Summary: After dying then being revived, Katniss came back with a gift that she could never return. Terrified of her odd talent she shuts herself off from the world but one dead girl isn't going to side by and watch the gift go to waste. Soon the teenager realises that her life is going to be completing changed and it will end in the decision between her family and a semi-normal life or the Spirits and a chance of a happy ever after.
The Beginning.
It was a gift that Katniss could never return.
At age eight, she stood by her father's side as he cried. His arms held a small body, soaking wet he screamed at the sky, begging it to put life back into the limp body. The sky granted his wish, the small body coughed up the swallowed water and it breathed once more.
Katniss was no longer at her father; she was looking up at him. She had never seen him cry before. She wiped away the tears that fell from his grey eyes and promised that she would never swim without him again. For six long minutes, Katniss was dead. She was ready to be at peace with the world at such a young age but she was sent back to her body.
Her father didn't mean to make the deal. It just happened because of love, his love for his daughter and not wanting to live in a world without her in it.
The gift wasn't shown for a few weeks until she went to school one day. Her small class had got smaller; the death of Trula Rogue didn't come as a shock to most. Trula was from a large family who were always fighting for survival lack of food and money meant that most of the family members were severely underweight.
It came to a shock for young Katniss. As she listened to Miss Pennyweather tell her class about the child's death, she was looking at Trula Rogue. Only the Trula little Katniss saw was healthy, no longer pale and skeleton thin. Her eyes were bright and her hair shiny. Her dress was all fixed and clean. In confusion, Katniss raised her hand. "Miss Pennyweather, don't be sad. Trula's over there, you lied and said she was dead." Katniss bluntly stated. Causing gasps from the other students who all stared at Katniss like she had gone crazy.
"Katniss Everdeen!" Miss Pennyweather shook with anger and grief. "Principle Marks office now."
At the beginning she didn't understand how they couldn't see Trula; she was clear as the sky is blue. But after encounter and encounter of getting in trouble, Katniss decided that she wouldn't share her seeing with the rest of the world. She was sick of the name calling and teasing. Though she ignored her gift it didn't stop the dead from pestering.
She must have looked insane when people saw her talking to ghosts; sometimes they got to her asking her to tell their loved ones about missing objects or finding their bodies. She was scared to death they would declare her unstable, maybe she was or even worse turn her into an Avox, so her hurtful tongue would be cut out.
She ignored her gift until she was eleven years old. She was fixing her bow ready for her hunting trip with her father later in the evening. As she sat by the fire, her father's voice interrupted her fixing. "Kitty." He whispered her nickname. Katniss jumped to her feet ready to pounce at her father. He held his hands out to stop her. "Listen, i haven't got much time. Katniss, something bad has happened and i don't think I'm going to see you anymore. It's your job to use your talent- hunt to get food for the family and trade some. Use your other talent too," he instructed to a teary Katniss. "Use it to help people like me get our messages back to our families." His orders were interrupted by a heartbreaking howl.
Katniss ran to the front room of tiny home to find her mother on her knees, her hands clutching to a small piece of paper. There were two men in suits at the front door with solemn looks on their faces. One leant down, helping my mother to her feet and placed her on the old rocking chair. One turned to Katniss uttering the words she never wanted to hear. "Sorry for your loss, your father was a great man."
Heart pounding, Katniss returned to the backroom. There stood her father, straight posture and his eyes full of regret. It all clicked into place, he was dressed in a pristine, black suit not like the overalls he had left in earlier that morning. No sign of coal dust on his pale skin, his hair perfectly combed back. The soul always came back as the perfect image of their body.
"I love you, Kitty" he nodded and headed for the back door.
"Daddy!" Katniss screamed and chased after him, only to find he had disappeared into thin air.
At sixteen years old, she kept her promise. She used her talent to keep the family a float. Most days she snuck off into the forest to find food for her mother and sister, she did well. They weren't greedy, anything they weren't going to eat they would trade. At first she was laughed at, the crazy girl from the Seam turned into the crazy girl from the Seam who was good at hunting.
She didn't talk much, always fearing she might start chatting someone who no longer walked the earth. She wished she could help the lost souls, she believed there was a place they went too and somehow she believed it was her job to make them go. But her priorities were to keep her family alive; the dead would have to wait.
