Hunger Games: Bloody Hands

by chris.schuster.167

Follow the story of a spy for District 13 during the 74 & 75 hunger games. His name is Noan, but he doesn't even really know that. All he knows is his mission, until the day he meets the Everdeen girls. This meeting will change his life, maybe even his allegiances. Join him and learn his mysterious past as plays pivotal parts in some of the most important Hunger Games moments.

Hunger Games: Bloody Hands

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I wonder if I am trying to kill myself. I lay here and I can see the sky, blood red and purple. It really is beautiful. This is both my most favorite and least favorite time of the day. I can almost reach out and touch what the district slaves call a god. I sit up in my bed and I can just see the sun rise over the spires in the west end of the Capitol. This place makes me sick, or it may have been the morphling. I wake up an hour later in the bathroom of my apartment. My bathroom is larger than the shacks most of the poor bastards in the districts live in. I find that a few hours have gone by. This must be what alcoholics call a blackout. I look at my face in the mirror, man I look like shit. Oh well, it helps me fit into the background. I don't want anyone looking at me too hard. People here don't like to see the darkness of this city staring back at them. I decide to get dressed and go for a walk; after all I have a victim to find so I can get home.

People here refuse to see all the darkness in their everyday lives. They accept things like the hunger games while yelling and screaming for their victors, but death never seems to impact them like it really happened. It was on the monitor, so it feels less real. It is a different story when it's you looking into the eyes of the person whose life you have just taken. It's different when you watch the life slide out of someone through their eyes. That last little gurgle of breath left in the lungs when you pull the blade from someone's rib cage. I know this because I am a killer. I know this because I am a spy for District 13. My name is Noan.

The name is a joke you see. In some old story from the world before there was a sailor of some nation trying to get home from a war. On his way he encountered a giant with one eye who tried to eat him and his men. He came up with a plan, but he feared that what he was going to do would anger people, so when the giant asked his name he replied, "My name is No one" and then the sailor blinded the giant. When the giant was asked who had blinded him, his only recourse was to say that no one blinded him, hence my name, Noan. I am also No one. The truth is I have no memories of my life at all before I woke up in Haven in D13. They said that it was a side effect of the explosion I was in. I lost my legs, both my arms and most of my face was gone. All of my injuries gave my creators a canvas in which to paint their masterpiece. I got new legs, the best they could make me. They use less protein and carbs to operate than their traditional counterparts. I have arms that have a few surprises in them, and they gave me the ability to mimic any face I see, but never the one I had. I might try someday if I ever find out what my old face looks like. The same device the men here use to shave their stupid designs into their beards has been repurposed by the men and women who put me here to learn everything I can about these abominations of men, these, creatures of self-amusement and whimsy. I am here to help my countrymen to learn how to destroy this place. It is an honor. I do what I do with a smile on my face.

I walk by the train station looking for my victim; my current mission is completed now. I just have to find someone whose place I can take on the train. I was only to falsify some documents and replace the entries for several of the entries for the next hunger games, the 74th. I get around by train mostly. The hunger games give me a reason to be on the train with all the delegates and what not I can just take out one of the service people, mimic him, and I am clear until D12 where I go on foot north to D13. The hike gives me plenty of time to step on the morphling and get my shit together. Now I just need to find the asshole who is going to be my ride into D12. Most of the train's servers are Morphlings, not like me. I can handle my drugs. These bunch are the shadows who live in the dark underbelly of the Capitol preying on anyone who is smaller or unsuspecting. They prey on the foolish brave or the obscenely stupid. These crimes almost never make it anywhere and are quickly swept under the rug. Most folks don't know this but, the Capitol keeps a hidden regiment in the Capitol. It makes me laugh. The worst part of the city, where anything goes and the law is lawless is the place where they sleep. In any other district they would round up a hundred men and women and decimate them. I like that word, "decimate"; it is another antique I picked up from one of my doctors. It is an old world punishment for the military men of long ago. It meant that one out of ten men of each unit would be killed at random for some misdeed that the entire unit was responsible for. The Capitol likes to use a version of this to keep the people of the districts quiet. Back to business, which one of these scumbags are going to be my ticket home?

