a moment of sanity [pre-milliways]
Annie wakes again in darkness.
The drugs have worn off, and the madness. She knows it won't last, if the blank spots in her memory are any indication. Sanity isn't a quality encouraged here (unlike beauty and compliance). All she remembers from this morning (or some morning - they let her see the sunlight, briefly, as she was dragged down the hallway) is a quiet murmur: "Not the face." - then she floated away to hide in the sandcastles of her memory, before they crumble with the tide.
She tests the chains around her ankles, just in case; they hold. The chains are made of gold and pretty jewels that remind her, sickly, of the shore (twisted and manipulated by the Capitol into something unrecognizable. a too-familiar analogy), but they're strong enough. Funny that she needs chains at all, considering what the Peacemakers said when they took her away:
"... our honored guest."
"... for your own safety."
It's the first time Annie's been away from the ocean for so long since the Tour.
(Now, as then, the only thing that ties her to home is the salt, drying in rivulets on her cheeks.
She'd forget completely, if not for the tears - here, they don't even let her in the bathtub.)
From another room, there's a scream that goes on for years before it fades out of hearing - or maybe she's just imagined it, residual echos from the days that blend together into an incoherent mass of helplessness, the days when she can't escape her head and she lingers, watching them find ways to torture her without leaving any marks. It's what they did to Finnick, she knows.
Finnick.
Finnick.
Finnick.
(His name is her anchor.)
Every time she gets the chance, she repeats it, sometimes even daring to mouth the syllables with her mouth tight against the bedsheets. She's losing his face, now - but she remembers his voice, and his touch. The light sun spots that freckled his face, but only if you saw him up close.
Annie smiles. She hasn't forgotten everything yet, despite the Capitol's best efforts. There are some memories she mistrusts, but these are not among them: she knows that Finnick's laughter is real; that the way their hands fit together just right, the nights they floated in the shallows until sunset, are from the past, not pumped out of the Capitol's machines.
Her fingers go out, reaching for him -
She feels her grasp fading again, and lets herself get washed away.
The drugs have worn off, and the madness. She knows it won't last, if the blank spots in her memory are any indication. Sanity isn't a quality encouraged here (unlike beauty and compliance). All she remembers from this morning (or some morning - they let her see the sunlight, briefly, as she was dragged down the hallway) is a quiet murmur: "Not the face." - then she floated away to hide in the sandcastles of her memory, before they crumble with the tide.
She tests the chains around her ankles, just in case; they hold. The chains are made of gold and pretty jewels that remind her, sickly, of the shore (twisted and manipulated by the Capitol into something unrecognizable. a too-familiar analogy), but they're strong enough. Funny that she needs chains at all, considering what the Peacemakers said when they took her away:
"... our honored guest."
"... for your own safety."
It's the first time Annie's been away from the ocean for so long since the Tour.
(Now, as then, the only thing that ties her to home is the salt, drying in rivulets on her cheeks.
She'd forget completely, if not for the tears - here, they don't even let her in the bathtub.)
From another room, there's a scream that goes on for years before it fades out of hearing - or maybe she's just imagined it, residual echos from the days that blend together into an incoherent mass of helplessness, the days when she can't escape her head and she lingers, watching them find ways to torture her without leaving any marks. It's what they did to Finnick, she knows.
Finnick.
Finnick.
Finnick.
(His name is her anchor.)
Every time she gets the chance, she repeats it, sometimes even daring to mouth the syllables with her mouth tight against the bedsheets. She's losing his face, now - but she remembers his voice, and his touch. The light sun spots that freckled his face, but only if you saw him up close.
Annie smiles. She hasn't forgotten everything yet, despite the Capitol's best efforts. There are some memories she mistrusts, but these are not among them: she knows that Finnick's laughter is real; that the way their hands fit together just right, the nights they floated in the shallows until sunset, are from the past, not pumped out of the Capitol's machines.
Her fingers go out, reaching for him -
She feels her grasp fading again, and lets herself get washed away.