Open sea
The constant pushing of the crowd is the same as it always is, uncomfortable, suffocating, carrying her around against everyone else, like so many fish caught in a net.
Anne takes deep breaths and steadies herself the way she always does, the way she does when her father breaks down, when she needs to be calm and strong and inexorable.
She is like the open sea.
The Capitol escort begins to speak and the same movie she's seen countless times begins to play, and the restlessness of the crowd around her grows and grows and grows. She closes her eyes and tries to tune out, tries to think of her house and her father and of the empty beach, but the feeling of dread is too insistent, too close.
"Anne Cresta!"
Her eyes shoot open and the first thing she hears is her father's mortified cry. She spins around, tries to find him, but the only thing she sees is the crowd that swallows her and her own face in the screens. Her hands shake and her knees falter, but she takes step after step and walks up to the stage.