The Hunger Games / The Host crossover!
Yes, I know this is in the Hunger Games fanfiction category and not the Hunger Games / Host Crossover category. This is intentional. There were some bugs on the site, and in the end it was easier to put the story in the regular Hunger Games category. Sorry for any inconvenience. :)
I know some of you have been waiting patiently since I announced there would be a crossover, and I thank you for that. It's much appreciated.
If you have time, a review would help me out a lot. :)
Disclaimer: because this is a crossover, I will be using a lot of direct quotes - mostly dialogue - from both books. Anything you recognize, such as characters, quotes, etc., I do not own. I don't own the images used in the cover, either, though I did put it together to make the overall cover image. So no suing, please. :) This disclaimer pertains to all the chapters in this story.
If you'd like more information on how the story will be structured / how both books will be incorporated into it, feel free to stop by my profile. All will be explained there.
With that out of the way, here it is!
Enjoy!
Leaves Lifted to the Stars, former Flower, was drifting towards consciousness.
He remembered, vaguely, that there was something he was supposed to do. What was it? It was hard to think. The very words within his thoughts distracted him. Such an odd language. Verbal. Made up of separate sounds put together to convey ideas. He had been told the basics before he left the Flower Planet, of course, but actually experiencing it was something else entirely.
Then he remembered. He was supposed to brace himself for the first memory. Or, rather, the last memory. He had been warned multiple times of how difficult it would be – human emotions were, reportedly, far stronger and less predictable than those of the other species the souls had inhabited.
He braced himself.
It wasn't enough.
The cold air sears my throat and lungs, but I keep pulling it in, taking deep, desperate gulps. If I stop running, they'll catch me. If I slow at all, they'll catch me. I have to keep running.
His lungs were, once again, sucking in the air. Deep, desperate gulps. But instead of the cold he was expecting, the air that entered his body was mild, almost warm, and smelled of… Mint?
He had never smelled anything before. None of the other host species possessed that sense. For just a second, it was enough to keep him in the moment. But the memory was too strong to be suppressed by something as simple as a scent.
Loose stones shift under my feet. I can feel the sharp edges through the worn soles of my shoes. Pebbles bounce down the slope – not from my movements, but disturbed by a source above and behind me. The rocks hiss as they slide downwards, dislocated by my flailing feet. In this way, I have an advantage over the Seekers: they are being careful. I am not. They do not want to trip and fall, possibly breaking a bone, while that is the least of my worries.
They call to me to slow down. I move even faster.
"Please!" one yells. "Don't hurt yourself!"
A painful, grating bark of laughter bursts from my chest. Even now, while chasing me down like a fox in the woods, they are concerned for my safety.
Once again, Leaves Lifted to the Stars was wrenched from the memory by a foreign sensation. This time it was an emotion. Thick, hot and sharp, it sliced through him like a blade. Even as he shied away from the image, his body identified the feeling for him: anger. He had experienced irritation before, of course, but never anything as powerful and ugly as this. His pulse pounded in his temples – yet another new sensation – and he was plunged back into the memory.
The slope ends abruptly and I lurch forward, almost landing on my hands and knees, before compensating for the change. My limbs are like wooden clubs, barely responding to my mind's urging. It's impossible to tell exactly how fast I'm going, but I know it can't be fast enough. More than once, I slam into a slender trunk, sending the branches above me rattling. The frigid burn that used to be concentrated in my throat and lungs now extends to my entire body. I don't have much time left before my legs give out, and when they do, the Seekers will catch me.
And they'll turn me into one of them.
They'll find –
A fresh wave of panic claws at me, renewing my energy with yet another dose of adrenaline. I can't let that happen. I won't.
But I can't keep running forever.
There has to be another way…
And then, I see it. The dull red glow through the vertical, gray shadows of the trees. The three dots of white light approaching. There is another way.
Leaves Lifted to the Stars screamed. At least, that was the word that came to him when a shrill, hoarse wail pierced his eardrums. The air pushed painfully through his airways, like the colder-than-cold air in the woods. He knew what was about to happen. He twisted, trying to get away, to separate himself from the memory, but it was no use.
No way to survive, but perhaps a way to win.
No, no, no!
They see where I am going, and their calls become more frantic. "Please! There is danger ahead!"
I know.
The white lights are now closer, more distinct, and with them, the quick, rushing pulse, so fast it's almost one continuous noise. I measure the space between myself and the tracks, and almost laugh again in relief. I will have enough time.
The strident whistle of the train penetrates the night. I'm almost there.
