Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games or the lyrics to The Hanging Tree.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
A young woman swayed down the deserted streets, humming a dark melody to herself as her mind played over the events five days past.
Her lover had caught three men attacking her behind an abandoned building after leaving the pub. Kicking, punching, clawing, screaming, she was trying all that she could to get free from her captors. Her lover, in a fit of unrepressed rage, slit the men's throats before they really knew what had happened.
The woman, already unstable, went wild after seeing the bloodshed before her eyes. She tore down the alley to her home, leaving her love to his wretched fate.
The police came around the corner just after she'd fled and, seeing three dead men and one drenched in blood, arrested the man on the spot for murder.
He was strung up the following dawn.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
As the woman continued to dance down the dark street, she also recalled her loves last words, shouted to her, as they dragged him out of town…
"Run my love! They will come for you next!" He was half mad with bloodlust and anger, "It's only a matter of time!"
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 up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Of course there was more to his raving than just his desire for her to run. He wanted her to run to him. To join him. He knew the people in town distrusted her because she was mad. They believed she would have a fit at any moment and destroy them all. He wanted her to be free from that life, and so he called for her to be free.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
She could hear him inside her head. The same words over and over ever since he was hung: Come to the tree. Join me, my love. She couldn't deny her love's last wishes for her. And so she continued her unaccompanied waltz all the way to the tree where her lover's body still hung. As she tied the necklace of rope round her neck, she continued to hum the same haunting tune to herself, until she finally leapt from the branch, and joined her lover in freedom.
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