She looks up suddenly and her honey colored hair seems just a little brighter, her ocean eyes just a little sharper. Katniss is there, just down the street, and Prim thinks

for the briefest moment that maybe she'll smile, maybe her sister will laugh with the relief so plainly potent in her shouts. The girl doesn't even have time to wonder,

though, doesn't have a chance to think about why Katniss is shouting in the first place, before she hears a clicking noise. Then, it's like the world goes still, everything

slowing in midair, like the stray wisps of Katniss' dark hair as they curl around her dirtied face, or like the strained eyes of the citizens as they run, or maybe even the

lone sound of a bird chirping, a Mockingjay, she thinks with clarity. She might say that she feels nothing, has no sense of anything but the confusion clouding her mind,

but that would be a lie. There's a pinpoint of something at the middle of her back and it feels as if a hole is being burned there. Prim forces her lips to form her sister's

name, the same name she's spoken countless times before, the same name that she would whisper as she fell asleep, and the same name that volunteered to take her

place knowing that it would never be spoken again. Her eyes have no time to widen before the world spins back into focus, before her hair flies in front of her face and

she thinks, for just a snippet of time, how lovely it might have looked in the sun, how brightly it might have shined if it were ever properly cleaned, and the blast takes

her, rips the name from her lips before it even has a chance to reach Katniss' ears, and she's gone.

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