I pull a metal string out of my right thumb; my handler calls it a Garrote wire. What this poor soul is about to find out in the last twenty or so seconds of his life is that the wire is designed to kill fast and without sound; I understand it is most unpleasant. It takes the average healthy person about forty five to one hundred and twenty seconds to die. This guy lasts less than thirty before his leg stops twitching and his chest is still. I have to hurry and get the machine on him before he starts to bloat or else I am going to have to go again. One of the ingenious little devices that the boys in the lab back home cooked up for me is actually Capitol technology they abandoned. There are called gene unravelers. The Capitol loves to change things: Tracker Jackers, Jabber jays, Mutts, the list goes on. They want to play like gods with the building block of man; well this technology comes at a price. While the scientists where attempting to make a substance that made their genetic restructuring easier by reducing the body's natural defenses to the procedures, they actually designed a compound that turns the hosts DNA into mush. The result of a body exposed to this crap is a small puddle of clear ooze that evaporates in seconds. My people were able to make it kill itself after one meal. It will not work on an entire room of people, but it turns one specific target into air. Just like this asshole on the ground after my machine gets its image. Green light, it is done. All I have to do is put it on me now and before his corpse is twisting in the wind I am a new man.

I board the train as a waiter with no issues. No one looks at the help here. "Care for some Melange sir?" I say to the jackhole in prestige class. This is the part I hate. I don't mind killing people. It's serving assholes that makes me want to kill people. He brushes me off as I have interrupted him mid-sentence and I can tell he is very perturbed by the way his mascara is twitching and coming off in hunks. I smile for the first time in a long time. That reminds me that it is about time to knock off for the evening and perhaps have a little fun with some of the other working class morons. Then I see Johanna Mason. I was told to expect a contact on the train and that it would be someone they were sure I would recognize. Little Johanna won her games by feigning weakness and disemboweling her competition while they were looking for the real threat. A mistake I will not be making if she is indeed my contact. I have to attempt contact. I have nothing else to go on. If I am wrong though I have to terminate her and stuff her into a baggage car with all my morphling in her veins to avoid a search. My looks don't hold up for shit under a gene scanner. For that matter how the hell can she know who I am? D13 cannot know what I look like. This is a problem.

I have been in the Capitol for so long I have no idea what the current passphrase is. They change it so often that all of the operatives have to carry burst receivers on us at all times. Mine is in my shoulder. We have to wear them off or we would run the risk of someone being able to hack the burst and we would give ourselves away. I have to get into a washroom take my shirt and apron off and access my sub-dermal carry compartment. That's a big word for the guts of my arm I use to carry my tools, one of the advantages of being a hollow man. I out the receiver and turn it on, wait for the signal, and it gives me the last two and their time stamps. In case you run into someone who has been deep for a while you can forgive them the last phrase if their timeline matches up to the timestamp. It doesn't mean you trust them completely, quite the opposite. You know not to kill them for the moment and that at any second they may kill you. If they are an interceptor working for the Capitol, they may just want your information. Mostly our information is useless unless it is combined with all the rest. Our reports are encrypted after we write them with a fractal rotating password. Only the boss can see. For his eyes only.

I see her again after I have retrieved my phrases and she nods at me to the baggage car. We walk through the car to an old observation deck. "It's being hauled off as scrap," She says. I just look around at what is called scrap to the bourgeois of the Capitol. "Of course, it is last year's style and was featured heavily after the games. One does not want to see the same backdrop each year do they?" She smirks and begins to take her clothes off. I look around through the plate glass surrounding us. I look at her and her body is athletic perfection. Not my preference. I like a gal with a little more curve to her, but she is beautiful nonetheless. I began to recite the passphrase but she just puts her finger to my lips and says, "Later, you want to get high and fool around?" She produces a morphling nebulizer from under her discarded clothing. I look at her and hit the button on the wall that sets the doors to lock and blackens all the surfaces in the room but the celling and say, "I thought you would never ask."