But then I realize something. The quick pulse – the chugging of the engine – is less rapid. The train is slowing down. Why is it slowing down? No matter. It won't have time to stop, anyway. The railroad crossing sign, lit up by two dull red bulbs, rings shrilly, like an out-of-tune bell. The train is so close, and so loud, that everything around me shakes. The track, the trees, my very bones vibrate. I hurdle over the lowered bar and cross the last few yards to the tracks.
My sneakers skid on the wooden slates.
I can see the Seekers – they're racing past the sign – the lights of the train bore into my eyes, blinding me – I can feel it coming – I can feel it, but I can't see it – I can't –
I'm numb. Everything is numb. I think I was hit, but I –
Pain.
And then nothing.
The memory was finally, mercifully, over. Leaves Lifted to the Stars trembled. He had been warned about the intensity of human experiences, but no amount of warnings could have prepared him. He let the minty air rush through his parted lips, forcing his breaths to slow. Just a memory, he told himself. It's over.
Then, as if hearing his thought and proving him wrong out of spite, the memory – the cold, the wind, the smell of pine and smoke – engulfed him once more. He gasped, panicking, desperate not to endure it again. But it wasn't the same memory at all. It was a memory within a memory. Two disconnected images: first, a bright yellow flower, blooming against the nothingness, and then a… a… a small animal, with two spindly limbs underneath it and two larger, wider, softer ones on top. A bird, he remembered, drawing on the past experiences of the body. His body.
The bird in his memory cocked its head, snapping an obsidian-black beak and blinking with bright, intelligent eyes. When it spread its two larger appendages – wings, his memory supplied – to glide away, it revealed an uneven patch of white on the underside of each.
He flailed in the blackness left behind by the fading images. Why? Why would those things, so completely separate from the horrible almost-end this body had suffered, be included in the last memory? He tried to conjure up the yellow flower again, but it was harder than he had expected. The image wasn't as clear as it had been the first time.
It was small and top-heavy, with layers upon layers of tiny, golden petals and a thin, pale green tube for a stem. Not much of a flower.
He had been a Flower, in his last life. He focused on this, grateful for the peaceful images. They calmed him enough to try moving.
As soon as he made the decision to move, he realized that his eyes were still closed. Immediately, he was struck with the desire to open them. Even this one, simple wish was strong and sharp. Everything here is so intense, he thought to himself as he searched for the right muscles. How does anyone ever get used to it?
Ah. There they were. His eyelids rose a tiny bit, enough to let in a thin, blinding line of white light. He cringed, snapping them closed, as the memory of the white lights of the train washed over him. It was better, this time. It didn't overwhelm him as it had at first. After a few seconds, he tried again, this time waiting for his eyes to adjust before opening them further.
As he waited for the light to dim, a sound prodded at him, catching his attention. Voices. One male, and one female. The female was the one currently speaking.
"… to know if there are others," she hissed.
Hissed?
Yes. The words were low and harsh. Familiar, to this mind, but completely alien to him. Souls didn't argue, so they had no reason to use the unpleasant tone.
The man responded, "He was alone. You saw that for yourself, did you not?" His voice was milder, lacking the severely precise inflections that the woman's carried.
"But there could have been others somewhere else," she pressed. "Hiding. You know how tricky they can be."
"Regardless, it's not fair to question him. Not now." The man exhaled heavily. "He's already been through so much."
"He's healed," the woman said shortly. "That was your job."
So, the man was a healer.
"Yes." Though the word was affirmative, it didn't sound like an agreement. "Seeker, give him time. It would be hard enough, considering the host's past, but with… Well, with the way that he… was caught, don't you think he deserves some time to rest?"
It was then that he realized, belatedly, that he was the subject of their conversation. Hastily, he flipped through their words, finding new meaning in them now that he knew this. "If there are others?" Other what? Other humans? "With the way he was caught?" They must mean the train.
He shuddered.
The movement didn't seem to alert the other souls to his eavesdropping. Ugh- eavesdropping. The word sent twinges of guilt through him. He shouldn't be listening to their conversation if they thought it was private. So, instead, he went searching for answers. The Seeker wanted to know if there were other humans with his host when he was caught. He would find out. Why wait?
This time, the pain was minimal. He could go through the memory quickly, skipping to the end, before circling back to the beginning. He was running… But what was before that? Before the woods, before the hill, before the… the… He hit a wall. There was nothing there, but that couldn't be right. There had to be something. He pushed against it, trying to break through.
The thought echoed in his head, but it was not his own.
No.
He stiffened in shock. Had it been part of the memory? It didn't feel like a memory. It was too immediate, too present to be a memory. But, then, what was it?
He let another minute pass, during which the Healer and the Seeker continued to argue, and then tentatively tried again. Before the hill, there had been a stretch of low, sparse grass, and before that there was… The wall came up again.
No.
The thought that was not his own was louder, more insistent than before.
