Oceana Ridgeway ❦ Annie Cresta (reverence) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-07-29 22:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, * terri, c: oceana waters |
WHO: Oceana Ridgeway --> Annie Cresta and her parents
WHEN: July 29, 2018, afternoon.
WHERE: Oceana and Nick's House --> District 4, Victor's Village.
SUMMARY: Oceana dreams about the announcement of the Quarter Quell.
WARNINGS: Mentions of death and violence. General Hunger Games things. Also, panic attacks.
It had been a nothing-special evening. The rain in District 4 was pattering down on her roof in a lazy lull, she’d been almost dozing in a living room chair while her parents watched some nonsense on the television. They’d been enraptured - as most had been - by the year’s latest Victors and their love story. They wanted to know more about the wedding and Annie...she just pitied them. She knew they were like her...like Finnick. Katniss and Peeta, though she didn’t know them any more than they knew her, were now just cogs in the machine. The Capitol owned them all. Finnick and Annie were some of the luckier ones, she supposed. At least, in the sense that they had found some reprieve in one another. She had thought all of that might have to come to an end. Off and on, they whispered and fretted about the Capitol figuring out their romance and trying to split them apart. She knew as surely as she knew anything that she loved Finnick and that no matter what happened, she always would. Sometimes they talked about just finding a boat and sailing off into the horizon to see if they could find lands far away from here...somewhere free. They could just sail the seas for the rest of their lives, too. At least then, they would belong to no one but each other. She heard the anthem on the television, and her skin prickled as President Snow’s voice filtered from the speakers. He began talk about the Dark Days and the origination of the Hunger Games. He reminded them about the Quarter Quell and that the upcoming games would be the 75th. Yet another Quarter Quell...a revisioning of the normal rules to keep the memory fresh. “Ans. They’re going to announce the procedures for the next games,” her mother told her gently, turning away from the screen to face her. “It can’t be worse than anything they’ve done before,” her father scoffed, and her mother shushed him promptly. “It can always be worse,” Annie insisted. She wanted to walk away. She wanted to tell them to turn it off and ignore whatever news the President had to announce, but every muscle in her body stiffened as he pleasantly announced, “And now we honor our third Quarter Quell.” A little boy came to hand him an embellished envelope, and Snow promptly read the card within, “On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.” There was a moment or two of total silence in her living room, followed by the gasping sob of her mother and the outraged cry of her father shouting, “They can’t do that! They can’t do that, can they?” But Annie knew. It was the Capitol. They could do anything. They could send her back into the arena at a moment’s notice, and they would. They would...because she loved Finnick and he was going to go, too. He was a favorite of the Capitolites. He was the golden victor amongst the rest, and worth much more to Snow if he was to win the games again. She would not doubt if the odds were rigged in his favor, and they may be in hers, too. Even if Snow didn’t know about the two of them, Mags would not be a fun victor to reap once more. She was old and would not make it long in the arena. But Annie? She was young and a little bit insane, and had proven herself to be an absolutely ruthless killer when it came down to choosing between her life and someone elses. “I’m going for a walk,” she announced, the smallest of wavers in her voice. She could hear their protests, but they were blurred voices in her ears. It was just...noise. She couldn’t make out the words. She stumbled a little as she exited the door, one foot in front of the other, until she was running out of the village. Finnick and Mags both lived on this same stretch of streets, but she didn’t know if she had the heart to look at them. She ran, her feet bare, until she found herself at the roaring ocean waves. Her whole world was tilted and wrong. She stepped into the water until it rushed up around her calves, trying to drag her knees back to the ocean. As she stood there, she could feel the sand slipping out from beneath her feet. She was sinking, the ground beneath her feeble and as unstable as the fractures of her mind. Even now, with the taste of the salt water on her tongue, she could smell fresh water from the dam as that other tribute pulled her under the water. She could feel fresh, hot blood on her hands as she buried a trident in the chest of another tribute. The agony of flames on her limbs was fresh and new, and the utterly pungent smell of burning flesh seared her nose as she held that girl in the fire, burning her alive. Bile rose up in her throat, and Annie fell to her knees in the water, hands seeking down to the sand as her chest heaved and her stomach emptied into the water. She was trembling all over, her mind a jumbled mess of then and now, but even as the ocean water soaked her to the bone, she could hear President Snow’s voice in her head over and over again, “The male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.” She wept. Sobs pulled from her chest as she crumpled there in the waves, as tumultuous inside as the strong tide. They were going to take him from her. Or they were going to take her from him. Either way, she did not know that this was a fight they could win. Perhaps they’d die together, and funnily enough that was the happiest ending she could imagine. The Capitol played the game a little too well, and Annie felt naive for believing that maybe they could make this happiness last until they grew old together. They were cogs, too, and the wheel just kept on turning. A sob found its way into her throat, and Oceana felt like she couldn’t breathe. The panic that ran through her system made her dizzy, unable to sit up. She rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to breathe to combat the nausea and the impending sense of doom that made her feel like every bit of control that she had over her life had been shattered. She tried to count, in an attempt to focus and calm herself, but all she could see behind her eyes were Annie’s horrors and numbering them felt worse. She was alone. Nick was at work, and she was going to have to get through this by herself for now. Her nap turned dream turned panic attack was just an unfortunate chain of events, and she could get through it. She wasn’t dying. She didn’t have to hurt anyone. She wasn’t going to lose Nick to some murderous game the government liked to play. She would be all right. Eventually. |