This is a drabble immediately following the end of Catching Fire.

Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins owns it all.


There is no District Twelve.

I think of what these impossible words could mean.

No District Twelve?

The drugs they've placed me on make thinking harder than usual. I struggle to understand what Gale has just said.

"What?" my lips form.

Gale looks down at me sadly. His burned face is probably scarred for life.

"They wiped out its existence, Katniss. Just like Thirteen."

I shake my befuddled head; denial is easier to claim than the truth.

And I know it's truth that Gale speaks.

Why else would I be in a hovercraft traveling to the very district that is supposed to be unlivable? That's supposed to be decimated?

It does not make sense, but the facts up to this point are proof of its validity.

"They wanted to make us another example, Katniss. But some of us lived. And you lived. You're safe," Gale murmurs, his mind far away.

Yes, I am safe.

I remember what Haymitch said when he explained what they'd done to get us out of the arena.

I am the mockingjay.

While I live, the revolution lives.

I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to forget all of this, these past two years.

I want to be back in my woods in District Twelve, hunting with Gale, talking with Prim, helping my mother.

The impact of Gale's words hit me.

I choke out a sob.

The woods—my father's and mine—are gone. The lake where I learned to swim—finished. Our home, our home in the Seam where we used to live is also destroyed.

Bitterly, I think, Is there nothing the Capitol cannot touch and utterly annihilate?

I do not cry, but a desperation I have rarely felt slips into my veins, along with the sedative.

My home is gone.

With Gale sitting there, watching me, I am free to mourn.


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