The room is dark when she wakes, pitch black and freezing with no form of restrictions as she moves her arms that are slow and cramping. Panic seizes her throat, holding her lungs and she rises to her feet, hands reaching out to find herself enclosed in a tight space, blocked in from each side.

"Hello?" Terra bangs hard, an echo sounding around her. "What is this? Let me out!"

Lights flicker on, slow and one at a time until she can see across from her, seated on a chair buckled down was Johanna in a glass containment, shaking her head angrily with her dirty short, choppy hair dancing around with each motion. Her mouth was forming soundless words and she felt her stomach drop at the realisation that they wouldn't be able to speak to one another.

Turning in a slow circle, she froze at the sight of the cages across from her with Annie whimpering in the corner rocking with her hands pressed to her ears. It was those blurred glass sections that were directly across from the cages and when she looked down the line, past Johannab she could see Peeta strapped down as well, jerking with muscles flexed and the veins on his arms protruding with the force he was using. Moving forward slowly, she placed a hand to the glass lightly, writing out the letters with a sharp precision.

A R E. Y O U. O K A Y. She writes, and Johanna doesn't pay enough attention to read it, only shaking and jerking around, but Peeta presses his lips together in a tight grimace and shakes his head once, jaw clenched and the tendons in his throat bulging. Terra looks him over quickly, looking for some sort of apparent injury, and finding none gnashes her teeth and looks away, not wanting to know what had happened to get him like this.

She had the pleasure of having no recollection of how she had gotten in here, certain it would have been worse if she had been awake and capable to fight them. She would have probably ended up strapped in the chair as they had.

A flicker of light showed across from her and as she looked to the side she saw they had individual screens showing them something different. Confused, Terra looked to the video and the seal of the Capitol that she could never forget and watched in complete dismay as an image of Katniss showed, shooting down a ship that was left burning a building, watching as she was shown different scenes from the districts, each dying with Katniss' words on their lips. She fell to her knees when she saw the fires in District 10, footage of her own home from Victor Village being set ablaze as the people she knew sat around throwing the belongings they had dragged from the house into the bright, brilliant flames. The other homes were dark, their curtains drawn tight, and the betrayal that coursed through her was instant, white hot, and she felt sick when she saw her father throwing photos that she had carefully collected over the years into the flames, leading the charge and she couldn't bring herself to focus on anything else as the footage rolled too something else.

Her entire being was consumed with how angry and righteous he lookedb standing around as though he had the right to disregard her life and memories so carelessly.

"District 10. I never would have thought one of the outlier districts would be willing to compete." Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice, younger and cheeky, lacking that sweetness and love that she had grown to expect from him.

Finnick stood facing her, leaning in near her face as she stood waiting by the elevator after that first horrible interview with Caesar, a tribute that was still shook with anger and determination instead of fear and consuming anxiety.

Dressed in a pretty, flowing dress that made her look more like a sweet sheep than anything else, with buns high on her head, lifting her facial features to make her appear younger than she was, Terra felt very much like a wolf in disguise standing among all these people that pitied her imminent death. Staring up at Finnick Odair, a Victor from a Career District but neber an actual Career, she felt her jaw clench at the spiking anger that she felt building in her chest.

She never wanted to meet any of the other Tributes or mentors, not wanting to associate any of them as actual people, scared that it would disrupt the motivation to survive that bubbled under her skin like it was a venom that was capable of freezing her limbs if she wasn't careful.

"I'm not willing. I just don't want to die," she clarifies, jutting her chin out and turning her head defiantly. "There is a rather big difference between the two, I would think."

Finnick smirks at her, leaning in closer and she stands her ground, hoping that her knees aren't shaking weakly as shr thinks they are. "I really shouldn't let anyone hear me say this, but I hope you find a way to survive, 10. I think it would be interesting keeping you around."

"Wow, way to keep a girl motivated," Terra drawls sarcastically, pushing him aside and entering the elavator alone. "If I'm going to live I'll make sure it's for you instead of my overwhelming desire to not die."

The elevator had gone up then, separating them, and Terra marvels at the video of the first time she had met Finnick and how her heart races now thinking back on it instead of the way she had been so full of anger back then. She had always been so angry back then it was a wonder he ended up sticking around like he had.

She turns away from a different scene, one of Finnick in his own games and faces the others at her side. Johanna continued to thrash, yanking against the straps that held her down, and she worries the girl would draw blood soon.

Raising a hand slowly, she reading herself to write against the glass again in hopes to soothe her friend, but still when she was suddenly assaulted by the shrieks and screams that seemed to echo around the tight space. She fell back from where she rested on her knees, eyes blowing wide and bangs a hand harshly against the glass, adding her own noise to the mix.