Despite the activity, the floor is cold against my skin, the parts of me that still have skin. "You have some thing for me?" I ask as she slides back into her jumpsuit. She turns around and goes to a panel in the car and pulls out a small disk. She doesn't even look at me when she puts it in my palm. For someone that won the hunger games three years ago and has been in the public eye ever since she sure doesn't like to talk much. I wait till she is gone and I press a switch on my right arm on the side of my triceps. A piece of my arm rotates up and a port is exposed. I put it in and I can hear various mechanisms fire up. I know it is checking for discrepancies: viruses, tracking software, or any kind of alien code that could be a problem. A click stops the function and I know that it is fine; otherwise it would have spit it out after burning it. Good news, I do not have to kill the nice lady I just had sex with. I sit in the car for a while and just let my mind wander as I enjoy what is left of my high. I can't shake the feeling like I have done something wrong. I can't for the life of me think of what though.

D12 is like a shit hole and a war zone had an illegitimate baby. I hate this place. I take my machine and load my default face. It is Noan, the face I woke up with. Sometimes I dream, but I never know who any of the people are. Today is the reaping for the 74th hunger games, so no one looks at anyone else. I just wander through the streets and look for the fence line where I can get into my traveling gear and get back home to D13. I start to feel hungry so I swing by the bakery to see if they have a decent loaf of bread or any stringy squirrel. Making my way to the fence line I see two people coming toward me on the other side of the fence. I move into a concealed position around the corner of a building and roll up my sleeves. The panels on both my forearms swing open and I reach into the compartments one at a time, quickly assembling my handgun. I finish in just a few short seconds and my compartments shut quietly as I ready for whoever these people are. I silently laugh at myself. It's just a girl and a boy coming back from an illegal hunt. Hardly the threat to my life I thought they were. I put my pistol in my waistband behind me. As they pass I can hear them talking about the reaping and being nervous. I laugh again, you have no idea. Then I realize, I have no idea.

I make my way to the tree line outside the perimeter fence that I sabotaged years ago during my first mission and find the spot where my gear is stowed. I do a quick inventory: Clothes, rations, collapsible bow with arrows, surveillance gear, and a rifle. The rifle is not complete without my pistol. The parts snap on over what was apparently some older frame, a modular system designed to fire silently through magnetism. The tech guys called it a Walther ppk/rc after some old film clip. They seemed pretty happy with themselves." Once I am done with the modifications you would be hard-pressed to recognize that this was once little parts stowed in my arm. This nice thing is I can plug my sensors into the scope and it turns it into a fully functional camera with sound. I don't know why, but I really want to get a look at the reaping. I climb up the tree, deep in the woods, and remove the front section of the barrel on my rifle so no can see it sticking out of the tree. I zoom in on the festivities and I see that one of the Capitol stooges is now on stage giving a talk to the crowd. She is spinning the ball and withdrawing the first name. "Primrose Everdeen!" she says and my heart drops. I fumble with the scope and zoom in more, almost dropping it at the same time. The little girl walks out of the crowd and just as soon as she starts walking, another girl, the one from the fence screams, "I volunteer as tribute!" again I nearly fall out of the tree. I didn't get a good look at her the first time, but now I know- Both of those girls are the girls in my dreams.

I don't have time for this I got to go. Tears stream down my face as I start my five-day trek through the woods. I almost forget to put up my chameleon screen for the hike. So I clear my head and just walk. I turn on my scanner as I make my way and I hear the tail end of a report about an escaped capitol citizen that was caught in the woods nearby. I stop, and for the first time I think about what it must have been like for that poor son of a bitch to get all the way out here only to be caught at the last second. He must have been running towards D13, running towards a place that may or may not exist as far as he knew. Hope has got to be one of the most destructive things in the world. To believe that you have a chance even if it is one in a million to be free. I start to think about a book I read while on the mend after my, accident. It was about a guy in the world after we die, a bad world where the guilty were punished with their "sins" as he called them. Each man would just be able to see an end to their torment just to have it ripped from them. I feel sorry for the guy in the woods this morning. I doubt he had ever done anything worth the feeling he must have had when they caught him. He knew in that moment that he would never be free and all his hopes and dreams where gone, poor bastard.

