Written for Ship Week at Caesar's Palace. Today the prompt was "Snuggle for warmth."
She claws at her face, wanting to tear it off. "I'd deserve it," she screams, but the wind covers her words, whisks them away from the earth and beyond the ears of anybody who'd listen.
So is the delirium that faces someone when one is met with death when one opens the front door.
The bombs came fast. She didn't know they were bombs until she heard screaming, and then she knew she might as well die right there. Someone grabbed her wrist, shouting an apology not with words but with the unforgiving grip of fingers cuffing her wrist. "Come with me," he mouthed.
She realized that it was Gale. Gale was later than he said he would be.
"Buttercup!" she yelled, partly to Gale, partly to the cat.
Gale didn't seem to understand, and he grabbed her, ran.
Houses were exploding behind her, sending billows of dust into the air. Flour, of a different sort, and not the kind that the Mellarks would dust their rolling pins with.
She wishes she could forget what she saw when she looked back. She cries, loud and ugly, feeling weak and angry.
"Shhh," someone pats her air, and she feels warmth press against her. It might be a hallucination, but Katniss is rubbing her back and whispering platitudes, the meanings of which are not as important as their presence.