Marisa L.
MOCKINGJAY, CHAPTER 1
I am shocked. And absolutely terrified. Is this really happening? Is Peeta, am I, really here? In the Capitol, deep in their labs? Wait, I heard something.
Peeta, I think. I have to protect him. Where is he, WHERE IS HE?! My head screams. I'm frantically trying to find the boy who was right next to me a moment ago. The boy with the bread.
As I wake up, I have the feeling someone is next to me. "You shouldn't have abused your body so much, Katniss." Prim says, laying a wet cloth on my head. Oh, yes, now I remember. I am in District 13, with my family, Gale's family, and a, for once sober, Haymitch. I look up and smile, "Well Prim, you know, battle plans, getting Peeta and Johanna (the district 7 tribute in the Quarter Quell) out of jail, I am a little busy"
"You should still get to bed earlier, it might help with your nightmares and headaches."
"Yeah, well, look who's talking little miss, you have been helping mom day and night. Forever fixing someone up."
"Yeah, well your battle plans ain't getting anywhere fast. In fact it's keeping you from keeping your tent clean." She was right. In District 13, we live in separate tents. People thought they lived underground, but it turns out that's why the capitol used the same footage. It wouldn't look convincing saying it was too toxic to approach when people were walking around fine. Actually, it only stayed unlivable for 5 years at most. Anyway, each tent one bed, a small dresser, and a lantern. And mine was completely filthy. It had of sketches of Capitol headquarters lying strewn all over the floor, clothes, washed and unwashed, laying in separate piles. In other words, it looked like Buttercup, Prim's cat who she refused to leave in our home district, had been trapped in here for a week.
"Both of you are completely nuts and need more sleep, a real meal would help too, of course." I hear Gale joke, carrying in a half skinned groosling, the turkey like bird that, apparently, reproduces by the flocks here. He sits by the fire pit I made (which is really just a hole with wood) and begins to finish skinning and cleaning the groosling.
He starts a fire to cook it and warm up the tent while I get dressed and splash myself with water. All the while Prim sits there and watches Gale. He looks over, indicating breakfast is done. We all gather around and take bites of the poultry. For the first time, Prim is eating more ravenously and ferociously than me or Gale.
"Hey, slow down, or do you need me to teach you how to eat again?" I laugh.
"Ha ha. Look, I'm going to make more herbal medicine so mom can help people while you two plan impossible Capitol break ins." Prim smirks. She thinks that breaking into the jail would either get us captured or killed, and she's probably right. I am left alone with Gale, though it's not awkward anymore now that we are in a full-scale war. In an uprising you can't wonder who your friends are or worry about your relationship with them. I have even temporarily gotten over my anger at Haymitch, temporarily. Then I remember what we should be doing.
"How are the plans? Tell me that we haven't run into something else, that's one of my last ideas." I nervously say.
"Relax, so far everything is going as fine. But Finnick is still stressing over Annie." Gale replies, reminding me that Annie is still in District 4.
"Oh, poor Annie, she's probably huddling in a corner crying. At least we're trying to get her out.
"Yeah, hey, we should get going, there's some trouble over at the bomb shelter. Some guy says there are planes coming and he's going nuts on Greasy Sae."
"I wholeheartedly agree, let's go." I say, hopping out of bed. District 13 is not unlike our home, except that it is covered in metal fragments for the nuclear bombs, not coal dust. The tents are all waterproof, and outside, people are washing and drying clothes, cleaning babies, treating wounds, the basic needs for people in war. All I know is that I've never seen so many people. Not even in District 11. As we walk through the streets, people are storming around us, people going forward on the right, people going the opposite way on the left. As we near the bomb shelter, I can hear screaming.
"There are bombs coming, we need to get inside!" A strange man screams, and as I see him, I whisper to Gale "Get my mother." Because this man has a gash on his leg, obviously delusional from the way it's infected. A crowd has gathered, to see if it's true.
"Hey, everyone, out! FALSE ALARM!" I yell, trying to clear it until my mother gets here. Greasy Sae grabs the man and with my help, lowers him to the ground. Then I gasp.
"You, you're Rue's dad!" My mouth says.
"Yes, and I have information, we have to get inside. The bombs are coming on Tuesday!" Greasy Sae and me glance at each other. He is talking about the bombs that were last Tuesday. The ones that injured most and killed a stray old man that had hobbled outside, shouting that he had nothing to live for.
"Look out. I am trying to HELP PEOPLE!" My mother has arrived, with her herbs and utensils she uses.
"What happened," she asks sitting next to the man, "and why is this wound not properly cleaned?
"No one really knows, he came out of nowhere and started screaming. Though I've heard he snuck on a cargo train. That must be where his cut came from." Greasy Sae remarks, trying to clean her hands with snow.
"Hm, I'll see what I can do, but he'll be restrained in a wheelchair for weeks, at best."