I get to the pickup spot a few days early. My mind just kept wandering. I forgot to stop and sleep. That is bad for my legs the doc tells me when I get in the hovercraft to go home. He explains that the nutrient flow to my legs is very important and that unlike the rest of my human body that there is no way to know what they need. Long story short my legs can't tell my body what they need, they will just stop working. "Thanks doc." I tell him as I suddenly wonder what is happening to the Everdeen girls right now. I think of the kid in the forest and realize it's basically the same thing except I don't think those girls ever had any real hope of making it out of district 12. I am taken directly to the lab where I am maintenanced and my disc is retrieved. My handler comes in and begins to go over some documents concerning my next assignment. I tell him to come back later, that I do not feel well, and could use some rest. He looks at the techs and doctors who have two dozen wires running in and out of me at the time and they nod. He closes his folder, leaves, and I fall asleep for the first time in a week I think. I see the girls again and we play in the snow. Prim is so little she can barely stand the cold, but Katniss is dying to make a snowman and Prim would never miss the chance. I wake up in the hospital bed with tears running down my face. I am so happy, a joy that is deep in my stomach. I look around expecting to see the girls. I expect to see my daughters, but they are gone.

The next year of my life is a bit of a blur. I think about my wife and the girls all the time. The worst is having to watch Katniss become like me, a killer. I watched her every step of the way. My daughter took lives and did it well. Killing seems to be in our blood. I never tell a soul. I just keep on task for my next mission. I catch the train in to the Capitol on Katniss's way back to the victory homes she so deserves. In a way it makes me feel a little better as I can't bear the thought of my family living hand to mouth just trying to survive. Now they have no worries and the girls can finally be at peace, no one will ever ask them to fight again. I am not sure how I feel about the boy she is with though. He looks like a pussy to me. Not the kind of boy that is a protector of a family. In fact it is quite the other way around, Katniss saved him. I was worried at first that she would get drawn into the Capitol and the seduction of fame I have seen other victors get swallowed up by. She does not. Even during her victory tour she finds ways to subtly undermine the capitol. Things are changing in the districts. I see the faces of the people in D13 look hopeful instead of the gloom and doom of years gone past. It seems that after Katniss defied the capitol at the end of last year's games she has become a symbol uniting the 12 districts. I admit openly that I am proud. Proud that my girl is so strong and that people see her as an inspiration. Sometimes I wonder if I am part of the reason for that. Other times I wonder if my death is the reason for that. Surly I must be dead in her life if I am here. I still have the same dream of her and Prim playing at my feet, taking my hand to lead me, and then beckoning me forward. Then all I can see is smoke and when I can see again I am on the ground. I look up and all I can see is a young man covered in dirt shouting at me and telling me that I am going to be ok.

Shots ring out all around me as I run through the corridors of a storage building where the hunger games weapons are kept. I run dodging fire occasionally stalling to pull another part of my gun out of my fore arms. I messed up pretty bad. The mission was clear and simple. Get into the building as a medium level peacekeeper security detachment, find the room with the cornucopia in it and make sure that a spool of very special wire was buried deep in the damned thing. I completed my mission, but a patrol came through and asked me what I was doing in that room then all hell broke loose. I killed most of the detail by hand and set off some alarms at the same time. I finally snap together the last of my Walther and take my two pursuers out quietly and jam their husks in a closet with two unravelers. I've got to get out of here fast. I may look like one of them, but if they start scanning I'm done. My DNA will set one of those things off like a games kill. I make it out side just in time to have someone jam a needle in my neck. So much for trying to keep this quiet.

