She sat perched on the windowsill, her hand splayed across the glass counting the rain drops as they fell. It was an impossible task, but it kept her from thinking, it kept her from falling. For months she sat there and stared, stared at the impossible that laid on the ground and danced through the air. She dreamed of running outside and letting the wind guide her and twirl her. She wanted to feel the grass with her toes and smell the air of late winter, of early spring, the crispness of fall. She wanted to hear the sound of gravel as she walked across the paths that led to the houses beside her and feel the warm air on her skin as she entered. She wanted to throw herself down on the plush couches and call her friends to her and talk about anything and nothing. She wanted to smile, she wanted to laugh, and she wanted to carry on as if the world was a million miles away.

But the world was not a million miles away. It was here in her house, in the grass outside and the air around it. It swept through the houses beside her and curled from the chimneys. The world crawled on her and lived on the things she touched. The world was the clock on the wall in the parlor. Counting and ticking, almost in time with her heart, with the rain, with the unshed tears that burned her eyes.

Her dream was impossible. The years of her youth where memories, the days of happiness and laughter gone. What was there to even live for? The grass outside reminded her of Lady, the goat that belonged to her sister Prim. Time and time again she would watch as Prim sat with Lady and stroked her back as she fed. The air reminded her of the years before the war, hot summer nights, cold winter days, all shared with her sister. The whole world was her sister. In the night it screamed for her help and n the morning it kissed her cheek, telling her wake up. But as soon as she opened her eyes there was nothing, nothing but the memories of mornings of the past.

Memories. That was all she had now.

Her sister was gone, her mother was mourning in a district far away from her, and Gale was living his life without her. The only people remaining with her were Haymitch and Peeta.

Peeta.

He might have been just as far away as the rest of them. He had lived in the mind of another for so long that she wasn't certain that he would ever be the same. The boy with the bread, the boy who saved her life, the boy who loved her, was nothing but a memory.

Her life was a memory. Her life was a single rain drop that slide down the glass and blurred with the rest of the rain. Her life in the end was nothing. How many times has she thought about ways to end it? How many ways has she imagined what would take the light from her grey eyes. Life, she thought, was easy to end. People she knew, people she cared for flashed across her eyes. Countless lives; countless deaths. Every night she watched death grab these people. It had been so easy for their bodies to grow limp, and their skin to pale. For her there would be no difference.

But for the countless times she's imagined her death, she couldn't bring herself to walk the few steps that led to the knives in her kitchen or the pills in her bathroom. But as the rain poured and the clocked ticked, her resolve grew; her resolve to end it all.

She felt her legs begin to untangle from their position and felt her hand slid down the cool, wet glass of the window. She stood up and walked, her joints protesting, her muscles aching. One step, two steps, the floor creaking in time with her breaths. Step, breathe in, creak; step, breathe out, creak. She entered the kitchen, cold from disuse. Three steps, she opened the draw.

Inside was an array of knives varying in size and sharpness. She chose one at random, her mind blank, her body numb. She felt a sting on the pad of her thumb and wetness trailing down her hand. She looked down, the knife had pierced her thumb and hot blood trickled down it, dripping onto the floor, in time with the tick of the clock. She looked up; her eyes resting on a door down the hallway from the kitchen, leading to a room she had not been in in months. She walked. With each step, blood dripped to the floor. With each step, the clocked ticked in the parlor.

She reached the end of the hallway and grasped the knob of the door, cold metal stinging her hand. She twisted her wrist and opened the door. The room was cold, dust filtering through the air like snow. Snow. This is where he had sat all those months ago after the games, threatening her and her family. She could have killed him then, alone in the room. She could have wrapped her hands around his neck and squeezed, squeezed until the air was ripped away from his lungs. But she was scared then, she wasn't scared now, she had nothing to lose.

On the desk in front of her sat a vase, and inside that vase was a single white rose. A gift, he had told her. She walked to it, its smell making her gage and her eyes burn. It was perfect. Not a sign of age, just pure white gleaming back up at her. She lifted her arm and positioned her wrist over the rose and raised the knife. Slowly she placed the knife on her skin and sliced a single line across. White turned to red.

Her blood flowed down onto the rose, swallowing it, strangling it. Nothing of Snow will live!

The faces of the dead raced across her eyes, the faces of those who were taken by the hand of Snow. Anger laced her skin and a single tear fell. "I promise", she whispered "You will not die in vain".

The last thing she heard was the sound of the knife hitting the floor and her name between a set of lips, "Katniss!"

Then everything became red.