A/N: Here's my second one. I don't know how well I portrayed Prim, if it seemed like her or if it was way out of character. So please tell me if you think it's in or out of character. Thanks. Happy writing, y'all! Enjoy!
To aw844: Thanks for commenting on my first one. I was worried that it wasn't in character.
To lily: I'm glad you liked my first one.
We watch as the last few moments of the quarter quell play across the screen. I feel tears trailing down my cheeks and hastily wipe them away.
"Mom, do you think Katniss will be al-" I break off as the electricity cuts off. This happened often in our old house, but why should it happen here, in the Victors' Village? And when the Hunger Games are playing, you can always rely on the electricity to stay on. We sit in the dark silence for a moment, our eyes getting used to the darkness.
"That's odd," my mother comments. She gets up and goes to a cupboard where we have a few candles and some matches. "Usually the president keeps all electricity on during the Games." Then we feel a jolt. I run to the window and see flames coming from somewhere farther into District 12.
"It's a…fire?" I say. Then the jolt registers. Not a fire. "Oh, my God, we're being bombed!" I can barely contain myself from screaming. But I know I must. Katniss stayed strong for both of us. Now it was my turn to stay strong for my mother.
"What?" she demands, rushing over to join me. "Why would they bomb us? We haven't even been trying to start a rebellion."
"We have their Mockingjay," I say, dread weighing down my stomach. "Come on. We have to get to the cellar!" I start to tug my mother to the cellar door when the door to our house bangs open. This time, I do let out a little scream.
"Get out!" a voice bellows. A head pops into the doorway. Haymitch! "Gale Hawthorne is getting people to go to the forest. You're coming with us."
"The forest?" Mother asks, confused. "What's in the forest?"
"Protection!" I reply, dragging her to the door. "They must not be bombing the forest. We ought to go. Gale's spent years in there, he'll know how to survive and get us out." We sprint for the fence and are almost there when I remember something. "Buttercup!" I cry, starting to turn around.
"No!" Haymitch bellows as my mother becomes an iron vice on my arm. "We don't have time. If you go back, you'll be blown to bits!"
I nod, blinking back tears, and stumble along, trying to push the yellow cat out of my mind. We're at the part of the fence that Katniss and Gale often sneaked out of when they went hunting, before they turned the electricity on, by the time I come out of my hazy thoughts. The electricity isn't on anymore, and several men have tied ropes around the top of the fence and are working to pull it down.
"Pull!" shouts a voice above the others, and I realize it's a grime-covered Gale.
"There's Gale!" I call, pointing. My mother nods, then, spotting Hazelle and her other children, we go to join them.
CRASH! There's a metallic clanging as the fence topples. Gale winces as a jagged part slices open his arm, but he just holds it against his side and waves the others to run to the safety of the trees. We crest a hill, and I make the mistake of turning back.
Through the tree branches, I can see the city square burning, people running around, burning even as they try to escape the flames. On small child, who is so badly burned I cannot tell if it's a girl or a boy, holds their hand out to my, crying out for help. A strangled cry leaves my throat and I struggle against my mother, all my instincts screaming to help the child.
"There's nothing we can do, Primrose!" Mother calls to me. "Leave them."
I claw at her hand, desperate to save those too weak or too panicked to help themselves. I cry out as I see a couple who are trying to leave the bakery and thrown off their feet as a bomb demolishes their shop.
"Please," I cry, "please, I want to help!" I plead with her.
"Prim, I almost lost you and your sister once, and I do not want to lose you again!" Mother says frantically.
"There's a child!" I shout, pointing. "A child who needs our help!"
"Prim," she says quietly in my ear, "we can't help them. It would be a blessing for someone that badly injured to die."
I know she is right, but inside I still want, need, to help. I feel hands take me by the shoulders and roughly turn me around, push me away. Haymitch.
"Don't look back," he growls before he lets go and disappears further into the crowd. Inside, I feel a black wall of rage building inside me.
We play their games, send helpless children out to die for their entertainment, for 75 years, and this is how they repay us? By killing us, slowly, painfully, and making the survivors watch. Why couldn't they just leave us alone? I hope the citizens of the Capitol are watching this now, the members of the government are being made to watch what they did. And I know for certain I will enjoy Snow's death, as well as the Capitol's fall.
I stagger from the trees, trying to forget the horrified look on the child's face as it cried out for help, gagging and retching against the smoke and ashes, the smell of burned hair and flesh…. I don't even realize where I'm going until I nearly walk into a lake. Lucky for me, a hand reaches out and yanks me back before my toes even get damp. I look back, but whoever it was has disappeared back into the crowd.
I don't recognize my surroundings at all, and what I can make out is blurry. The lake, of course; how could I miss it? A cabin, also, standing strong and sure as the injured drag themselves over to it, where my mother goes and starts to help them with what little nature has to offer. I wander around in a kind of stupor, not sure if I should be helping my mother or not, until I run into Gale. He's slumped against a wide oak tree, barely conscious, pressing his arm into his wadded up shirt, which is hardly on the wound at all.
"Gale!" I cry in relief. "Let me help you."
"No," he protests weakly, "go help the others first. They need you more than I do."
"Give me that," I snap, angry now, but gently removing the shirt from his clenched hand. "You've lost a lot of blood. You could die if you lose much more. But first, we need to clean off this wound." I stand up, taking the shirt with me to wash it off in the lake, and go over to it, wondering what I would clean his arm with. I was planning to use his shirt as a bandage, but I couldn't if I had to clean his arm with it.
Then I noticed a pile of garments under a pine tree, from which my mother was getting cloth for bandaging. I walked closer for examination. It was compiled of the cleanest spare clothing the stragglers could come up with. I picked up a relatively clean child's shirt, which wouldn't be of much use to anyone except for cleaning and minor injuries. Then I continued on to the lake to wash both of the shirts off a little.
By the time I get back to Gale, he is pressing his arm to his pants leg, and when I examine it, I realize that instead of a steady stream, it is now a slow ooze. I carefully wipe it off, and then rip the buttons off of his shirt so they won't scrape against the wound. I had only washed off the part that had blood on it, the sleeve, so the wound itself would be dry. I wrap the shirt around the cut, wrap the sleeves once around his arm above his cut to stop the bleeding, then tie the two sleeves at their cuffs together to drape on his shoulder, like a sling.
I am getting up to go help my mother when a hovercraft appears: directly over where we are hiding. Then I notice it has a large number 13 on it's wings, not a Capitol seal. So Katniss's supposed myth about Thirteen wasn't a myth; it was the truth all along. And then I realize that Haymitch was lying to us this whole time. I shoot him a dirty look as the craft landed and a rebel in a dark, hideous gray uniform get off and start to explain what is going on.
People are starting to accuse them of lying when they shout, "We have Katniss!" And then I am the first one on the hovercraft.