April – July, 2011
First attempt at writing for HG. Hopefully it works! :)
**If you've not finished the series (or not read any of it, in which case why are you reading fanfiction of it? Go read the series, silly!), this may contain spoilers, considering it covers pretty much the entire series. You might hate me if you read any farther.
(There. Now you can't say I didn't warn you!)
Suzanne Collins owns the series. I'm just borrowing some of the characters and some of the ideas. I would've ended it differently, honestly… And so I don't get yelled at for not being right about the "teaching Prim to hunt" thing (taking a slight liberty with it; I'm allowed!), I'm going to refresh your memory by giving you the exact paragraph out of The Hunger Games, page 35:
I don't bother suggesting Prim learn to hunt. I tried to teach her a couple of times and it was disastrous. The woods terrified her, and whenever I shot something, she'd get teary and talk about how we might be able to heal it if we got it home soon enough. But she makes out well enough with her goat, so I concentrate on that.
Okay, so, this kind of went wonky on me. As usual. It started out as one thing (the nightmare idea from CF), and then kind of… evolved. Which is okay, I suppose. That's what usually happens to me. Shouldn't be too much of a surprise.
If I thought killing animals was terrible, this is worse.
I remember that first day very clearly: Katniss taking me a little way into the woods after school; learning to use the bow and arrows; shooting a rabbit (very poorly compared to Katniss, I might add).
And then it was hysterics. I was crying and gingerly clutching the barely-breathing rabbit as Katniss watched with an exasperated sigh, telling me that there were plenty of other rabbits out there, and we needed food.
But still I cried, apologetic for taking the little creature's life even if it was to help sustain my own.
But this.
This is so much worse.
This is my sister.
My smart, talented, beloved sister.
And she is being tortured.
And there is nothing I can do about it, nothing I can say or do to stop it.
I force myself to watch the Games each night, clutching Rory's hand so tightly that I know I'm cutting off his circulation.
But he doesn't protest, and even if he would start to, I wouldn't hear him.
I'm too caught up in what's going on in the arena, with what's happening to my sister, to care about what's going on in the rest of the house.
She's going to die.
She promised me she would win, but she's going to die.
She's going to die and I'm going to watch it and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
And it's all my fault.
If only it hadn't been my name drawn.
If only Katniss wasn't so protective.
If only it had been some other girl from District Twelve in the arena.
But even that would have been difficult.
I would have been crying my eyes out regardless, as I have with every tribute who has died in any Games I've ever watched.
But this time around, I have more to lose: my sister. My protector. My best friend.
I can't get rid of the nightmares, terrible dreams that always end with Katniss in a pool of blood, with one of the other tributes snarling down at her.
They start the night of the Reaping, and Mother holds me through the night, crying right along with me.
They become less frequent after Katniss returns home, safe at last, but they flare up again when the Quarter Quell is announced and I realize that Katniss is going back into that horrid, living nightmare.
The day she is taken away from us again, without even a goodbye, I don't sleep at all, because I am afraid that if I close my eyes, I'll watch her die a slow and painful death.
I get really good at hiding it, though.
I can hide the fears from my teachers and classmates, and even from my mother.
But the one person from whom I can hide nothing is Rory.
He sees through the smiles and the declarations that I'm fine; he understands.
We're a lot alike, he and I.
Both of us are empathetic and intensely loyal to those we love.
He understands because he's put himself in my shoes, wondering what it would be like if Gale's name had been called during last year's Games, or any Games before that.
He is my rock, the one I can cling to, the shoulder I can cry on when I need.
And boy, do I need that shoulder a lot.
Throughout the Quarter Quell especially, Rory becomes the only person I truly trust.
I tell him things that I don't even tell my mother.
We huddle together and comfort each other after the bombing and our arrival in Thirteen.
The nightmares slowly become fewer, less frequent, less graphic, as time goes on.
I know that in part I have Rory to thank, and for that I am grateful.
By the time Katniss is safe in the hospital wing of Thirteen, the nightmares are all but gone, distant memories.
When Katniss agrees to become the Mockingjay, though, the nightmares start to return.
But this time, they don't just involve Katniss.
No, this time, everyone I care about is affected in my dreams.
My mother.
The Hawthornes.
Even Buttercup is not spared by my subconscious.
When I hear that Katniss has been shot in Two, my heart seems to stop for just a moment, and I fear that she's gone for good.
But then they're rushing her back to Thirteen, and she's safe, and that's all I really care about.
When Katniss tells us that she's leaving for the war, even though she's "not even a real soldier," I fear that something bad will happen.
I keep a positive outlook, assuring Katniss that the "next time we see each other, we'll be free of" Snow, but that night I cannot sleep again.
The nightmares get worse when Katniss and the others are announced dead.
For a while, I sulk and cry and even scream that it's not possible, that Katniss is still alive, that the Capitol is playing another trick on us.
But eventually, I accept it.
And like my mother, I throw myself into caring for patients.
The nightmares begin to retreat, because after all, Katniss is dead.
Snow can't get to her now.
That's the only good thing to come out of this whole situation.
When President Coin approaches me about going to the Capitol with the rebel medics, I jump at the chance to do something worthwhile. I am young, too young to be a soldier, but Coin assures me that I am just as capable as, if not more capable than, many of the medics in the rebel ranks.
I want to be there.
No, I need to be there.
My mother argues with me, but I counter until she consents.
Then I am there, in the City Circle, doing everything I can to help the refugees, the children, anyone I can reach.
And then I hear it.
That unmistakable cry, the same one everyone in District Twelve heard on Reaping Day two years ago.
I turn, not willing to believe it until I see it, and spot Katniss rushing toward me through the crowd.
Alive.
My sister is alive!
But before I can say her name, something explodes, and I am surrounded by warmth.
It radiates, envelops me, becomes part of me.
And just like that, no more nightmares.
Words:1060, give or take. Pretty good, considering that I was going to post it when it was only about 650. And then I realized "Crap, I have nothing from Mockingjay in here." Haha.
Time: Um, a couple of hours over a couple of months.
Influences, Borrowed Ideas, and Other Random Crap:
Derp. I admire Collins for being able to keep her tenses correct in the books. I'm not used to writing present-tense, really, so it's a bit of challenge. Kudos to Ms. Collins! Or her editor. Or whomever. Somebody gets my thumbs-up for being brilliant with tenses. I still feel like parts of this are the wrong tense, but…
Also, the President Coin thing? Check out Mockingjay, page 361. She at least authorized Prim to go. I'm not sure if she suggested it or not, but she might have. This was my take. Sort of.
I think the Reaping from HG was two years before MJ. I'm not totally positive. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
The Rory thing was kind of random, but also kind of inspired by other things I've read. I'm not sure if my take on his personality is right, but oh well.
As for Prim crying over other tributes, I feel like that works. This is a girl who cried when her sister taught her to hunt, remember. Before Catching Fire and Mockingjay, she is young, naïve, empathetic. Don't you think?
Slightly influenced by "Into the Flames" (id: 6804947), "Thank You For Everything, Katniss." (id: 6573315), and "Her Last Hour" (id: 6491804).