day, knowing that he had failed. For the Capitol to leave him alone, to convince them of his loneliness.

Everything we did, everything we played for Panem, was always in our own interest. Now that that pressure has been lifted from our shoulders, the ghosts of those who once weighed us down are all that keeps us from developing our true personalities. Pushing these ghosts, this guilt, these memories from our attention will take time. Until then we can support each other. I've already gotten to know sides of Haymitch that I never would have thought possible. Not because I didn't think he was that kind of person, but because I thought those parts of his personality would have died in him years ago.

There's nothing between us. Haymitch and I don't do anything except talking, walking around, or sitting silently next to each other, pondering our own thoughts. And yet I feel connected to him on so many levels. I have no idea how he feels, how much this connection means to him, but now that my family and everything I've ever loved is gone forever, he, Peeta and Katniss are all I have left. I've been fighting for them for the last two and a half years and I've reached the point of no return.

The longer I'm in District 13, the more everything around me seems to come together. In a few moments it feels a bit like it used to be before everything went to hell. We laugh, smile and tell each other old stories that happened in past Hunger Games. But then I turn around, look at the faces of the people next to me and I realize how much has changed: Johanna's sad, grinning expression. Finnick's fragile, grateful smile. Katniss's lost, faraway look. Haymitch's torn yet content eyes. Chaff is missing from our midst, Haymitch is missing him. And then of course there's Peeta, whose absence bores a hole in our stomachs and drives Katniss to the brink of despair. And yet everything comes together. If you want or not. No one can stop time, not even Snow, who sits high in his palace in the Capitol. And time is against most of us.

When Johanna is not in a condition to tolerate my presence and Haymitch also has to attend one of his meetings in the mysterious Command, I spend my time with Finnick and Annie. Aside from Haymitch, he was one of my first friends in the victor ranks. And Annie, who for a long time I couldn't identify except by her name, turns out to be a lovely person with whom I get along well from the start. We don't talk about our time in the Capitol, she has a hard time dealing with it. Still, she knows that I've been through something similar to her. Maybe Finnick told her, maybe we Marked Ones actually recognize each other.

Annie's mental state is fragile. Haymitch had already told me about it during one of the last seasons when we were talking about her and yet I completely misunderstood it at the time. There are times when she just sits there and doesn't do anything, like she's in a completely different place than Finnick and I. When things are really bad, she puts her hands over her ears, rocks back and forth and mumbles confused words that only make sense to her.

Finnick tries hard with her. Now that I'm finally seeing them together, I understand the teasing digs he had to endure from Johanna over the past few years. Every time he looks at her with one of his loving, thoughtful looks, my heart warms. The dynamic between the two, the way they dance around each other like magnets, is beautiful to watch. It's the kind of love I always longed for as a child.

"Miss Trinket," a dissatisfied voice whispers and I lift my head. I must have nodded off. My eyes squint against the darkness and it takes me a moment to recognize the figure leaning against the open door to Johanna's hospital room. It's one of the night shift doctors and the way he furrows his eyebrows puts a lump in my throat. "You know you have to retire to your quarters for nighttime."

I just nod, that's all I can manage with my heavy eyelids. As I stagger up from the uncomfortable plastic chair in which I have been silently sitting for the last few hours, my eyes wander to Johanna. She's sleeping soundly, her arm still hooked up to the morphine. Her victor instincts should have been awakened long ago, but she must be far too deep in the liberating pull of the drugs to notice anything. A soft sigh escapes my lips at the sight of her. They make her addicted and don't even realize it. Or maybe they just don't care. Or they allow it because she's easier to control that way.

With shuffling steps, I push past the doctor, who wishes me good night and continues his round. The hallways of the infirmary are dark except for a few lights, barely strong enough to make out another figure in front of you. However, I now blindly know the way to my room. I don't meet anyone as I take the station's main exit and sneak through the slightly brighter hallways of District 13. Here and there I see patrolling soldiers in the distance, but if they notice me too, they ignore me. They wouldn't do anything besides making me aware of the nighttime. Most of the others in 13 are not as strict about the rest periods as some of the doctors on the night shift. As long as the noise level stays low and no light or water is wasted, they don't care where I am or what I do.

I've just exited the elevator to my level when I feel it. It's more instinct than actual hunch. Something my body has acquired through all the months of torture. In one quick movement, I whip my head around, my hands already clenched into fists, but there's no one in the hallway I just crossed. Nothing except the elevator and the locked doors to other residents' apartments.

It doesn't change the pounding of blood in my body. The tiredness is gone and as I turn back to the corridor in front of me, my eyes scan every corner with an attention that seems alien to myself. I carefully start moving again, but I don't dare to breathe. The tingling in the back of my neck grows stronger as I take the next fork into the hallway that houses my quarters. My steps quicken without me having to think about it.

Whoever is following me must have noticed that their presence is not going unnoticed. Feet rush around the corner, murmurs reach my ears and suddenly I'm running. As my legs carry me toward the door that promises my safety, I turn to face my pursuers. There are three people, two of them broad-shouldered, almost beefy. The third is smaller and the figure is wirier. It catches up with me within seconds and throws itself at me with all its body weight.

My jaw hits the floor with an intensity that cuts through my bones. The impact throws me off balance for a moment, so my attackers have no trouble covering my mouth with a hand as they pull me to my feet and push me against the nearest wall. Black eyes appear before me and in the dark light of the corridor they could have been wearing white uniforms and it wouldn't have made a difference.

"You're lulling yourself into a false sense of security, bitch," a female voice hisses at me. I don't know her. But here in District 13, where anyone could hate me, that doesn't matter. "This is what happens to people who serve the Capitol."

Her male companions silently hold my arms against the cold metal of the wall while her fist drives into my face. Once. Twice. To my surprise and hers, all I can manage is a disinterested blink. The wall in my heart has risen, as it always did in such situations.

"Not enough yet?" the woman scoffs angrily and this time her fist hits my stomach. My lack of pain resonance confuses her. She clenches her teeth harder and furrows her eyebrows angrily. Anger flames in her charcoal pupils. Hate that I share on a level that would surprise her.

"Nothing you could do to me would even remotely compare to what the Capitol, which I supposedly serve, did to me," I reply, as calmly and calculatedly as possible. My fingers are shaking barely noticeably, but I still try to keep Johanna in my mind. Johanna would show no weakness. She would let her opponents know that they are nothing but the puny, insignificant fish in the tank.

"Is that so?" A grin spreads across the woman's face and her eyes seem to absorb the darkness of our surroundings. She looks down and for a moment I think she's lost interest in me. Her right hand slides down to her trouser pocket and pulls out a thin, shiny metallic object. Something in my stomach clenches at the sight of the brass knuckles. A disadvantage of Johanna's cheeky nature is that it often backfires, only causing her bigger problems. "Then let's see how high your tolerance level really is, puppet."

-

Well well ... who are those people? What will happen to Effie? She doesn't seem to care too much. What are your thoughts on this chapter?

I finished my thesis last week and I'm pretty happy about it. Sadly, I still have to pass a logic test on Saturday. Let me say one thing: According to the mock tests, my logic isn't making sense. :D Sad life. Wish me luck!

Skyllen :)