The past few weeks had felt like a blur. A haze. A gray wash - the first layer of paint an artist puts on a canvas before deciding what to paint. It was the worst kind of fugue state. Ritualistic to the point of disassociation. Stage. Video. Bowl. Name. Train.
The Tower, which he thought once would be a relic of a bygone era, had pulled Lee back into its prisonous grasp. Sure, it was in a bit of disrepair, and there was a weird offshoot where they had converted a first-floor Sponsor lounge into a living quarters for the Capitolites, but it was eerily still the same. Lee could have sworn the swirl of the steam rising from his tea was identical, even if that was a scientific impossibility.
But here he was, again, with an over-brewed cup of tea that he even paid too much for, looking at the not-so-shiny marble floors of the Tower. He was shocked into stillness as waves of memory flooded back. It was all happening again - when it wasn't supposed to.
No - no. No. It was too much. Lee's breath caught in the pit of his stomach and suddenly left his lungs empty. His eyesight blurred for a moment, and phantoms of the past overlapped in the lobby ahead. Linden. Alder. Donnegal. Dozens of others who he never saw again. No. No.
Before his brain could clear the chilling sight, his legs had kicked into gear to backpedal out of the Tower and into the blinding light of the Capitol streets. He only managed to take two steps into the mercifully bright sun before blindly colliding with someone.
"Shit, sorry," he muttered, clawing at his eyes with his free hand. His other one stung from where some of his tea cascaded over the lip of the cup to bite into the cold air. "Just had to... I dunno. Get outta there."