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Clemensia thinks she sees the air shimmer when she enters Heavensbee Hall.
She halts, blinking the stars out of her eyes as she reorients herself. She has no headache, and there is no pain either. It was similar to the sensation of standing too quickly after lying down, except she had been doing nothing but walking.
That was odd, she thinks. It is not a source of worry. Not yet.
She continues otherwise undeterred, weaving through other students, who are already partaking in the tables of food, and nearly makes it to the main room when she accidentally bumps into another person.
“My apologies,” she says on reflex.
“It’s no problem, Clemmie.”
Clemensia looks up, but unlike the voice, the face she sees before her is not Coriolanus Snow. He’s blond, to be sure, and his hair is wavy, but he’s too tall. He’s nearly a head taller than she is. She does not know this boy, and while she would not be too bothered by another student knowing her name—considering she was fairly high up in the class rankings for her year—for someone she does not recognize to address her with that nickname? It is certainly odd, among other things.
“Is something wrong?” asks the blond boy.
Clemensia composes herself. “Clemmie is for friends.”
The blond boy frowns. “Are we not friends?”
“One would get to know someone before calling them friends, I would think.”
“What’s going on, Clemmie?” His frown gets more pronounced. “Are you sick?”
She is quickly running out of patience. Clemensia does not plan on entertaining this boy’s attempts to fool her into some false sense of familiarity. If he is unable to take a hint, then she will simply be leaving him to his oddities.
“I’m perfectly well, thank you.”
Clemensia swiftly turns to walk away.
He catches her by the arm before she can.
“Clemmie, wait. What’s—?”
She forcefully extricates her arm from his hold.
No more niceties, she decides.
“What gives you the right to grab me like that?”
“I’m only worried,” he says. He looks stricken. “You aren’t acting like yourself.”
The gall. If he is in her year—which he might be given he is dressed up, rather than in uniform—then they cannot have interacted in anything more than passing. As it stands, Clemensia is sure that hasn’t seen this boy in her life. “I don’t believe you would be one to judge what is normal behavior for me. Who do you think you are?”
“I’m your classmate,” he says. “Since primary?”
Certainly not one I know, Clemensia thinks. Or who actually knows me.
“Coriolanus Snow?” he continues.
There is something about the way this boy is insisting he is Coryo—one of her closest friends—is unnerving. She tries to look for the subtle signs that he might be joking, the slight twitch of the mouth, the glint of amusement in the eyes, but his expression remains dead serious. She can no longer make herself walk away.
“Coriolanus Snow,” she echoes.
Even repeating his words are making her uneasy.
“Honestly, Clemmie,” he says, and his eyes are Coryo’s, his voice is Coryo’s. “Are you sure you are well?”
Her breath catches. “I’m fine,” she makes herself say.
“Why don’t we join the others?” he says.
“Join the others?” she repeats, trying to buy herself time to think.
“Come on.” He links his arm in hers and begins to walk. “I do believe they’ve begun the festivities without us.”
There is something firm about his grip that dissuades her from trying to run, even as her instincts scream at her to do so. Her mind is racing, trying to make sense of it all. No one around her seems to think anything odd is happening. Students are socializing in groups, engaged in their own conversations, and this boy has not expressed any malicious intent towards her. It is only the strange familiarity that is making her feel so unsettled.
“Finally, the star pupil has arrived,” says a girl as they approach.
The so-claimed Coriolanus puts on a smile that looks transparently fake in Clemensia’s eyes, offering a nod in the girl’s direction. “Arachne.”
Clemensia looks between ‘Arachne’—she supposes the girl does hold some resemblance to the actual girl she knows as Arachne Crane—and ‘Coriolanus,’ but neither drops the pretense. Her eyes sweep the group, but Clemensia does not recognize a single face. She does not offer a greeting, and she goes entirely unacknowledged by them in turn.
“That’s a snazzy shirt,” says ‘Arachne.’ She leans towards ‘Coriolanus’ to get a closer look at his clothing, peering at the buttons.
Clemensia stands there, feeling increasingly detached from the scene around her. The conversation between ‘Arachne’ and ‘Coriolanus’ continues, but it’s as if she’s hearing it through a thick fog, the words distant and distorted. Her gaze drifts over the group, searching for anything that might ground her in reality, something to ground her in this group unfamiliar faces and strange behaviors. But nothing clicks.
Clemensia begins to doubt.
Is she unwell? Why does she not recognize anyone?
“Have you tried this lamb?” says a boy standing across from her, picking up a piece of supposedly lamb from his plate. “It’s scandalous.”
“Ugh,” sneers another boy. “Only the vulgar eat with their fingers, Felix. What? Daddy not teach you table manners?”
“Maybe he would’ve if he wasn’t so busy running the country, Festus.”