Mine.
Mine, he thought back. This is my body. This is me now.
No.
Confusion and trepidation rolled over him, sending his heart into a rapid, jumping tempo, twisting in his chest as if trying to escape it. Host bodies didn't talk back. That was the point. Up until now, nothing like this had ever happened. But… there had been rumors, on the Flower Planet… Beside him, the steady beeping that matched the pumps of his heart increased in tempo. There was a flash of movement at the edge of his vision, and his head automatically snapped towards it.
The Healer and the Seeker stood there, close together, leaning towards each other. The human bodies that Leaves Lifted to the Stars had only even seen in routine briefings and in one short memory – a shiver pricked at the base of his neck – were mostly what he had expected. Two legs and two arms, with a mostly-rectangular torso. Heads on top. Other than that, the features and traits of the species were unfamiliar to him, and he took some time to examine them.
The first thing that stood out to him about the woman was her hair – a sculpted crest of pale gold that was held back by a wide band of black fabric and fell behind her shoulders in a straight, even curtain. A matching black suit hugged her from neck to ankles. Her pointed chin, accented by the stubborn way she jutted it out, and the sharp bones below her cheeks gave her face a hard look. Her eyes were hard, too, like flat rings of turquoise. He didn't need his new human intuition to know that this face belonged to someone unpleasant.
But, no. She was a soul, now. Maybe she had been someone unpleasant, at one point, but not anymore.
Still, when those turquoise eyes locked on him, unblinking, he shifted his gaze uncomfortably to the Healer. A softer, darker face smiled at him from under a tidy mass of short, nondescript brown hair. The almond-shaped green eyes, he noted with some surprise, were lined with a touch of gold.
"Welcome to Earth," the Healer said. He approached the elevated place where Leaves Lifted to the Stars was lying. "My name is Burns to Cinders. You may call me Cinna, if you wish. That is my name here. What shall we call you?"
Opening his mouth felt strange. The tendons at the joints of his jaw stretched and the minty smell he had noted earlier misted over his tongue, leaving the faintest of tastes behind it. Hesitantly, relying on his body's muscle memory to guide him, he said, "I'm… called… Leaves Lifted… to the Stars."
The woman went to join him at the side of the cot, her shoes tapping out the impatient rhythm of her footsteps. "When will you be ready to answer questions?" she demanded.
"Give him time," the Healer admonished gently. He turned back to Leaves Lifted to the Stars. "How do you feel?"
"Not bad… Not good. Strange." Speaking was getting easier. His mouth knew how to make the sounds, and his brain knew what sounds to make. As long as he didn't concentrate on it too hard, it was simple. "Healer, have I been placed in a damaged body?"
Cinna's eyes grew wide in alarm. "Absolutely not. We healed it completely before you were inserted."
"Then why are there walls?" Anger flared up in him again, and again he cringed away from it.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. What walls?"
"Around some memories. Like they're being blocked."
The Seeker placed her palms on the edge of his cot, leaning towards him. Her hair swung forward, into the bright light that shone from above, and her eyes cast dancing silver reflections on the wall. "What do you remember?"
"Seeker, please," Cinna began, but Leaves Lifted to the Stars opened his mouth to speak anyway.
"He was being chased by Seekers. He rain in front of a train." He winced and went on quickly. "He thought it would kill him, but it didn't. The train must have seen him in time and slowed down."
"Yes, yes, but before that? What was he doing there? How did he get there?"
These memories came slowly. They were obstructed by a fog, not blocked by a wall. "He was… looking for… something. It was important. It was… It was… The…"
"Don't push yourself," Cinna advised. "Start with the simplest things. His name, for example."
This piece of information, for the first time, came easily. "His name was Peeta Mellark."
"Good." Cinna smiled encouragingly. "What else?"
"He grew up in the mountains. Appalachia." Yes, this was much easier. Simple. "He grew up with his brothers. When we started colonizing, he escaped into the wilderness with… Hmm."
"Were there others?" the Seeker asked.
"Yes," he blurted, surprised.
The Seeker's eyebrows shot up.
"There were others. They –"
Without warning, a new memory surged up to consume him. It was just this: a face. It was a young woman, maybe somewhere in her late teens. Her stardust-silver eyes contained none of the reflective silver sheen of a soul. Her skin, a dusky shade of olive, defined her as someone who spent a lot of time out of doors, and her sleek, dark hair was pulled back in a messy French braid. A scattering of small freckles ran across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. In his memory, the girl blinked at him, short, black lashes leaving shadowy fringes on her cheeks.
As strong as the memory was, it brought on something even stronger – a strange, sweet, deep-rooted ache. And, just like the voice that shouldn't have existed, it didn't come from him.