Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Hunger Games' or any other part of the trilogy ['Catching Fire' or 'Mockingjay']! All of it is from it's very own author Suzanne Collins.
I'm in a white room and I am nude, the smell of flowers surrounds me. I try to remember, but I can't. All I can remember is a braid of hair. Not my hair. Someone else's. Yet whose hair is it?
"Katniss!" The name seems to pop out in between my lips.
Who is Katniss? I try to remember.
It's all coming to me now. When I think an unpleasant thought.
The Hunger Games.
I stand on wobbly legs. Only to feel pain. I look down at the place the pain is coming from. There on my skin is a red line, not much of a line, but a circle. I touch it. The skin feels like gel. It has to be something from the Capitol.
What's the Capitol? I try to remember what that is to.
I flash a memory. Or at least I think it is a memory:
I'm in a net. The boy from District 1 stabs a spear through my skin. I'm calling 'Katniss' franticly. The spear hurts.
She'll kill you! I think of that violent thought to myself. yell. Now I'm feeling dizzy. I'm running out of strength.
"I'll kill her to." The boy says a grin lines his face. "This trap would kill two mocking jay's with one stone. And it will."
I get an uneasy feeling, like he had been watching us.
"Rue! Rue!" My name, or so what I remember being my name, is being called.
"Katniss!"
The girl with the braided hair, the one I'm calling Katniss. She appears. Fear is on her face.
She shoots the boy with an arrow and it goes straight into his neck , he drops dead.'
I end up repeating myself several times.
Then I ask Katniss to sing me to my death.
"It's all so clear." I say allowed. "My name is Rue, and she was my ally, Katniss the girl who was on fire." I do not know where the last part has come from, must be in my memory somewhere. Why would I say such a thing otherwise?
A white dress falls from above me.
"Thank you, kind stranger." I say in a whisper.
I slide the dress on over my cold body.
It flowed, and was strapless. I do recall wearing a dress once. It was on that one day. Or was it?
A memory comes:
I'm sitting in a large crowd, wearing a yellow dress with puffed sleeves, I never did like those sleeves. My hair is much nicer then usual, it's up in a bun, most of the time it's flying past my shoulders, including when I'm up in those trees.. A little girl is holding my hand. She seems like a close friend of mine, or maybe a sibling.
"Rue." I hear her whisper. "What if they call my name?" She asks.
"I'll be a volunteer." I say without hesitation.
"What'll we do if you go away?"
"Would you stop asking so many questions!" I snap at her.
I hear my name, it was called.
I walk on stage, my eyes are glistening wet. Yet, I hold my tears back. Why would I cry? I have to be strong, for the five of them.
The people are asking me questions but all I think is. What are they going to do without me?
My thoughts disappear and turn into the white room.
"I feel like I abandoned them even though I don't remember who they are." I sigh. "They must have been close to me though."
"Rue, is that you?"
I turn to where the sound is coming from.
"Who is there? Are you the kind stranger who gave me the dress?"
"No, Rue. It's me." The voice is that of a male.
"Thresh." I say his name. "You seem like one of the only people I can remember."
"What do you mean you can remember?" He asks.
"I can't remember a thing. Like who Katniss is. Who is Katniss?" I ask him trying to get an answer.
"Katniss." He says her name in disgust. "You formed an alliance with her. The last time I saw her she was close to death's door. I helped her but only to help avenge you."
I smile.
"So, is this what heaven is like?" I ask.
Another memory flash:
We were all standing over a grave.
"Any last things you want to say, this is the last time we'll see her in…awhile?"
"Rue, how long is awhile?" The youngest boy asks.
"Just, awhile." I say calmly.
We are all silent for a minute.
"Um…Rue…where is mama now?"
"A sanctuary." I say and look up at the sky.
"Heaven." The second born girl says. "The first greatest place in the universe."
"What is heaven?" All of the young ones ask at once.
"It's a place that you go to when you die. Much better then earth itself."
