Child's Play: The Forty-Third Hunger Games

Chapter 7

Volvo Courvaile- 18

I woke up in a cold sweat and trembling, like I usually did. If the nightmare wasn't about the drugs or the abuse, it was about Tirone thrashing on the ground with vomit clogging his throat. Sometimes I was afraid to even try to sleep. I thought about pressing the call light by my bed, but I thought better of it. I didn't need to bother the nurses just because of a nightmare.

I'd been making a lot of progress recently. I still couldn't hear out of my left ear, but therapy couldn't fix a ruptured eardrum. What it could fix was tight muscles and bruised joints. I had my full range of motion back and physically, I was doing great. I could have left the rehab center if I'd wanted, but I didn't trust myself. It was harder to test for the problems I was worried about.

My therapy was less about healing bones and muscles than it was about rewiring my brain. The kind of drugs I used to use could rearrange entire neural networks. I had to rebuild myself and get everything back in place. The most important thing was making sure I didn't relapse. My nurse Hemi helped me with a variety of exercises designed to help me manage my stress before it got to where I couldn't resist the drugs. We also worked on expressing emotions without needing narcotics. I wasn't as good at that part yet. Hemi said someday she knew she'd see me smile, and she couldn't wait.

I was lucky to be able to go through rehab. It was only possible because my mother remarried and her second husband was rich. I was happy for her, but I was also happy to be away from her. She'd changed from what she was, but I was still afraid of her. I could see her repentence in her actions and her words, but apologies didn't heal my ear or ward off the night terrors. Perhaps I should have been more grateful. Most of my friends, like Tirone, never had a chance to get better.

I hadn't left rehab yet because I wasn't done with therapy, but it was more than that. I didn't feel brave enough to ever leave. I wasn't institutionalized, and it wasn't that I just wanted to stay out of the real world and stay in a nice, quiet hospital. Most of my nightmares weren't about Tirone overdosing. They were about me. They were about me relapsing and pumping myself with drugs like before. I didn't have to worry about that here, but I was afraid that if I ever decided to leave, the second I got out I'd start using again. I didn't want the nightmares to come true. And if that half of the nightmares could come true, maybe my mother could turn back, too. Sometimes when I woke up from a dream, I was afraid I hadn't woken up at all. Maybe rehab and therapy was just a good dream, and the nightmares were reality.

Hemi Sergius- 18

Physician, heal thyself.

I was a psych nurse. I shouldn't have been so scared. I shouldn't have been hyperventilating and digging my fingers into my legs as I stared at the girl in front of me. It was easier with other people. I was a lot more empathetic with my patients that I was with myself.

It didn't even make any sense. There was no reason for me to be agoraphobic. I didn't have any reason to need to have somewhere I could hide. I hadn't been abused or molested or accosted in an ally. I was my parents' golden child. They gave me everything I wanted. It wasn't like we were lacking, not by Six standards. We were upper class. How else could I have afforded to train as a nurse?

None of that mattered in the moment. Phobias were irrational. That's what made them phobias. And something about wide-open, flat spaces just triggered something primal in me. My heart was racing. I could feel it in my throat. My pants had damp patches from the sweat on my hands. My skin was prickling and shrinking. I couldn't breathe. I was on the edge.

"Good morning, Six!"

That did it. As soon as Otho's blaring voice screamed in the air, I was done. I vaguely sensed movement as the girls around me reacted. My chest pinched my lungs shut and I gasped for breath in high-pitched wheezes. My heart was going dangerously fast. I was a psych nurse, not a doctor, but at that speed even I could tell. I wanted to cry and scream and run away all at once, but I knew I couldn't do any of them. I was trapped like a rat in a cage.

I knew what came next. Had a patient been exhibiting my symptoms, I would have known exactly what to do. I thought to myself, I'm about to faint. My diagnosis was correct.

I woke up on the stage, as if things weren't bad enough. Then I saw Volvo next to me, as if things weren't bad enough. I jumped up and tried to look strong and not like a girl who just fainted before she even got Reaped.

This is bad. This is so bad. I was going into the Hunger Games. Even worse, I looked like a wimp. The sponsors didn't see the part where I professionally aided my patients or all the things I wasn't scared of and didn't cause panic attacks. They only saw the part where Peacekeepers dragged my limp butt onto the stage. I needed to go into damage control, stat.

Volvo is tall and strong with dark skin and short black hair. He's handsome with a nice smile. Hemi is slender with brown hair of different lengths. her eyes are dark brown.