Wrong, thinks Clemensia. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Similar to the people addressed as ‘Coriolanus’ and ‘Arachne’ appear off, Clemensia can only see those other two boys for the names they call each other in the vaguest sense. Perhaps the boy across from her could be Felix if she were looking at his image through warped glass. Perhaps the boy who had responded to him could be Festus if his image were blurred and reconstructed by someone who had never seen him before. Regardless, neither of them talk like this, so seemingly antagonistic.
At least, not from Clemensia’s observation.
Their words, their tones, the subtle hostility in their voices—none of it matches the people she knows. It’s like watching a poorly acted play where the actors are trying to imitate her friends but failing miserably. She’s so preoccupied by the strangeness of it all that her mind doesn’t catch up to the content of what he’d spoken until a moment later.
“Running the country?” she asks.
The rest of the group pauses to look at her, with various expressions of surprise, as though they hadn’t noticed her presence until she had spoken. Even the boy who claimed to be Coriolanus, despite the fact that he had been the one to guide her into this group of people claiming to be her classmates. Clemensia doesn’t like the intensity of their gaze.
“Yes,” says ‘Felix.’ “My father is quite busy with that.”
President Ravinstill is Felix’s great-uncle, Clemensia is sure. She might have drifted apart from Felix over the years, but she remembers those playdates at his house. His father might have been on the political scene, but he was not—nor is—the president.
“I thought it was your great-uncle?” Everyone in the group looks at her as though she was the one to say something strange. After a moment, under the sudden intensity of their stares, she recants. “I…suppose I must have been mistaken.”
The girl that ‘Coriolanus’ addressed as Arachne scoffs. “How do you mix up son of the president with nephew of the president?”
Before Clemensia can say anything, ‘Felix’ interjects. “Hey, they called us here for the Plinth Prize, right?” He makes a sweeping show of looking around the room, before his gaze finally lands on a boy across the room. “Plinth. I mean, look at his spawn. Who’d have thought you could buy your way into the Capitol?”
The way he’s speaking of others…
That is what’s wrong, Clemensia realizes.
All the people around her: the way they keep pointing out each other’s names, their relation to others, as though they need the introduction. Except they all seem to know each other, and Clemensia is the only one trying to catch up with who they are. They had all known about the Plinth Prize before they had started at the Academy. They have all been classmates with Sejanus for the past decade.
And yet, with the way ‘Felix’ was talking—it was almost as though the information would be forgotten if it wasn’t repeated multiple times.
Clemensia is starting to get the sense that she’s fallen into some strange dream, where details have shifted and blurred around the edges, leaving her in a world that’s almost what she knows, yet entirely foreign. The people she knows—her friends, her classmates—are like actors who have memorized the wrong lines, delivering them with a confidence that only adds to her growing dread.
“If I hear one more time how immoral these Hunger Games are, I’ll put him in the Arena mys—Sejanus.” He puts on a false smile at the new arrival. “You made it to the Reaping for once.”
The boy who had just approached is shorter than ‘Coriolanus’—that isn’t correct, the details are all wrong, what is happening—but responds to the name ‘Sejanus’ all the same. Clemensia can no longer tell herself that this is simply one boy acting too familiar, or some odd prank to unsettle her. She doesn’t even bother to excuse herself as she backs away, and no one makes mention, or even seems to notice, as she leaves.
Clemensia looks around, trying to spot a single person she knows but she can’t seem to find anyone. The room is filled with students in red uniforms. Surely, among them, she has to see someone that she knows. Twenty-four chairs are arranged at the front of the room, and there are some students already seated. There’s a girl that almost looks like Iphigenia. Is that other boy beside her Dennis?
It is all familiar, but not right.
Suddenly, the room is blaring with music, and students are hustling to their seats. Was the Reaping already beginning? Clemensia may not have been as early as the others, but she had still taken care to be at the building nearly half an hour in advance. It cannot have been more than ten minutes since she had arrived. Still, she takes a seat with the rest as a woman who introduces herself as Dr Gaul calls Dean Highbottom up.
Students turn, and Clemensia looks with them. There is not a single murmur as the man walks up to the podium. Clemensia blinks once, twice. That is not Dean Highbottom. With Coriolanus or Arachne or Felix, she could at least see the resemblance—but with this? This man bears no resemblance to Dean Highbottom at all.
Still, as he begins to speak, there is not a single expression that she can see who looks confused by his appearance. It’s only her, it seems. He continues talking, announcing a change, a mentorship. This cannot possibly be only in her mind, she decides. Clemensia does not think she could come up with something as elaborate as altering the terms of the Plinth Prize by mentoring a tribute.
As soon as the assignments are made and everyone is back to socializing, Clemensia catches ‘Felix’ by one of the food tables. He’s the only one other than ‘Coriolanus’ who has spoken directly to her. However, like before, he makes no acknowledgement towards her until she speaks.