"Annie! Annie, it's alright!" She screamed, hoping to be heard, amd then turned to Johanna, laying her hand flat. "Just relax! Stop fighting, Jo, save your energy."

Peeta was speaking, growling his own words intended to soothe, and watched as the urge to relax slowly faded from him as he began to thrash around just as much.

A loud beeping made her jump and she staggered slowly to her feet, looking at the ground as it rumbled at her feet, an accompanied clicking noise made her stomach turn. Slowly, teasing almost, a bubbling came from the holes that showed at the bottom, a dark, deep crimson trickling over the floor in winding paths. Terra reached down, testing the liquid and brought it up to her face inspecting it. She smoothed it between her fingers, spreading it, and gagged once she realised what it was.

It wasn't thick when it covered her fingers, coating it them, and a horrified cry escaped her as she back away, dancing as best she could between the growing puddles that began to connect. Flashes flickered before her eyes, bringing her back to the only other moment she had seen, had felt such a large, growing amount of blood on her own hands.

"No. No, no, no, no, please, no," terra begged, gasping as felt her lungs constrict, squeezing painfully as her breaths came short. "I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't mean to. I tripped."

Terra slammed her hands against the glass, banging. The blood began to collect faster, rising to past her ankles, and ahe shrieked painfully, frightened.

"It was an accident," she cries, wiping at her face only to flinch away when her hands come away red.

She stumbled, falling back into the blood with a splash. Hyperventilating, she jerks up, wiping her hands pointlessly on her clothes to clean them.

"Terra! Terra, listen, it's not real! It can't be real!"

She flinches, pressing herself against the glass that was connected to Johanna's. "It's warm. It's warm, warm, warm. It doesn't feel like water, it doesn't."

"It's not real. No one could collect that much blood," Johanna states as though it's obvious and Terra shakes her head.

"He can do what he wants," she says miserably and squeezes her eyes shut at the rising level, at her hips it felt horrible and she couldn't stop herself from looking at the dark colour that was anything but red.

Her father use to say that the worst job at the butcher was heaving up the animal and draining it, that so much blood would make a mess impossible to get out, a stain that grew with each knew animal. Terra never had to see that part of the job, never had to watch the draining that could take hours depending on how fast you bleed them. She wondered how fast he had bled whatever it was that the blood came from. She hoped it was animal, that it was collected from the recent shipment from 10.

And Terra knew what blood looked like, had been haunted by it for years, forced to experience it with the jobs she would work back home. She knes this was as real as the blood that rained down on Johanna in the Quell.

"Shit!" She looked at her friend, squinting to keep her from looking at the rising levels around her, and at the water crystal clear waters seemed to rush in gushing bursts around her feet.

She would have smiled at the irony of it had she not felt the recognizable feeling of being submerged around her chest. It was rising so quickly and as she reached for the glass ceiling, her fingers missing it by at least a foot no matter how tall she stood, she turned to the glass and tried pounding again.

The side of her fist protested, burning as she beat with as much force she could exert, but the blood rose higher and the footage of Finnick in the Games continued to play on with images of Katniss and rebels dispersed in between.

A wailing, bloodcurling scream burst from her as she reached to the ceiling, hopelessly. It was cruling, fitting against her skin with the disgusting scent of iron that burned her nose, clouding her mind, sloshing against her like the shallows that she had always wished to run to. It weighed her down, heavy, and her mind whispered memories of the sea, the tide, the pool, the tub filled with pretty petals no longed dried and soaking in the essence - but this wasn't wated and terra wasn't a petal soaking up the essence. She was a girl stranded, trapped in a glass coffin to drown in her own grave, fightin to reach the top that held the air her lungs so desperately craved.

The space was thin, a small pocket of air left, and Terra kicked her legs desperately to keep herself at the top, holding pointlessly to the glass that she could still see through, and a camera that looked down at her, watching her every move.

With a final breath the blood filled to the rim, blocking her out and leaving her suspended it the dark, floating. There had been a time where she would have been gasping for air already, where she didn't know how to swim and was scared to do more than dunk her head. Finnick had taught her how to swim, how to hold her breath with the promise to always be there to save her if she couldn't hold it any longer, but she knew that no one ever would, no one ever will.

Terra was utterly alone, locked away in a glass chamber unable to break free. There were screams, muffled through it all, a high chirp of electricity and a wailing that came through so clearly that she wondered if it was herself for a moment.

She swam until her head hit ths glass and pressed, desperately as she began to feel her head grow light with lungs begging to be free.

The first swallow was terrible, disgusting and foul, but the second was worse, and Terra couldn't stop herself as she heaved under the blood, and when Terra finally lost consciousness she knew it would be better to die unaware.

°°°

I found this kinda gross to write and find it turned out kinda gross and not exactly how i pictured it.

Unedited.

2019-02-21