I awake in a brightly lit conference room in what seems to be a pretty nice office building in downtown Capitol. I am not bound? Either someone is really dumb or I am in worse shape than I thought. I move my hands to my midsection to see if I have anything left in my arsenal. Then he speaks like a serpent through reeds "Oh my, you are awake, what shall I call you?" I just look at the cocky fat man. "Forgive me, I am Plutarch Heavensbee, how do you do?" He leans over in my face, his head cocked to the side. He studies me with eyes that do not suit the rest of his chubby decadent exterior. I know Capitol scum when I see it. "I'm not going to tell you shit!" I bark. He laughs and walks back over to his desk. "What should I call you sir?" "I am no one." My training kicks in. "Really, I thought you were called Noan. Oh, I get it "No one, Noan" an Odysseus reference. That's clever." "Who?" I stammer as I realize he called me Noan, before I told him. He is playing me. "Oh I am bored with this already." Heavensbee whines as he looks at his console. "What if I told you your name was Everdeen?"I try to not move a muscle and reveal any emotion; the girls could be in danger. He gets up and begins to walk around the table. "We know that you know that you are the father to Katniss and Prim Everdeen, yet they believe you are dead in a mining explosion. In that very explosion one of our deep cover agents found you and kept you alive before you were delivered to district 13 where you were seen to and given certain experimental technologies for further study. We also saw to it that you were controllable. Where did you think it all came from?" He laughs at my ignorance. That will be the last time.

I feel the sweat drip down my face as I listen and watch the fat man. "With no memory of the life of yesteryear and a dependence on morphling, well it looked like everything was going fine, but your technicians said that your addiction to the drug was going to start to make you quite the opposite. So we administered you a cure and a psychotropic substance to actually give you an aversion to it. Remember your night in the train with the lovely Johanna Mason. She didn't mind really. And your performance has gotten worse since. My first thought was to reapply the morphling, but your handler had another idea. So we watched you for a bit and saw that you had become aware of your relationship with the Everdeens. There were some that wanted you put down, but I wanted to give you one more chance to be useful, but you got sloppy and almost got caught." He looks into my eyes and pauses to think about his next words because he knows they may be his last. I can get across this table before he can blink and he will be dead before he hits the ground and all of it without a sound. "You know your Katniss is going back into the games right?" My jaw falls open. "No." I say as I stand for the first time since this bastard started talking. He touches a button on his console to show the reaping for the quarter quell. I sit back down.

"Make no mistake, Mr. Everdeen, your work here is done, but before I sent you on your way for your retirement I wanted to make one thing clear to you. Katniss is our creation. Yours and mine. Over the years I have been your real controller. Me moving my way up to head games master and you pulling the strings and sometimes triggers to make us a symbol. See early in this process the powers that be and I dug through all the historical records we could get a hold of belonging to the world before ours and what we found was that people are stupid. One man of power can hold sway over millions if he can but project the correct amount of authority and graciousness. In return many great revolutions have had a hero, or a symbol to rally them. We knew immediately that the only heroes left to us were the victors. So we would make one of our own. Someone who had experienced loss, hated the Capitol, and rebelled against them any chance she could." I try to speak, remembering the mission I met my daughters, "But, why did you make me put Prim's name in?" "Ah, that was my masterstroke. I have always been a bit of a gambler. I thought instead of making her a hero after the games, let's make her one before. Besides, it was a great way to see if she possessed that defiant and heroic spirit we needed so much. The next thing we know she is the mocking jay and the whole thing just kind of falls into place. I am very proud of my work here. So should you be Mr. Everdeen, proud, I mean." He leans over the quivering mess that I am so I grab him by the shirt with both hands and pick him a foot and a half up off the ground. "I am going to go get my girls and put them some place far from here and then you know what I am going to do? I am going to come back here, rip you in half, and throw you into the sun." My teeth grind as I hold the two hundred and some odd pounds of Capitol trash off the floor. He knows I can do whatever I want, yet there is no fear in his eyes. He motions back to the screen that I forgot was on. There is live coverage right now in the Capitol. Katniss and that boy have just entered the roundabout on their chariots—this means that they will be in the games in two days. I put Plutarch down and give him a second to unruffle himself before I ask my question. "Where am I?" My skin starts to crawl as his mouth forms the first syllable and I know that Katniss is dead before he finishes. "District 13." Suddenly I feel like I'm falling.

