I always knew I wouldn't win. Even when the girl from District 12, the girl I'd been watching since day one of training, who I knew was the most likely to win, started trusting me, I knew I wasn't going to win. It gave me a spark of hope, but that's all. And hope, without a continual supply of encouragement, eventually dies away. Every family who has had a child put in the Games knows that. Every family that the Capitol has crushed knows that
."Katniss..," I whisper to her. She's so kind. She doesn't belong here. She belongs back home, with her family. Not here in the arena, watching a twelve-year-old die. Not here in the arena, killing the kid who killed the twelve-year-old. She deserves better than that.
She says something to me, but I can't make it out. I only see her lips moving. Everything around me is spinning and my mind is all foggy. I wasn't sure what it would feel like to die but I didn't imagine it would feel like this. And I didn't imagine it would happen like this. Katniss was so close to saving me...if only she'd been there a moment before...
No, it's not her fault. It's not the boy who speared me's fault, either. It's the Capitol's fault. I hope Katniss knows that. I hope everyone watching this knows that.
"Could you sing for me?" I whisper. I taste blood on my lips and know that my time is running short. I love music, and I wouldn't want to die to anything but the sound of it.
She nods. I barely see the motion. Then she starts singing. And that's all I can hear and all I can think of. Finally, the world around me stops spinning and my mind is calm. I can't even feel the pain anymore. I'm simply peacefully numb.
"Deep in the meadow, under the willow...A bed of grass, a soft green pillow..," she's singing. I hear every word perfectly and can imagine it in my mind. My eyes droop shut as the image of that meadow slips into my mind, calming me further.
"Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes...And when again they open, the sun will rise..."
Everything is drifting from me now. It's like I'm floating away from the world and away from every care. I don't want to float away from the music, though. I want to hold onto that for as long as I can.
"Here it's safe, here it's warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm."
I imagine my little sister tucking little daisies into my hair like she used to on hot summer days. We'd lie out by the creek and she'd hum as if the world was wonderful, and I'd feel perfect and happy and content like I rarely ever do. Rarely ever did, I mean. These are my last moments. I have to remind myself of that because right now I wouldn't mind staying here forever, listening to Katniss singing.
"Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true."
I'm so far away now. Her singing seems like a whisper of a thought that I used to know but I've long forgotten. I can feel humanity drifting from my fingers like a wisp of intangible smoke.
"Here is the place where I love you."
And then, as if I've been waiting for those words to set me free all my life, my cares are truly gone.