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Three Peacekeepers of differing height made their way to the cell that held one of the two mentors who had a role in the explosive outcome of the 50th Games. A Victor from District 12 no less. Blowing up the arena. After winning.
It was so ridiculous if it weren’t so rebellious. The Games existed to enforce compliance amongst Districts - not to give a self-proclaimed rascal an opportunity to do the unthinkable, broadcasted on national television for the eyes of everyone to see.
This particular mentor was easier to break than the older one who seemed immune to psychological torment - forcing them to dish out their retribution in a more physical way. However, the younger one that won the previous year in an act of her own that could be seen as outsmarting the arena had a lot of… quirks that they were able to exploit.
—--
It all started when they dragged her from the mentor’s room as soon as the incident occurred. A group of 8 Peacekeepers stormed the vicinity, announcing their presence in a cacophony of sounds that caused the remaining mentors in the room to flinch on autopilot, raising their own hands and moving out of the way of their watchful gaze. Some advanced without thinking to the source of the sound before realising what made it, others ran to the sides of the walls, a few of them let out varying yells of shock.
Then they fixed their eyes on them.
Wiress didn’t have a chance to react before her wrists were grabbed by the sea of white and her arms were yanked painfully behind her back. Their fingers crawled around her limbs, rustling the fabric that rested arms.
She let out an initial sound of shock as her arms were used as leverage to drag her forward, shoving her against one of the desks that held the screens that the mentors used to distribute gifts to their tributes in the arena. Her hair that was done in neat plaits was pulled and mussed by another.
Caught between wanting to cry out in indignation and wanting to utilise the airy persona that kept her safe the year before, but seeing their fury and feeling their hands - resistance was futile. She should have died when she had the chance. At least it seemed like it was going ot happen soon.
“Get out,” one of the Peacekeepers ordered to the remaining mentors that were watching this scene unfold in varying expressions of disdain, fury and indifference.
Beetee watched in an open mouthed trance, freezing as he saw the girl that he had grown to view as one of his daughters bear the weight of the Capitol’s fury that should have been directed at him. It was his plan. The most she did was cut the power in the building, giving him time to share his plan with Haymitch.
His plan.
And she was the one restrained.
The girl who couldn’t stand most acts of physical touch and came out of her own Games without a scratch.
He didn’t think she would be so lucky this time.
Last year was too early for a rebellion. Seeing that they decided to go after his son, he thought he didn’t have anything left to lose.
He didn’t think.
It was all his fault.
To his left he saw Mags receive her own reprimanding from the Capitol. Her figure was pressed against another bench in a similar manner to his former tribute. She wasn’t resisting their touch, giving the 4 Peacekeepers an easy task of directing her out of the room in their custody without protest. They pulled her out of the room and Beetee could see them leading her along the corridor before she was out of sight.
Wiress on the other hand was not so… compliant. She kept flinching as the hands worked to hold her down with increasing force. Her breaths started coming out faster and her eyes and jaw were clenched incredibly tight as her face and torso laid flat against the desk, hands holding her down.
“Please, please let me go, please, let go, please,” Wiress whispered tearfully in a voice that made Beetee want to grab her and run. He never saw her break in front of the Capitol before.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she added in a plea. She was muttering other things but those were the only coherent words he could make out. “We can work this out.”
The Peacekeeper pinning her down from behind grunted and they were dealing with her wrestling figure. “Not so strong without everyone else aren’t we?”
Wasn’t everyone stronger in a team though?
“Get out,” the same Peacekeeper from before barked after seeing the lack of urgency certain mentors had in clearing the room. “Or else you’re next.”
Beetee had no choice but to leave. With one last glance, he took a deep breath in and left the room. He was never going to orchestrate anything again.
The rapid rhythm of her heartbeat thundered in her ears while the buzzing sensation that developed on her skin when she felt unwanted pressure drowned out everything that was going on - blurring everything into a staticky dissonance that gave no clarity.
Her tribute won. And this was the Capitol’s way of expressing their gratitude.
Her eyes were pressed so tight that a sea of shapes and lights unfolded in the darkness. Her temples ached with the increased pressure.
A boot made contact with one of her legs that dangled uselessly in the air, causing her to cry out in another scream of anguish.
“That hurts,” she whimpered.
“Are you going to behave now?” Another voice asked, coming from the front this time as they had their hand pressed against her head that was planted on the table.
She didn’t know what was going on. It all happened too fast. They never gave her time to catch up.
“Get up,” one of the voices ordered, pulling her by her wrists that were now pressed together with a zip-tie locked in place.
Everything in her told her to not to. To resist or scream louder. But the instincts she prided herself in having and keeping her safe fought against each other. When all the alarms were going off in her head, it was hard to differentiate anything. Danger. Stay away.
Despite the noise, she knew getting taken to a second location would result in more private treatment. But flailing and causing a scene now would only ensue more vicious treatment once they got a hold of her.
She could not win.
The odds were never in her favour.
