I won't say much up here that'll take up your time. Real author's note is down below.

Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and all its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm just playing around in her sandbox for a while.


The night terror grips Katniss so tightly that there isn't enough air in her lungs to scream when she awakes. Muscles taut and adrenaline flowing, she is stumbling across the floor and into the closet before she realizes that she made the decision to move from the tangled bed sheets in the first place.

It's moderately straightforward to block out the world when she is awake. To allow the world to pass while she stands still, trying to hold herself together. To be a blank slate.

It's in her dreams that she dwells, lingering over what she has lost. Her home. Finnick. Rue. Cinna. Prim. Prim. primprimpri-

Her greatest failure was in losing Prim. For being too goddamned stupid to realize the trap for what it was and being too slow to do anything but watch as her little sister burned.

X

The blankness was harder to obtain without the morphling, but she manages. Staying in bed and staring at the wall for hours on end until exhaustion pulled her back down, kicking and screaming into dreams of desolation and horror, worked wonders in that respect.

And it's not like she had anyone to pull her back anymore- she doesn't deserve the comfort of the living anymore than she deserves a respite from the haunting of the dead. She didn't deserve her absentee mother, who can barely stand to speak to her on the phone. She didn't deserve brusque Haymitch, who is busy enough trying to drown his own demons. She didn't deserve Gale, who is trying to rebuild the country that she helped break.

Or Peeta. Peeta. peetapeetapeet-

Her sweet, sweet boy with the bread. The boy that now had to fight through the thick black miasma of Capitol memories that they forced into his head; the boy that struggled to pull his shiny and good self out from under the sludge of lies they poisoned him with. The beautiful being that they ruined because of her. To get to her.

She deserved to be in his presence least of all.

X

The closet is full of clothes that she will never wear, but they take up the majority of the space, for which she is grateful. Squeezed into what little room is left, Katniss draws her knees up into her chest and tries to douse the conflagration of fear with the truths that she knows.

Her name is Katniss Everdeen. She is 17 years old. She is the sister of Primrose and the friend/lover/fiancée/neighbor/ally of Peeta Mellark. She survived the 74th Hunger Games, the 3rd Quarter Quell and the rebellion against the Capitol. She is home.

But then she realizes that these are not certainties at all and the only thing she really knows is her name. That the winter blanket of snow that coated the remains of District 12 has melted and brought with it spring, and the possible passing of her birthday. That Primrose is dead and she no longer has a sister. That she has no idea where she stands with Peeta, if he has yet trudged through his memories of what is real and not real or even if he still lives in the Victor's Village. That while her body has survived two arenas and a war, her mind clearly has not. That while she is back in her house, without her family to fill it, the likelihood of it ever being a home is slim.

It is these doubts that set the tinder and fan the coals of her despair. She burns on a pyre of grief and waking nightmares.


Well, how'd you like it? I'm still fleshing out all of this story, plus there's always room for improvement. Chapters will get longer, this is more of a prologue than a substantial segment. New chapter will be up within the week.

Minor soapbox time begin.

Despite the fact that Suzanne didn't really have her characters curse, I feel like they would. Katniss in a rage would not stick to words appropriate for a young reader of 13/14... And Peeta as well. While "good" Peeta probably wouldn't, a desperate Peeta who is struggling to decipher between what he knows to be true and what has been implanted in his mind is more than likely to let out a few expletives here and there.

That being said, there'll be a bit of profanity here and there. Not an overabundance of it, but still, it'll be there. First and only warning people!

Soapbox time end.

Love it? Hate it? Let me know in a review?

SubtleSpark