Author's Note: This will be short, probably no more than three chapters. I had a dream about it and just couldn't put the story out of my mind until it had been written. It's AU and also from an extremely weird point of view. Hopefully you don't find the narration too confusing. Treat it gently, mi-dears…

"I am! Yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost,

I am the self-consumer of my woes!" ~John Clarke, 'I Am'

I was a girl once, I think. I cannot remember…only that there was blood. When I was a girl there was a lot of blood and faces. Then I was nothing, I was blackness and emptiness and I had no name. I have not been anything like a girl for a long time now. I am not even sure if there is an 'I' anymore. There is a 'we'. Creatures like me mill around, scaly hide rubbing scaly hide as we teem through the tunnels. This is a terrifying reality I am born into.

My body has scales and claws and I can see and smell everything in the gutter. My belly aches and peacemakers-flesh-run from me, the sounds they make are painful. I have powerful legs and my jaws are strong enough to rend these humans-yes, that is what they are-apart. But the ache in my belly…it is so much worse if I stay to sate my hunger on these feeble, squalling things in their white skins. Katnissss, I do not know what this sound means, but the air hisses by my sharp teeth as I speak it, again and again. It is the only sound I can make, apart from the clicking of my teeth and the clacking of claws against stone.

Again, there is a lot of blood from the White Skins. I ignore it, we press on. We can almost smell it, now. What we have been hunting. Katnisssss. They are like the previous humans, running and weak. We are faster, we are coming and somehow, tasting the white and black ones blood will make the ache go away. Something in me knows.

"Mutts!" Voice! Confused, I pause. That sound she makes, it is familiar. I have heard it before…but not- Razorlike teeth rake across my tail and my jaws shut on the attackers neck and I snap it. I drop the body for the rest, let them be distracted by it for I will feast on the Katniss flesh and my pain will leave me. Her smell is sweet and delicious and there is enough stink here-it is like the polluted water's of ocean front's in District 8, nothing like what my home had with an ocean so blue-I am distracted by the scent of blood, salty like water. There are two human's waiting before a great metallic thing with teeth. I avoid it, many of my siblings are not so lucky. These human's shoot stinging darts, but their bodies break under my claws. There heads pop like grapes and still there is no relief from pain.

We are in a final tunnel, the Katniss is staring at me from across a river of filth. My brethren swarm, they are pushing me towards the edge-! I leap and catch a narrow bridge, scramble onto it. My claws ache from the effort, I am not a creature that was well made. The hiss escapes my throat, the other's are following across the thin bridge, but the Katniss is climbing. One of their males is helping her-I dash forward as something jumps at me-I am fast and I dodge a…

Trident. Something happens then, something that is far away from pain and confusion.

Sunlight strikes the waves in a road of golden light and the horizon stretches before me, a vast and beautiful thing. The sun burns, an orange disc as she sinks below the brackish green sea. I perch on the prow of the wooden boat like a figure head, my toes grip the sodden, salt-water swollen timbers. Dolphin's leap in our wake and my hair(I cannot see it, but I can feel it.)blows back from my face in the fresh, salty air that I can taste.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at dawn-"

"LOOK OUT!" A dark haired human lashes out at me with a glittering steel claw. I snap at him as he shoves the Katniss up the ladder. She is slow and selfish; my body is suddenly filled with hatred and I leap, reaching with a claw and slashing at her ankle. With a cry off shock she squirms away into sunlight. Sunlight on waves…gravity brings me crashing back onto the tiles of the sewer. The world is in disarray: my siblings are frantic for blood and there is a flash of silver from the corner of my eye.

He is in danger. The lizard mutt's have him backed against a wall beside the ladder, he cannot use the trident to defend himself any more than once. The boy-I see him glistening with salt-water and sunlight in another life-lunges and misses. He is off balance and three descend on him, the rest jostling me as they attempt to get up the ladder. I jump, over their backs and with a clawed hind foot slash an attacker in the face. She staggers, shrieking with blood pouring from the torn jelly that is her bulbous, reptilian eye and loses her purchase on the slimy tile, falling back into the primordial stink of the sewers main line. I stand over the boy, who is lying on his back between my hind claws, tip back until I am erect and let out a terrible and furious hiss. The other's retreat from my prize and I bow my head, close my jaws on the scruff of the boy's outer skin and pick him up. He has a familiar smell that fills my head with memories.