As Katniss made her way to her usual traders, her grey eyes found a body slumped over a bar. He was fast asleep, a bottle wrapped in his fingers. She tutted, the man had money to splash away on liquor while others were starving and one deaths door step. Katniss regretted staring at the stranger instantly. Her eyes found another pair, a ghostly pair.
Katniss tried to ignore the young woman who chased her home. But after a while the constant questions such as "Why can you see me?" "Why are you ignoring me?" and "Why won't you talk to me?" got to Katniss. As soon as she was sure no one else was around, she spun around to the girl.
"What do you want?" Katniss asked, quietly. Her eyes continuously darting around to see if anyone was coming into view.
"You can see me?!" The girl gasped, Katniss guessed the girl was around the same age as her. The girl was innocent looking, with two auburn braids run down each side of her face and the biggest grey, seam eyes Katniss had ever seen. She was a pretty young thing, so pretty Katniss would envy her if she wasn't dead.
"Why don't you move on?" Katniss hissed, "Make your peace with the world and go to a happy place."
"You're new to this, right?" The girl questioned, her fingers playing with the hem of her floral print, knee length dress. A human habit that she had carried to the grave. "We can't just accept it and move on! Each ghost stuck on his dust earth has unfinished business. Help us finish it and we leave you in peace."
"And if i don't?" Katniss asked, standing her ground.
"Well i will tell every spirit this side of the plain about you and you little gift. Imagine that, millions of voices, haunting you, begging you for a favour." The ghost smirked. "I only want one thing from you, then i leave with your secret intact and give you some peace."
Katniss let out a chuckle, she couldn't believe her ears. "Listen, if i go around telling people their dead relatives have a message for them i will get sent to the nut house, or people will stop trading with me. Not trading means my family don't get medicines or other vital things for survival. They are my priority, if i don't put them first it means there will be 3 more spirits wandering this earth with unfinished business."
Katniss stalked away from the pretty ghost, tired of listening to how she should use her talents for good. She had enough problems without adding other peoples to it as well.
Katniss lay in her bed, slipping into sleep comfortably. Her dreams were different this evening, tonight she was running through the forest in the pale moonlight, she let her feet take her, Katniss had no clue where she was going. Soon she arrived at a meadow filled with wild flowers and a gentle breeze, her body stop in the centre. There was rustling from behind her, turning to face the sounds a man stood out. A man was an exaggeration, when the moonlight hit his features it was clear to see that he was no older than Katniss.
His head tipped sideward, taking her in, his eyes examining every inch of her body, so much so it felt like she was naked. The stranger smirked, his grey eyes bright and lustful. Katniss wanted to run but her body stayed still, the man/boy strode over to her, cupping her face in his large hands. Their lips collided, Katniss was revolted but her body continued to kiss the stranger.
Katniss had never been kissed before but she knew this kiss was good; she was starting to accept it, even like it. When the man/boy pulled away. His thumbs stroking over her cheeks. "I had to see you one last time." He whispered, his forehead resting against hers. Such an intimate position and one that Katniss had never experienced before and she liked, she liked the feeling of being this close to him.
"Don't say that" Katniss lips tumbled out.
"I'm in that bowl 36 times, darling" he sent her a sad smile. "I don't think my luck is going to last forever."
"There's hundreds, maybe even thousands of other name slips in that pot." Katniss robotically said. Her fingers grasping at his collar, trying to keep him there with her.
"And 36 of those belong to me" He replied. "But I'll fight. I will fight to come back to you." he promised her. "I just have to tell you this before the reaping tomorrow, I love you, Asha" he murmurs.
Katniss's brain was in outrage, the man who claimed to love her got her name wrong. But Katniss's lips whimper out the words, "I love you too" he pulls away from her and vanishes into the dark woods. Katniss found herself screaming at the dark, "Come back! Please! Come Back!"
Katniss jumped up in her bed sweat dripped off her skin, she had never been in a dream so intense. She peered up to find a black figure at the end of her bed. It should have frightened her but for once she wanted to face this spirit, she understood why it wasn't ready to move on it had had a life full of experiences like that dream. It leaned forward, its two enormous grey eyes full of sadness and longing fell onto Katniss, "My name's Asha River," her voice purred, "And I need your help, Katniss Everdeen."