Pure Torture: a Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 10

Katniss

The white-hot pain starts in my lower leg. It shoots up my leg and throughout my entire body. The world is fuzzy and my vision is dotted in black. Through my awful vision, I see Johanna. She's got her eyes squeezed shut, and doesn't open them until the guards escort her back to the prep room and eventually her cell.

It feels like I've been lying on the ground in a puddle of my blood for 10 minutes before someone bothers to call the attention to me. I had been thinking I was just going to bleed to death then and there, on the white tiles doused in Crimson. I don't even know what theyre going to do with me. The pain fills up every crevasse in my brain.

But It's not just the pain I feel. It's something more malicious. I see memories of my life before this moment. There's something shiny about them, though. I can't tell what's real and what's not. The memories of me are awful. Me, murdering hundreds of innocents. Me, trying to push Peeta off of the cornucopia with Cato. Me, choosing to leave my family before the Quell without saying goodbye and leaving them to starve. I make myself sick. These malicious memories begin to override the pain. They're stronger than it.

I begin to claw at the tile with my hands, trying to get out of my situation so I can kill myself and escape the monster I really am inside. My hands drag through the pool of my blood, leaving lines of red on the tile. My dress, which used to be white, is now soaked in that same red. I begin to scream, trying to escape my reality of who I am. Where I am. What I have just done. What has just happened.

This must anger my guards. They simply leave me lying there on the ground, screaming and bleeding and going mad. I don't stop until my head rolls to the side, the pain becoming too much, and I black out.
--
I wake on a metal table, my leg hurting just as bad as before, but they managed to slow the bleeding. At first, I'm confused on why they haven't totally fixed my leg. But I remember. This is The Capitol, and they won't do that for me. I'm being held prisoner, being tortured. Of course they're not fixing me up. They're only fixing me enough so that I can get along for as long as they feel necessary. I watch as people dressed in white wrap my shin with a bandage.
"Okay, girl," one man with a heavy Capitol accent says, "Lets go."
Is he serious? I can barely move my body, let alone my leg. He has to be kidding. But this is the Capitol, and they don't kid. Especially not with me.
"You want me to..." I say. I inhale sharply, "You want me to walk?"

The man puts down what he's doing and stares at me.
"You aren't very bright, are you now?" He says to me.
I don't reply.
"Yes." He says. "You are walking."
I don't argue with him, knowing it's utterly pointless. Nothing I say could change their minds.

I grit my teeth and try to sit up. The pain from even this movement, which barely moves my leg, is dizzying. The Capitol medics wait impatiently. Somehow, I manage to get my legs off of the table, and drop off the table onto my good leg. Holding the bad leg off of the ground, I try to hop instead of walking. Bad idea. The pain from the bouncing of my leg makes me feel like I'm going to vomit.
"Today, girl," the man says, "We don't have all week."

I'm hugely offended by this. I know he's from the Capitol and all, but does he realize I have a gunshot wound?
"I can't walk on this." I say, quietly.
"Well, you're going to have to." He replies.
"I've been shot." I say back to him, annoyed, "How am I supposed to walk on it?"

I think he laughs a little before answering.
"Maybe that'll teach you to not do what you've just done out there tonight." He says.
I just stare at him.
"Now walk, girl." He says.

I take a breath and lower my foot towards the ground. I close my eyes and take one step. The pain is there, but not as bad as I had expected. I take another step. Same as before. But the relief of those few moments is gone by my 7th step. The pain returns, worse than ever. I'm barely still standing.
"I can't.. I can't do this." I whisper.
Nobody says anything back.

I'm nearly half way to my cell when I can't go any farther. I stop trying to walk. When the guards turn around to look at me, I feel as if I'm going to pass out. I take another step, barely moving myself, before I collapse onto the ground. Pain shoots up my leg, through my entire being. I've bled through my thick bandages completely. Blood begins to slowly accumulate in my mouth, and as I lie on the floor, some rolls down the side of my face onto the floor. It takes enormous effort to continue blinking and breathing. Maybe I am finally dying. Like I deserve to.
I think. I decide to give up. And I black out once more.
--
I wake again, not on a table. I'm back In my cell. I notice a tiny screen next to the doors on my cell, probably for the guards. I squint to see the words on it.
October 13th. It reads. That must be the date. I feel as if I've been asleep for almost a week. My bandages are soaked in blood, and the floor is smeared with the stuff everywhere. They never bothered to get me out of my dress, so I lie on the floor in my cell in the stained red garment. It's freezing in here.

I'm still lying there, when I smell a sickly sweet smell and I notice a slight fog seeping in through the sealed doors of my cell. My heart races, fearing that it's the forsaken poison fog from the Quell Games. I unsuccessfully try to scoot farther back into my cell, but I'm already huddled against the wall. My injured leg lies straight out in front of me, useless.

I brace myself for the burning pain of the acid fog as it nears me. But when it touches me, I feel nothing. I breathe it in, and I don't feel the screaming pain in my airways and lungs.

Instead, I feel only extreme exhaustion. Within 10 seconds, the tiredness puts me out like a light. The world is dark, once again.

**How are you liking it so far? I hope you all are enjoying! Thanks so much for all the reads on my previous chapter. If you're liking it, please VOTE!! :)

Thanks so much,
Aly (amalady21) **