The Capitol is too far away to get to on foot or by train before she is moved to where ever in the continent that the games are being held. I wonder if I can beat it out of Plutarch. I bet there are platoons of men that must be standing outside waiting for the go order. This is a gamble. I know the whole story now. There must be a reason, someway for him to gain from this ruse. "Give me a hovercraft Heavensbee and I will let you live and never come back." "That won't be possible Mr. Everdeen. You see they are all in position." He has the same problem I do. He doesn't know where the game is either, so he has his ships staggered. "What is your plan?" I say. He looks at me for a moment as if this is something he didn't think of. "So you need to extract Katniss before Snow can kill her or so something worse. So you have some operatives on the inside with her. Looking at the role here I would say Wiress, Beetee and Johanna, maybe more. "You are more astute an observer than I gave you credit for Mr. Everdeen. You are correct, but there is something you are unaware of that has just come across my desk mere hours ago. President Snow is going to bomb district 12 if anything goes wrong as a punishment for Katniss. This is where you come in old friend. You can do as you wish. I grant you tour liberty. We have a plan to get Katniss out. We are standing by with everything at our disposal to get our Mockingjay to safety, but we have no means left in which to help district 12." I have a choice is what he is saying. I can either waste time looking for Katniss or try to evacuate district 12 which is much closer, but still too far to get to on foot unless….

I about rip the damn door off the hinges as I leave the conference room. I swear I hear Heavensbee say "About time" when I am moving past the two battalions of D13 soldiers. Only when I am in the elevator do I realize where I am, the state office. It is in the same building I live in when I am here. A solid mile underground and mere floors from where I live and I just almost killed Plutarch Heavensbee. I make my way to the med bay where I am serviced and I oddly find it unmanned except for my doc. This must be part of the plan. I walk past the doc even as he nervously greets me. I find what I am looking for, injectable protein strains for my legs and arms. He attempts to tell me that those are for an emergency only and that my appendages are designed to use my body's naturally created compounds. I tell him I don't give a shit. After I grab my gear out of the armory I head to the lift. I stand in it and know that I will never see this place again, one way or the other. I'm coming, sweetheart. I am coming.

I get to the out skirts of D13 on the lift and start my run. It is a pace I know I can maintain just like they taught me in training. I spend a lot of my time of the next day and a half thinking about my training and about my little girls. I think of what it will be like to see them again and hope that they can receive me. It may take some time and some effort, but I will take the rest of my life if they let me trying to make the last eight years up to them. I like to think that Katniss turned into a protector because that is what I was like and what she thought I would have wanted her to be. I think about my wife and the torment my loss would have been to her. I remember less about her than I do the girls. I know I love her with all my heart, but that is it. It is the only reason I am doing this. When I saw Katniss and Prim in that crowd, it was like a great seal in my heart had been broken. My love for them was instant. More than instant it was pervasive and eternal. Like it had always been there, but it was under a rock that I had moved on top of it. I stop for a minute at the top of the Rocky Mountains at the end of day one and write Katniss only a letter. I am going to leave it to her to decide if I am to be allowed back into her life when this whole thing is over. I explain the best I can in the little bit of space I have on a single sheet of paper and sign it Love Dad. My eye drips water as I finish the letter. I have no time for this. I must be hard. I must be cold. To be free of the people who used me I must become the worst of what I am, a killer of men.

When I reach D12 the fence, which I see is now electrified; someone has made a work around through a segment. As I approach it I feel eyes on my back and imminent danger. I thumb for my rifle and I can hear the bow of my assassin being pulled taught. I remove the rifle from its slung position while weaseling my Walther out of the assembly and drop it to the ground with my un- armed hand and as I am bringing the other arm up I swivel and fire. I walk to the tree where my now would be assailant would be perched. When I get to where his body should be, it isn't. Looks like he'll get another shot, shit. I wish I had grabbed the rifle stock and reintegrated my Walther so I had my optics. No such luck. Next thing I know the boy that was with Katniss the day of the reaping two years ago his punching me in the mouth and finding out that I do not feel much there. "Relax kid. I'm on your side." He looks at me for a second quizzically. "Do I know you?" I laugh at the irony of that question. "I don't know kid, do you?" I tell him what is going on as we stand in the grass and then I tell him who I am and where I am from. "Bullshit!" he says only half meaning it. I say "Look kid I" he interrupts "Gale, my name is Gale." "I know, kid we don't have a lot of time you can believe me or turn me in, but I have to know now." He doesn't see me pull a blade out of my jacket lining. He says, "Okay. What's the plan?"