I here the Katniss crying to him, but I ignore this. I run with my boy, I must save him. Because I know him, I have seen him and I will not let the others rip him apart. I have made it just around the corner as a pillar of flame engulfs the others. I feel no remorse, only relief. He moans in my jaws and I growl, surging across a narrow bridge and dashing down another tunnel. He is hurt and something frantic grips me as a carry him, struggling to cradle his body now in claws that were made for ripping flesh from bone. It seems like hour before I think to use my nose, sniff out a place where the air is more filtered. There is a small room, filled with dials and pipes and it's door ajar, far from where the fire and mutt's were.

Entering, I drop the boy and turn from him; dragging my tail through the door and using my clumsy fore-claws to grip the latch and pull it shut. The boy makes a horrified moaning sound and I look at him in the dim florescent light. He is propped against a wall, and there are claws marks on his arms and shoulders. He is hurt, but not too hurt to live. Something about the sight of him does not satisfy me…I realize then that something about my vision is off. In many ways, I see him better than in the dreams. But I do not see colour's as well, I think.

Lowering my head, I approach him slowly. He should not be afraid, he should not look so revolted. He had only ever smiled at me, cried with me. I nudge his side with my scaled snout as gently as I can. The belly pain is back, to remind me that I didn't kill the Katniss. But I don't care…I just want the boy to remember me and to feel no fear-it is instinct that causes me to leap back as he slashes at me with a knife, landing a glancing scratch to my face.

"Fucking monsters…greedy, aren't you? Wanted me all to yourself? Come on, you stupid mutt! Come and get me-" The sound I make is not a hiss…it is closer to the sounds he was making before. It is a deep cry of pain, but the serrated fangs in my mouth warp it and give even that a sound of hissing. He does not remember me, maybe I am just a monster made to think it was a girl. I wish he would stab me, bury his knife to it's hilt in my skull. My claws click as I retreat to the door, hind legs folding beneath me. He stares at me, his chest heaving with harsh breaths. "Go to hell, Snow! I wont be tricked…you, your just a Mutt."

"Katnisssss…" That is all my throat will allow me to say, but the sound of it is not a threatening hiss. It is a moan of agony. I wrap my tail around my clawed feet and bow my head, clutching at it with my talons.

"Say it again, and I'll kill you." He is too hurt to come and attack me, he is too tired. If he were going to try, he already would have. I curl up and allow my eyes to unfocus…I wish I could close them, but I have no eyelids.

My mind retreats to a state something like sleep: I want to go back to the sea, I used to live in an ocean place. We used to live in an ocean place. There was water. With miles and miles of creamy sand and red cliffs that crashed to the sea. When I was a child, I would play in that sand. I'd catch things in tide-pools, run giggling through the surf. Or later, sit on the salt-washed rocks and bathe in the sun. To fall asleep in his arms, with the sound of waves rushing in and out with the rhythm of breath...


Time has passed when I awake and bring my vision into focus. I am in pain, more than I was before. He is still asleep and I move to his side and touch him with the tip of a claw. He jumps with a panic and flinches away from me, his knife poised. Slowly, so as not to startle him further, I press my forehead against the blade. For a moment, his face hardens and the blade presses into my flesh, blood beading around it's thirsty edge. Then it is gone, the knife and his bloody expression. It is replaced with fear and horror.

"What-who-are you?" I gaze at him, but I cannot remember. He must remember, he must know me. I have forgotten my own name, but his…comes back to me.

" 'inac." I try, but it is not the right sound. Again. " 'Innick."

Tears run trails through the grime that coats his angular, handsome face. The knife clatters to the floor and a sob bursts from his lips. I sit beside him on my hind claws and meet his outstretched hand with a spread talon. Finnick looks into my eyes, not at the scaly snout-ed lizard face, and recognizes me.

"Hal. Oh god, Halcyone."

Something aches behind my eyes, but I cannot cry. Mutt's and monsters were not creatures intended to shed tears.