Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins, therefore, anything related to The Hunger Games isn't mine. Dang it.


Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

I wake up to the rhythm of my heart.

Cracking open my eyes, I cringe at the harshness of daylight around me; the sun glares down at me from the cloudless sky. I am short of breath, and it takes me a moment to collect my thoughts.

The first thing I think is why the hell am I lying in a pile of rocks?

And then, all at once, recollection crashes down around me and I choke on my own breath.

The bombing. Gale. My parents. Katniss. The bombing. Peeta. The children. The fire. The arena. The bombing.

One after the other, jabbing my brain. I have a pounding headache, and my lips are cracked and dusty, and I have no clue where the entire district is.

Which brings me to my second thought: are they all dead?

I inhale a shaky breath and attempt to stand. My legs are wobbly, but I manage it, and after extricating my feet from the rubble around me, I slowly make my way out of the debris of my former home. There are bodies everywhere, some completely burnt, some with their mouths open in half-finished screams.

I try to swallow. I feel tears gather in my eyes.

My home - the place I had lived for so long - is gone. It does not exist. It is like 13: a decimated radioactive village, full of nothing but tumbleweeds and vultures and death.

The excercise has made my weak limbs weary, and I collapse amongst the dust and the remnants of my home. I raise a trembling hand to my mouth, clenching it into a fist and shoving it in my mouth to stop the sob that tries to escape.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

I can only hope that Gale was able to get out alright, with Prim and Mrs. Everdeen and his family. I think of the Mellarks, in their bakery across town, and I doubt that they were fortunate enough. They were too far from the Meadow to possibly get out.

The bombing. Gale. My parents. Katniss. The bombing. Peeta. The children. The fire. The arena. The bombing.

My body aches. Everything is pain: my heart is ripping, my limbs are screaming, my throat is burning.

I stare at the emptiness around me. The tears have, undoubtedly, left streaky lines across my dust-bombed face, and I wonder what this would look like to someone above; a little girl crouched among the torched remains of her childhood and her home and her life.

Summoning all of the strength I can muster, I push myself up, attempting (in vain) to get the dirt off of my cracked knees. I do not wipe my eyes. Without looking back, I trudge away - away from the destruction and the death.

Because, I realize, I survived. And that has to count for something.


A/N: Hope you all enjoyed! I have a THG headcanons blog, if any of you would like to check it out - .com

Anyways, thank you all for reading - please read & review!

xoxo, Hannah