Wiress tried to press the tips of her toes into the floor below but she didn’t make enough contact. And they were strong. Specially trained and had a strength she never had. Outnumbering her 4 to 1.
“Guess you’re getting the hard way,” a man let out.
They grabbed her from all around and pulled her weight up, forcing her feet to move clumsily as they placed her on two feet, dragging her in an uncoordinated stumble down what seemed to be winding steps in a dimly lit area until someone from ahead opened a door to a harshly lit artificially white room that was as uninviting as it looked. No chairs or tables, just the walls and floor matching the same uniform the Peacekeepers wore in a void of misery.
Forcing her inside, they finally released their grip on her floating body, causing her to drop down in a painful clash as her knees made contact with the ground below. It echoed in the acoustics of the room. On impact she curled into the fetal position, hands covering her face, hidden behind the frantic nest of her hair that was now mussed.
They talked for a bit, what they were saying, she couldn't make out over the agony started settling over her body. Her wrists twinged, her knees vibrated, the bruises from their force was starting to bud.
With the click of a door, the noises and footsteps vanished until she was left alone in this cold room that mimicked the nighttime temperatures of a certain arena she forced herself to forget.
—--
She used to like solitude. Craved it. It was her time to work and truly be herself without the judgemental gaze of others.
But in this concreted room that radiated the same emptiness she felt inside, she never felt the usual peace she had in the privacy.
With the clicking of a door, the voices appeared again just as quickly as they left, evidently saying something to the shivering girl coiled in a ball.
Wiress let out a peek from her curled position.. Slowly opening one eye then the other in a lost gaze. They hadn’t even done anything yet and she was already down.
The lights within the room switched off suddenly.
She let out a piercing scream.
They hadn’t even laid their hands on her yet.
They were more occupied with plugging in an odd machine on wheels with electrodes attached to wires that extended to the ground. The power needed to plug in this contraption caused the lights to blow, there was only so much energy in this lowered room.
They decided to keep the lights off from now on.
Wiress was going to go completly nuts.
The words started spilling out of her before she could stop them, saying something about a twinkling star up above in the sky.
Quizzical faces turned to each other.
“This is the one who planned it out?” one of the men fiddling with the cords asked.
“Doesn’t seem like much of a brain, doesn’t she?” another voice responded, attempting to attach electrodes to a curled figure in a frantic state. “And they say District 3 holds all the greatest minds.”
“Maybe this would sort her out,” the first voice declared.
“Nothing like a little electric compliance conditioning to keep you switched on.”
The switch was flipped and she was abruptly struck with a surge of electricity that made everything fade to black.
Fractured segments looking back at her assaulting her retinas was the first thing she noticed in her fuzzy state once she came to again.
It was cold and dark but not even that could hide the way the lights moved in deception when multiple mirrors were planted in every direction.
Some were warped, others stretched what was in front of them. Extending from ceiling to floor in a disorienting dance, there was no way out this time. No blindspot that led to safety.
Here she was exposed. They saw everything.
It was all manufactured.
Nothing was real.
Half-finished sentences that sounded like riddles escaped her lips, evidently talking into the darkness. It was the first sign of a dissociation that she would never be able to fully break.
She used to be able to track time in the arena, watching as the sun would rise in an orangey brilliance despite the cruel environment it illuminated and the moon coming to take over the night.
There was no way of telling here.
She used to hum for joy - or for comfort.
Here she did it to drown out the hissing of surging power that came in zaps of varying intensity and the buzzing of the Capitol’s eyes that stayed perched in the corner.
It didn’t carry the melodic cadence she used to produce. It was off-tune and earsplitting.
The louder she sang, the less she could hear it.
The doors opened again, this time to plop a tray down on the floor in a clash that caused her to retreat further into her closed off position.
She braced herself for impact but it never came.
They left as soon as they arrived.
The scent of this new addition cut through the misery of the room. A blended mush and a small cup of water.
Her stomach rumbled as registered what was with her but she also was back in the arena in the Capitol. She couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. Nothing made sense.
Beetee once told her not to trust the food. She didn’t remember why or when - or if it even happened in the first place, but there was food in front of her.
So she left it.
Visions blurred, destruction, carnage, people. Why were children fighting? Why did the cameras keep going off? Why was she dressed in a golden outfit posing with colourful people that looked more deceptive than genuine? Nothing made sense.
At one point she started crying. At first, it was quiet, but, as the gaze of cameras grew, so did the volume.
It was dreadful.
Once her tear ducts were dried and replaced with a pulsating headache - there was nothing more to be done.
She closed her eyes and drifted away to a reality that didn’t jolt you unexpectedly in the darkness. One that was warm and light and everything made sense.
The trays started piling up to the side - untouched.
“She’s not eating,” a voice muttered during one of the moments that caused her to flinch when she heard the moving of a hinge that indicated company.
“She wouldn’t have much longer if this continues,” someone else responded.
It wasn’t their problem if she chose not to eat. But it was their problem if a mentor of the newest Victor disappeared unexpectedly for a period of time and was announced dead as a result. It was too early. Too suspicious.