“Felix,” she says tentatively.
“Clemmie.” He hasn’t called her that in years. “Did you need something?”
Voices, she thinks. His voice is the same.
“We were both assigned the District Eleven tributes,” Clemensia begins, but falters when Felix merely stares back at her blankly, as though he doesn’t understand the words she is speaking. “...Felix?”
“Clemmie. Did you need something?”
His repeated words have the exact same intonation as the first time. His expression does not change. Clemensia isn’t sure if he is even blinking. She looks around her, at the other students, and wonders if any of their conversations have substance.
“Ah, nevermind.”
Clemensia makes to walk away, but in a blink, she’s back at her house. She startles at the sudden change in scenery, trying to shake off the disorientation. For a moment, she sees that faint shimmer again, and gets the odd feeling that she’s been yanked between spaces. The clock on the wall says that it is late afternoon. She doesn’t remember leaving Heavensbee Hall. She doesn’t remember the hours that must have passed between now and this morning. Did she forget? Or perhaps—?
“You’re home,” says her father. Clemensia feels herself relax at the familiar face. This, at least, is one thing that has not changed. His face is the same as it had been this morning—not a concept she thought she would ever need to be relieved by. He gives her a smile that is warm, but oddly distant. “You’ve had a long day, Clemensia. Why don’t you relax? Dinner’s almost ready.”
At once, the apprehensiveness returns.
There is no substance behind his words, no personality.
Everything feels too familiar, yet far too empty.
“You’re unwell, dear,” says the man, in response to—she doesn’t know.
Clemensia has not said anything. But she knows that this is not her father. He cannot be her father. There is something wrong here, just as everyone had been wrong at the Reaping Ceremony. She does not remember how she got home. Is this her home?
“You’re right,” says Clemensia. She hopes that is the right thing to say. “Perhaps I should get some rest.”
The man that looks like her father does not respond. She takes a step backward, then another, before turning around and heading to her bedroom with haste. She looks over her shoulder to check if he is following her. He is not.
Thank the fates.
She locks the door behind her and lets herself sink to the floor. Her hands are shaking. Her bedroom no longer feels like a place of security. Clemensia tries to steady herself—deep breaths, stand up, focus. She makes her way to the mirror and stares at her reflection as though it might offer her answers.
It shimmers, and she jumps back when it changes.
No longer does it show her in her dress and high ponytail. Instead, it is an image of her hair combed straight over her shoulders, dressed in her Academy uniform. She looks down and can’t help the shriek that escapes her mouth.
She’s in her Academy uniform.
What is happening?
Her breaths are coming out in ragged gasps.
All she can think is: I’m losing my mind.
Does she dare step out of her room and face the being that replaced her father? Does she wait inside and hope that it passes? As it turns out, Clemensia does not get a choice in the matter, when her surroundings shimmer once more, and she finds herself in the middle of a train station. Her eyes land on a familiar face.
“Coryo,” she says.
He’s in his Academy uniform, his hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat, and he’s holding a white rose, but it’s him. Truly Coriolanus, it looks like, not that odd boy from the Reaping Ceremony. Clemensia tries to hold back her relief until she can ensure as much. Her father had looked the same—and yet.
“Clemmie,” he greets as she walks up to meet him. “What are you doing here?”
Clemensia settles on honestly. “...I don’t know.”
He gives her a disbelieving look. Which—fair.
There’s a moment of silence before he asks, “Are you feeling better?”
You’re unwell, dear, echoes in her mind.
She does her best to hide her discomfort. “What do you mean?”
“You were acting strangely yesterday.”
“How so?”
“You were very…” he falters. “Pushy.”
Clemensia doesn’t know what to make of the description he’s settled on.
She’s fairly certain that he’s not referring to her confusion and lack of recognition that she experienced, which means—if she was surrounded by strange versions of her classmates, then perhaps he was interacting with a strange version of her? Even the thought of it is unnerving. Coriolanus appears to be the one she knows, but how easily could that odd shimmer in the air steal her entire life away?
“My apologies. I must have been stressed.”
“It’s quite alright. If I had known you wanted credit for being my class partner so badly…” Coriolanus trails off with a teasing smile.
Requesting credit as his class partner. Nevermind that it was such an odd thing to focus on, much less press as an issue. She had been worried over being supplanted, over that strange distortion becoming her new reality, but if that is all that had occurred during the missing time, then perhaps she could work it out without issue.
Clemensia lets her heart settle, just for a moment, before they are interrupted by the whistle of an approaching train. She glances back to Coriolanus, then around the station she’d found herself at, and doesn’t know if she wants to hear the answer of the question running through her mind: What are we doing here?