Hello everybody! This is my first story so I really hope you all enjoy it. Please read it and leave lots of comments! ~Mary
Panem: After the Revolution
Chapter one
Katniss POV
I'm running, there are screams- so many screams. I stop, I can't go on anymore. I try to catch my breath, but I'm too scared- too sad. Rue is gone, I don't know where Peeta is, and the careers are after me. I can hear them. I attempt to shout his name one more time, and then I succumb to the screaming.
I jolt up, my breathing hard and rushed. I look to one side of me and see the precious picture I managed to get of my sister, I look to my other side and my husband sleeps soundly next to me. I smell the bread from yesterday and I hear the soothing mist outside. These things help, but I still shake and tremble. Peeta wakes up, his blonde hair ruffled from sleep. We look at eachother before tears start streaming down my face. He hurries to me and holds me close. The alarm on his face fades slowly as he realizes it was another nightmare. It's been years since the last Hunger Games, but I still am deeply scarred. My sobs subside, and we lay back down, but we do not sleep.
After another restless night, morning comes. I get out of our bed and go into my son's room. He sleeps soundly but he has to be at school early today and I need him to be ready.
"Rye, honey, wake up." I try to rub him gently but I think I just press on his small back.
"No, Mom! I want to sleep." He goes under the covers and tries to hide.
"You have your special meeting today with veterans from the war. They want you to be there early so you don't miss anything." Rye is twelve, today he's supposed to learn about the revolution in school, but I don't think I want him to. It holds too many memories- too many horrors. Peeta said we shouldn't restrain him because of our pasts, and I trust his judgment.
"How come Willow doesn't have to be woken up and go there early?" He asked as he finally drags himself out of bed, making a dramatized show out of it.
"Because she wakes up voluntarily and she isn't in your level. She's older." I go to his closet and pick out some of his nicer clothes. I don't know who he'll meet, but I won't have him looking messy. I give a slight nod as I walk out of his room, letting him know that he does actually have to get dressed and come down soon. I stop in Willow's room to make sure she was awake, but she had already left her bed. I go down the stairs of our two-story house and look out the window. The government left a lot of ruin in District 12, but people look past it and still live here. We live in the old "Victors' Village". This area was made for victors who had walked out of the Games alive. Both Peeta and I did that…twice. I turn into the kitchen, hoping I would see Willow. But I don't. She likes to hunt, like I do. And even though I have told her that she doesn't need to hunt for us, that I can do it, she insists. She gets up at the crack of dawn and leaves early, going into the woods to hunt and then straight to school. Which means that I almost never get to see her before she leaves.
I smile and shake my head as I get some fresh water and sit down at the table to wait for Peta and Rye to be ready. It will probably be a while, I don't know what they do, but they take hours doing it. I would cook something, but I can't cook. So I settle for looking out the window that looks out onto out front yard. I see a man walking along the street, and I feel my stomach drop. It cant be, he lives in District 2. I know he wouldn't come near here without running to see me first. I take deep breathes, trying not to think about him, about the war, the bombs, about her. The I talk to myself, saying that maybe it isn't him. Maybe it's a stranger visiting to see someone he knows. I close my eyes and bury my head. When I hear Peeta coming down I straighten myself out and smile. Don't think about it, I will myself over and over as I prepare for today and what it might bring.