AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fan-fiction series includes spoilers from all three books in the Hunger Games trilogy, especially the last. I recommend that you read all three books first.
Chapters will be posted upon writing, and all writing is subject to minor edits post-publication. Chapters bounce around between time periods and perspectives, and follow no real pattern.
You can follow me on Twitter ( veni3vidi3vici) for more updates. Comments/concerns/suggestions are greatly appreciated. Most importantly, thank you for reading, and enjoy! -S
Chapter 1: The Begging of the End (Finnick's POV)
No, no, no. I can, I will hold onto this ladder. Rung after rung, I climb as fast as sore, bruised, bleeding hands will carry me.
Not nearly fast enough.
Rung by rung. Keep moving. I see Gale disappear, swathed in the darkness of the tunnel above. I am the last one.
Somewhere just above my head is a world where there is light. Sunshine. And most importantly, there is my Annie. My dear Annie, who just a few days ago was elated to find she was carrying my baby, whom we both swore not to tell a soul about until my return. My dear Annie, whom I promised to love until the day I die. Not today.
Slowly, I creep towards the world where my Annie and our child exist. A world I hoped to make better by agree to go on this mission. So that no child of mine would ever have to submit their name on Reaping day, to be forced to live the nightmare of the Games.
I am aware of the hissing behind me, escaping scaly lips. "Katnisss." Closer. Closer.
"Get out!" However close it is, I can tell by the fact that light has not permeated the tunnel that the hatch to the outside has not been opened. I can only pray that the rest of the group has continued climbing.
In answer, I hear shouting above me. A light – not natural, most likely from a spare flashlight – illuminates my face. Everything else is drowned out by the searing pain in my ankle, the shriek that escapes me and reverberates off the walls as teeth sink into flesh.
The mutts have caught up to me; their putrid stench of roses and death mingles with that of the toxic waste below and fills my nostrils. When I sneak a look down, my eyes meet their bitter black ones – soulless, empty but positively radiating evil. Their lips and jagged, razor-like teeth are stained crimson with blood. My own. I am watching myself being eaten alive.
I hear more screaming. My own. I wait for the white-hot pain – like being viciously picked at with a fishing spear and being burned a thousand times over, all at once – to grow, but instead it surprises me by ebbing to a light tingling.
I should be terrified by the carnage of limbs being torn off me bit by bit, but instead an odd sense of tranquility fills me.
One particularly bloodthirsty mutt makes a leap for me. His jaws find my head, my face, my shoulders, but instead of a fleeting image of jaws encasing me, I see abstract pieces of everything beautiful in my life. Falling asleep next to Annie, her hand clasped firmly in my own. Sunset over the ocean. Waves crashing to shore. My siblings, giggling as they constructed sandcastles or scavenged for sand dollars on the beach. Sea breeze on my face. Annie's laughter, rare and delicate and beautiful like the chiming of perfect little bells. Toes digging in the sand. Sails flapping in the wind. Mags' wrinkled grin. A silver parachute to save my life. The hum of my trident coming to life. Annie in her wedding gown. Annie. I pause on her just a moment. Annie, who I could hardly detach myself from to take on this mission. My Annie.
Then everything goes blank.
When I come to, I am acutely aware of my surroundings. Whatever I'm clothed in feels like bedsheets, soft and billowy. Next, I am aware of the heavy breathing beside me.
My eyelids flutter open. It takes no more than a nanosecond to register the ace in front of me. I'd know the crooked, wizened grin anywhere.
"Mags?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.
"Oh goody, you're awake." Her voice startles me, young and clear and light. And completely unlike the Mags I knew.
"Where am I?" I'm dressed in what looks to be a cross between paper tunic and a toga, I observe. The scenery appears to be a vacant hospital, void of the machines and tubes and needles, the sick, dying, suffering patients and the nurses scurrying about. "Where are the rest? Katniss? Gale? Peeta? Cressida? Pollux? ...Annie?" I manage to choke out.
"Finnick, no." She leans into me, shaking her head. "Try to remember. It may be a little fuzzy at first."
I look down, doing a little inventory of my limbs. All there. I tear away the sheets. Bruises of mottled purples and greens bloom across my chest, arms, and legs. Patches of alien skin clash with my own, pink and gold. Large bite marks smile up at me from my clavicle, stomach, and calves. I assess the situation. Definitely survivable.
"It's just a scratch!" I protest, planting my feet on the ground. It feels strangely immaterial, like it could jump out from under me at a moment's notice. I don't like it. "We need to find me some clothes." My eyes sweep over the semi-toga before I cast it down to the floor, wrinkling my nose. Mags doesn't appear to take notice of my utter lack of clothing. As my mentor, she has seen me barely dressed countless times, probably. Actually, all have Panem has, thanks to erotic ideas of past stylists. "A gun would be good, too." I muse out loud.
"Finnick, no." She frowns, obviously a little frustrated. "Try to remember." She pleads, pressing her palm to my cheek like she would from time to time. Her silvery blue eyes were weighed down with sorrow, staring into mine like she could see straight through to my soul. Maybe she could. That was just the thing about Mags; She didn't like to share everything she knew.
"Don't 'Finnick, no' me. I don't have time for this. I have to find my clothes, and a weapon. I have to find the others. I have to… I have to…" I couldn't quite remember what I had to do, but whatever it was, it was important. I turned away, shrugging off her hand and her cool, penetrating gaze.
"Finnick, stop." She reached out to grab one of my wrists, but I skirted away from her grasp, already headed down the aisle in search of something decent to wear.
"No, you stop. I have to go." I say to the air straight ahead of me.
"You won't find anything for you past these halls!" she shouts after me. Such an odd statement makes me pause. When I turn to question her about it, she's already behind me, surprisingly fast and without the assistance of her cane. It strikes me as odd, but I choose to ignore it.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I mutter accusingly.
She reaches out for my hands. This time, I allow her to take them. The frustration on her face is more than apparent now, adding to the creases on her forehead and knitting her eyebrows together.
"You tell me." she says to our hands instead of me.
It takes a long time, but it finally comes to me. My heart drops out of my chest. "I'm dead?" I breathe, not even a whisper.
She nods in response.
My head is aflame from the effort of recalling the memory. Or maybe it's just the blaze of the words sinking in. Either way, there's a violent buzz like a million tracker jackers fighting to escape my skull, eating away at my insides. No. No. No, no, no!
"No." I finally let out, throwing down Mags' frail hands, unafraid of breaking them for once. After all, if she's right, how much harm can one do a ghost? But she can't be – she must be confused – so I can only hope there's a doctor wandering around with some spare bandages in this oddly empty place.
Then I'm running. When I find the second pair of double doors locked against me, I begin to panic. What sort of place are those Capitol goons holding me in now? Are they watching now? Trying to convince me I'm dead, then waiting for me to slowly exit the realm of sanity?
"Are you done yet?" Mags is behind me again. "We can sit down and talk if you – "
"No!" I lashed out like a cornered animal. "You're lying! Just get away from me!" I shoved past her, flipping over the nearest cot as it were a children's toy and then barreling into it as if it could shelter me from reality. It was here that they came. The uncontrollable waves of sobbing. It was all I could do to curl into the corner, head in my hands, elbows over my knees, and allow Mags to tuck me into a retrieved sheet and hold me as the tears racked my body.
Sometimes, the living haunt the dead.