Disclaimer: The Hunger Games does not belong to me. If I was Suzanne Collins, Scholastic, or Lions Gate Entertainment, I certainly wouldn't be writing fanfic.
Recognizable dialogue and lyrics are from Mockingjay part 1.
Going to the Tree
You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground. But do you see that? Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!
Katniss Everdeen's words echo as I walk in the low moonlight. The face and voice of the rebels and it was like she was speaking to me that day. She was my catalyst. You could say I became obsessed with her, though not for the reasons my friends tease. I am not in love with her. Though I am 18, I haven't had the fortune to feel that way about anybody and now I never will. I am walking, willingly, to my death.
I am the baker's son in my small village in District 5, just like Peeta Mellark. But unlike him I take no enjoyment in baking. It was what was expected of me and I didn't fight it knowing the alternative was the dam. Anything that benefited the Capitol I wanted no part of.
My grandmother told the tale, passed down from way before the dark days, when there was freedom. I may have been young at the time but I listened with rapt attention to a time so different from my own. I didn't understand completely at the time but I do now.
Upon reaching the meeting place I help my friend Jaiden pick up the wooden crate. The bomb inside will bring end my life but also strike a blow to the Capitol. In the two years since I left school, the feeling that my life is meaningless and I can do nothing to change things filled me yet here I am. I am not acting out alone but in the company of like-minded individuals and we can actually do something meaningful together.
Dissension shouldn't mean death and the image of my fellow villagers executed before my eyes in the public square still haunts me. That was bad enough but I understood analytically they had acted against the Capitol. It was wrong of course but it was cause and reaction.
The hospital though, that was different… there were innocents inside. The Hunger Games had been bad enough, sending children to kill one another, but at least weapons were provided and there was a chance of defending oneself. Not so this time. Those inside were just wiped out, no warning. There was nothing the Capitol wouldn't do and my mind was made up. I would fight back and I jumped when the chance came.
Jaiden and I join the crowd marching toward the dam. My reverie is broken as the familiar strains meet my ears. They are already signing the song of the revolution – Katniss's song.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run,
So we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
It starts to rain as we approach the dam. The ground is slick but we are a determined crowd. Not one of us falls until the bullets start to fly. Jaiden stumbles and goes down as a bullet pierces him but I do not drop the crate. We discussed this happening ahead of time. Somebody else takes his place and we rush ahead. Goodbye my friend, I think, I'll join you soon and we'll both be free.
Once inside we slid the crate forward and I set the bomb. Then we run. I know it is a fool's journey. There is no escaping what is going to happen but I don't relish the thought of blowing up.
Behind me I hear the explosions and I feel the ground shake beneath my feet. The bridge is going down. I am going to drown. My last thought as water overtakes me and I start to choke, caught in the undertow, is that at least I helped strike a blow. I hear my grandmother's voice and the words of a long dead language she taught me. Lībertās aut mors.
Liberty or death.