Gale goes back ahead of me as I find that I broke the optics on my rifle when I dropped it. I tell him to meet me back at the fence where the work around is at and I will create a diversion. Simple enough, I just have to get to the center of town and drop a couple of grenades from my pack. I turn my jacket inside out from white to black as I walk into town from some shacks. "Hey you there!" I hear from behind me. This will work too. "Yes sir." I say as I turn raising my hands up tossing the grenades at each man. They detonate on impact as I am sent flying through the air I think I feel myself smiling. I hit with a thud and am back on my feet in no time with my Walther out. I take a step towards the center of town. "Arrrrg" my leg feels like I just had someone just stabbed it with a thousand knifes. Doc said this might happen. Three more peacekeepers appear behind me. I turn and put a slug into each one of them. Only four rounds left as I hobble over to where the other PK's were and I find their guns on the ground. Now I am in business. I stumble into the square where there is a whipping post. Sons of bitches, Peacekeepers flood from both directions. I open up on them before they can even know I am the guy they are looking for. They fall like snowflakes. It's almost beautiful as each gun runs through its 37 rounds. I take off running at the remaining men with my busted leg that I am now ignoring and the other busts wide open. The sight of me is terrifying as I barrel into them taking a gun of one to use on the other and so on. I head butt one guy so hard his helmet splits and I can see his face twisted between sheer horror and the fear that he may have just craped himself. I see Gale and he has a PK gun as well. That's good; he is using it to the same effect. I see a fleeting glimpse of Prim and my wife as they round the corner that Gale is leading people to. Smart, get around to the outskirts while I am in the middle and then just run around to the opening. I just got to keep them off of Gale for long enough, then I hear a noise that makes the hair on my neck stand up, Bombers.

Any second now this whole place is going to be an inferno of fire bombs. I have seconds to get to Gale. The PK's are retreating which is bad. When I get to Gale he is smiling thinking we have won. I grab him and tell him he has to go, but first I give him the letter and make him promise me to deliver the letter to Katniss for me. Just before he leaves I shamefully look at him and ask, "Do you know what my name is?" Smiling, he goes to respond as a fire bomb explodes right in front of me. Fortunately, I take most of the damage. He is a little singed, maybe a few second degree burns, but he is fine. I tell him to go by waving him off. He looks like he is trying to jump through napalm to get to me. Why couldn't Katniss end up with a guy like that? I look with my leftover eye at what remains of my body: half a right leg and an arm. Not too bad. I laugh at myself. I think about the boy I heard about being caught in the forest that day. I think about hope. I was wrong, hope can be a miracle. I was just too stupid and too jaded to see it for what it is. Hope saved me and brought me here. It gave me life when I was dead. I look at the sky and watch the firebombs fall and obliterate District 12, my home. I am glad I am dying here. It's where I died the first time. Again I laugh. If it wasn't for all the destruction I know is being caused to everything around me I would think the sky is beautiful -Deep reds and purples. I wish I could have met my wife and kids again, but in a way I am happy it ended like this. I am sated knowing that I gave my life for my family. It is the first thing I have felt completely good about since the day I woke up in D13. I am glad I learned how to love again and I hope….

Epilogue

As I looked back at the man who saved all of our lives I wonder if he really is Katniss's dad. Seconds after the first bomb went off; a second went off creating a fire wall that I couldn't see through. Good night old man, thanks. The Hovercraft picked up everyone I got out and immediately started treating the injured. I refused medical attention until I could make sure Prim and Mrs. Everdeen where okay. Then I had to see Katniss. I sat next to her hooked up to the machine on our trip to district 13. Part of me still couldn't believe what was going on, and I still had to figure out what to do about this letter in my pocket. I leave Katniss for a moment and walk down the corridor to the bath room. I have decided. When Katniss wakes up, she is going to have a lot to think about and then a lot to do. I may tell her the story this letter has in it, but not today. I rip it up and flush it down the toilet. I think about the old man again and tell him I am sorry, but I hope he understands. We have a war to fight now.

The End

By

C.M. Schuster