“Start a line,” the first voice stated.
She felt a harsh jab in the crook of her elbow, pain radiating along the side of her arm in a tingling sensation that differed from the surges that caused her to twitch and flinch in response. There was a cord that was taped over but it looked too… perfect against the dreary background.
It wasn’t real.
None of this was.
She died in the arena once.
She will die in the arena again.
She saw her District partner, Axel hidden by the Cornucopia.
“Axel, run,” she murmured. “Come on Axel, Run. Now. Go. Run. Axel. Run. Run. RUN!” she screamed as she started rocking back and forth in a twitchy to and fro.
She alternated between mad ramblings and screaming the words of childish songs that didn’t seem fitting for a former Victor that outsmarted her own Games.
“It’s a killing machine. The machine. It’s killing me. YOU’RE KILLING ME!” she shrieked into the emptiness of the room that only held her - but the weight of it spoke of so much more.
The door opened again, these newcomers having a different cadence than the others who would carelessly toss a tray to the corner or the ones that would replace the line that contained nutrients or the team that would come in and leave her buzzing half-conscious.
“Here she is, she’s been like that since the first day.”
“Interesting,” a venomous voice grit out that she couldn’t quite place but knew she had heard before. When she was alive.
“The clock struck one. The mouse ran down,” she continued, unaware of Snow’s presence. It was hazy.
“Wiress,” that same snaily voice stated, expectedly waiting for her to look at him.
She never did, in fact, she curled in further as her face scrunched up and her fingers went to her ears.
“Hickory Dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock.”
For a moment the piercing red eyes just looked at her in bewilderment, before the corners of lips curled in a contented smile.
“What you did was very bad,” he said, continuing despite her absent state. “Showing us up like that. It is unacceptable,” he tutted.
She let out a peal of manic laughter that seemed to be a fitting response if it weren’t so jarring that she was unaware of doing it.
“Avoid the slaughter, get weapons,” she trailed off.
His eyes sharpened at that. Walking closer to her, he crouched down on his knees, staring at the fractured image of a girl that used to beam brighter than the lights of the Capitol and slapped her in a feat that was more loud than painful.
That seemed to do the trick and she unscrunched her eyes, letting them wander around the room in a lost and unseeing gaze. Images of darkness and fog reflecting back at her. The door was open though, and a man was moving his mouth. Speaking, it looked like. It was hard to tell what was real when nothing was real.
“Now that you know what would happen if you ever go against us again, I trust you would not make that same mistake again,” Snow asserted. “It might be one of the last things you ever do.”
She didn’t realise her voice sounded so masculine, when she was alive, she thought it was softer. Airier. Smoother. And why was she going against them? She couldn’t do anything if she was already dead.
The voice stopped talking and she felt relieved that her brain was winding down.
Snow turned to look at someone standing behind him, closer to the corridor than the inside of the room where he was. “Is she serious?”
“The words just… spill out. When she's not screaming or chanting a child’s song, she’s muttering and she doesn’t seem to be aware that she’s doing it. She doesn't think anything’s real, flinches at the doors, hasn’t eaten anything so we had to set up a tube,” the voice responded tonelessly. “She gets other voices confused with hers, she thinks it’s her when others are talking and thinks she’s silent when she’s rambling.”
“Wonderful,” Snow responded, satisfied with their efforts over the past week to fray the wires that once made up Wiress. “I doubt she’s in any state of mind to do what she’s done again.”
The presence that was once beside her… faded and was replaced with footsteps that didn’t retreat but lingered.
“Administer another. If the current… treatment is working, continuing to destroy her filter. We might have ourselves a jabberjay. We can see into her thoughts and with that… the thoughts of the Districts.”
There was a pause. “She’s already had the max amount of shocks, anymore might seriously kill her,” the attendant mentioned. “We don’t know the effects of more.”
A huff was let out. “Today you’ll find out. One more. Mild. She’s more valuable alive than dead but give her one last… reminder of the consequences that can occur.”
“Now,” Snow ordered, creeping out of the room before the door was slammed shut with a bang.” Safe behind the door, he grit out, “I want to see it.”
The attendant hesitated for a moment before complying, sending one last surge of energy with the push of a button. The wires sung. She didn’t.
They witnessed the action through the screen that was propped against the entrance of her room. Her crouched position rocking while her mouth mumbled incoherent sayings that they couldn’t make out, the energy pulsing through the wires, her twitching position that continued long after the shock was administered.
From outside the room, Snow said, “keep her there for one more day. I’m not ordering a train specifically for her to pick her up. She can go back to 3 with Latier. A nice reunion on the platform.”
The attendant didn't know what to say, opting to nod in agreement as they focused on untangling the wires from the outside.
“She can be a cautionary tale for him if he ever steps out of line ever again.”
It was inhumane, he just witnessed his son being torn apart for the entertainment of others and now Beetee was going to have to be constantly reminded of his defiance through the dimmed lights that once lived in the brightest girl he had ever met.