"So, if one of us ever entered the Hunger Games, and if we didn't win…then we would go and meet mama in heaven right?" The youngest boy asks again.
"Of course! Unless your one of the bad people who make the Game possible. Then you go somewhere else. Yet, I don't know what it is called." The second born girl says.
"I'm going to tell all of you this now, if any of you ever get into the Games, I promise I'll get some courage and stand up for you."
They're silent.
"You'll also win for us right?" The youngest boy asks.
"I'll try and if I don't I'll let mama know you love her."
We all begin to walk away from the grave.
I come back into the white room.
Thresh is gone.
"Must have been my imagination." I say.
There is a small screen before me.
"Would you like to watch the Games?" A voice echoes through the room.
"Only for Katniss." I say looking around the room.
The screen is playing. I watch intensely rolling on the balls of my bare feet, only to calm me:
Katniss is running through the woods. She's being chased by someone. The camera's cant see who it is.
Knives are being thrown at her.
"Run, Katniss, run!" I call to the girl hoping she can hear me.
A knife, it goes straight into her back.
Katniss drops dead.
"No, that's not how it happens! Katniss has to win in the end she has to!" I yell.
The screen disappears.
One more memory flash:
The five children who were in my last memory are standing over another grave.
"Rue, she promised…she promised she would tell mama…" The young boy can't handle his tears. He burst into a tantrum.
"Hush." The second born girl says and gives him a hug. "Rue is with mama in heaven."
All of the children, even the girl. They break into tears.
"Rue! If you can hear us, we used all of our money with Thresh's family to send bread to that Katniss girl!" The third born child calls.
"Rue…she knows…she's watching down on us from heaven with mama after all."
I come back to the room. I'm still very dizzy. These memories take energy away, even if they come randomly.
My mind goes blank.
I black out.
I awake later in a darker black room. I stand. The white dress is still on me. My hair is cut, all the way down to my shoulders. I had spent so long growing it out to flow like the dress was on me.
"Rue? Can you hear me?" That voice, the sweet and tender voice that I had heard since I was a newborn child.
"Mama." My mouth is dry.
A white, angelic figure stands over me.
"Oh, Rue you are with me now." Mama says.
I admire Mama's beauty. The same way I had admired her since I was a child.
Mama is wearing a red dress. Like the ones that I had seen her in with the paintings in our house, when our Father was still with us.
"Rue, you were in the Games much longer then I thought you would survive." Mama says she's starting to fade away. "This my dear, this is an empty space of heaven. This is your world." Mama becomes transparent.
"Mama! Where are you going! What's happening?" I'm yelling.
"This isn't my heaven. I fade away from here as soon as I step into it. I'll be in my realm though."
"Can you come and visit! Mama wait don't go!" I reach out and touch her hand.
Mama is gone.
"Mama!" I yell.
"Rue, I believed in you all along. Go back to earth help Katniss in spirit."
"Mama, wait!"
No questions or waiting is done. Mama is gone now. I sit in sorrow.
"Katniss is dead."
"No, she is isn't." Mama's voice is back. "That was a fear of yours that came to you. You thought Katniss died. Yet she's not. Go, Rue, I believe in you." Mama fades out again, then comes back. "I love you, my little flower." Mama is gone again.
I think hard. I think of me being with Katniss on earth, in the arena.
Only causing me to black out again.
Now, I am on earth. My hair back at it's normal length. I am back in my outfit that I wore the first day of the Games. It scares me, to be back in this.
Katniss is curled up next to that boy, Peeta, on a loveseat. They're on stage together. They both had survived the Hunger Games.
On a screen they are doing a wrap up of the Games. Only highlighting important parts. It's on the part where Katniss is singing me to my death.
I join into the song. Only to try and help aid Katniss, if I am helping her at all.
Then on the screen, Katniss is placing flowers on my lifeless body. I start to cry.
"Katniss." I whisper in her ear. "Thank you, for everything, I'm going to be in heaven. I'll meet you there someday."
I disappear from earth. Only to remember one thing:
I had made an alliance with Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire.
