RUINATION | FINNICK ODAIR

A TWISTED PARACOSM

"Accept it, Lara...you can't win."

Snow's face stared down at her from within her dream. It was an impeccably realistic vision of himself: his white trimmed beard and cold, stony eyes.

Lara could never forget how crooked and evil his grin was. It was clear as day on his lips as he peered down at her.

He was simply watching as she was strapped back into the chair that had held her captive. The bands seemed tighter now, threatening to pop her limbs out of their place.

As his smile grew, the straps tightened. She screamed from the pressure as she desperately tried to escape it. But like before, it was her prison...and she was meant to stay.

Her screaming was drowned out by someone else: Annie, Johanna, and Peeta. Their voices overlapped.

It was a strange cluster of sounds. She didn't remember hearing anyone else during her time captive. She'd never heard her friends sound so feral and wounded. How was it their voices in her head?

"An acceptable loss in my book."

Lara expected to see herself being beaten or drugged. But instead, she felt herself running. Her eyes wouldn't look to see her feet and her body felt odd.

She ran straight through a large forest that had tributes dodging and weaving between the trees. She barreled through them in more and more torturous ways.

She'd recognized some of the swift faces as they were crushed under her boot. Some of them were tributes from her first games; the tributes she had killed herself, which was a lot more than she cared to admit.

But the tributes kept running in. Bodies and faces mixed until she could no longer identify. She was no longer killing familiar tributes, but now countless strangers.

She had blood coating her hands like a thick, red glove. Her boots had pieces of crushed bone underneath. Dirt was smeared everywhere like she'd been an animal rolling in the mud.

Tributes came pouring in, each one being dealt with quickly. Lara thought the hoard of strangers would never stop. But as she latched onto a girl's shoulder and twisted her neck, she saw who it was; the red hair was unmistakable.

Any violent tendency she had disappeared as she caught the dead girl's body. Her body racked with a silent cry as she tried to shake Annie awake. She'd killed her friend without knowing it.

As she wept, the other tributes disappeared in a blink. She hadn't noticed until a singular person stepped in front of her. She looked up to the most horrifying sight she'd come across.

"Finnick is dead."

The voice hit her as soon as she saw him. Finnick, in all his glory, looked like a monster.

His face was pale gray, indicating that he was, in fact, dead. In stark contrast, his eyes bled bright red teardrops that dripped down his cheeks. Purple bruises lined right under his eyes to cast a haunted shadow. His mouth was sliced at the corner and it looked as though his neck had been slit.

He opened his mouth to speak. His strong and welcoming tone was no longer present.

"Finnick is dead."

She had no time to escape as he growled and launched at her, bared teeth and strong hands yearning to rip her apart.

She screamed so loud that she jolted awake. Every nerve in her body was ready as she held onto the cot as right as she could. She'd fallen asleep on her stomach, facing away from where Finnick was sitting to keep an eye.

He was woken by her scream and straightened up the slightest. His chair creaked, causing her to snap around. Her wide eyes met his own, but he could tell it was not right.

She briefly caught a flash of the Finnick in her dream; the one who tried to kill her mere moments ago. Even though she woke before she could see it, she felt the resulting pain and guilt from the attack.

Finnick's face flickered for a moment to reveal his dead alter vision. Her breath hitched and she panicked, ready to defend herself this time.

She pulled a large knife out from underneath her pillow and threw it at his face. He dodged just in time and looked back to see the metal was completely lodged into the wall where the center of his brain would be.

He was utterly terrified; nearly the same amount as Lara, but for different reasons. All he knew was that she'd woken up, seen him, and instantly thrown a knife that aimed to kill.

Lara scrambled out of the bed to get in a defensive stance. Finnick disregarded the knife dilemma and straightened back up with his hands held out.

"It's okay," he whispered. He could hear her trembling breaths, "Lara, it's me. It was just a nightmare."

She shuddered and took a small step back as he came closer. She shook her head in denial as tears began to line her eyes.

"What's wrong with me?"

The question broke his heart. Lara rarely openly expressed doubt in herself. But now she didn't even know who she was, and it killed him that she couldn't see how good of a woman she was before Snow hurt her.

He didn't answer. He simply came swooping forward as her body began to break down in cries. Her bones trembled in his arms as he hugged her tight.

There was nothing he could think of to say. He simply looked to the mirrored glass for help.

From behind the glass, Haymitch, Katniss, Boggs, and Plutarch watched. Finnick called for help once he saw Lara was twitching in her sleep, bur none of them expected it to turn out that way.

Katniss was mortified, having placed a hand over her mouth in shock, still staring at the weapon imbedded in the wall. Plutarch was concerned about that as well.

"How did she get a knife?" he asked incredulously.

Haymitch chuckled bitterly, "I think the real question we need to ask is how do we help her? This isn't like Peeta's condition."

Boggs agreed with a nod of his head.

"Lara is fully conscious of her time in captivity. She knows Snow messed with her mind. Finnick is clearly alive and in front of her, despite what she was conditioned to think..." he listed tiredly, "She should've been recovering by now."

Katniss scoffed and finally pulled her gaze to them. All three men waited with confusion as she glared at them.

"Are you serious?" she said rhetorically, "Recovering from a game alone isn't easy. And Lara went straight from her second hunger games to torture where Snow made her relive everything and twisted her mind against the one good thing she believes in."

She pointed through the glass at the sobbing woman, "Snow ripped Finnick's one love away. He stripped Peeta down to the bone and built him back up like a Capitol toy. He shattered Lara's head!"

Her eyes flamed with anger for the president. Seeing her friends hurt was worse than being threatened by the pressure of being the mockingjay. She'd take that burden if it helped any of them.

"We're gonna help them...using every resource and strategy we have," she stated.

She mainly focused the order on Boggs and Plutarch, knowing they could pull most strings within district thirteen. They simply nodded without adding any concerned comments.

Katniss nodded in satisfaction,

"And then we'll rip Snow apart together."

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