"You can't let him die, he will be valuable! And his family, I can't take him dying, not after Rue." I say.
"Relax, girl. I've got it. Now you have to go." Mom shoos me off, and I hurry to catch up with Gale. We have to get to the council. You see, we started it as soon as I got here, it's a group of us who took up the job of planning everything. Right now there's me, Gale, Plutarch Heavensbee, Purnia (who stopped Gale's whipping), Ripper, Beetee, Haymitch, and old head peacekeeper Cray, who fled here after finding out there was going to be a new head peacekeeper. But I have a feeling Rue's dad will be joining us soon.
"Look who showed up."? Haymitch barks, mad that we took so long.
"I know, it's amazing" I reply. I'm still angry with him for leaving Peeta.
"Let's start already, okay?" Ripper says (she's our secretary, keeping us on track).
"Sources tell me that, according to the things they've heard, the Capitol is making another mutation not unlike the jabberjays. The only difference is that they will most likely be much smaller, like a bug." Plutarch Heavensbee responds.
"That will make them much harder to find and destroy, and we have no idea where and when they are here. I suggest moving our meeting place or writing notes." Finnick recommends.
Then Purnia puts in her say. "Why don't we just use sign language?"
"That wouldn't work. What if they have video cameras, or motion sensors?" Beetee adds.
"The heck with bugs, what if they have a spy? Then we're in trouble." Haymitch growls.
"He's right," I say, "if there is a spy, we could have no clue as to who they are. One of them could be hiding right under our noses. Just waiting to strike. And its not as if we could squish them"
"I agree, keep an eye out for the wild dogs rather than the bird's nest." Gale quickly warns.
"What?" Everyone but me and Gale question.
"It means look out for something you know to be dangerous, like wild dogs, and don't flinch at every bird's nest, there are way too many and you can never know which one can deliver pain." I gloomily answer. Me and nests don't have a nice relationship.
"We've no time for analogies boy. Speak our language. As you know, we are in a war." Cray yaps.
"Moving on" Ripper says, rolling her eyes.
"We have a District 13 weapons master coming today to talk about our plan" Beetee says, excited someone as smart as him would be around.
"Hello. I've looked over your blueprints and am very impressed. You are very good thinkers." A man in a blue trench coat utters walking in. He was right, it was a good plan. Simple, yet affective. We would sneak into Capitol by hovercraft and find the jail. After that we blow open the doors using a smaller bomb to get inside. Then find Peeta and Johanna using guns to get past guards. Get them, get out. Go back to the hovercraft and fly back here.
"One flaw though. How exactly will you go unnoticed? The Capitol would easily identify you. They don't look past jail break outs you know." He whispers. This guy sounds like he has a habit of speaking quietly.
"We will be in Capitol army suits. Certainly they will not recognize us." Finnick casually comments.
"Yes, but would army men blow open doors? I suggest something more subtle, like acid." Trench coat quietly chatters.
"We have availability to acid? WHY didn't we know this?" Haymitch almost shouts, furious that we've been here for 3 months and no one told us.
"Well they couldn't exactly spout it to any random person, Haymitch. It's like you said, what if they have a spy? If the Capitol found out we have acids, we'd have a whole other war on our hands." I remind him.
"Yes, but we are the council. We should have heard about this in private. Or at least been told we had something quieter than bombs. We're lucky our plan hasn't been carried out. Someone could've been captured or hurt." Purnia worries.
"True, true. Although we were waiting for the right time. We thought if we told you too soon you would maybe get your hopes up. And we wanted to make sure no one's a spy." Trench coat man mutters silently.
"Okay, we know now. So we use acid instead of bombs, no big deal. Really, the plan only changed a bit." Ripper states.
"She's got a point." Gale and Plutarch say at the same time. They look at each other, obviously very confused. For the next two hours Trench coat shows slides of the Capitol jail. We ask questions, get into arguments, and, finally, agree on the final copy of our plan.
Afterwards Gale and I head to his tent. Gale wanted to share a tent with his family but Hazelle disagreed so strongly he had to get his own tent. His has a fire pit like mine, but his also has a drying rack for when his mother washes the clothes. Ever since she came here, she's been washing day and night. Even charging minimum for washing, she has more money than anyone.
At Gale's, we ate lunch and went out to hunt. You'd think in an all out war we would stop hunting for a bit. But being in a war actually makes us need to hunt more. Besides, it's only us and a few other people who hunt to keep the people in meat. The others gather and plant crops, but that can't sustain a person. So it's futile Gale and me bring home even more than our usual haul. Which means hours of hunting and making rounds back to the community.
In the woods it's peaceful, quiet. In no time at all we have five grooslings and ten squirrels. It's a good thing Gale got my bows and arrows from the forest back home, or else we would all suffer from malnutrition.
We go back to return what we have so we can keep hunting. Gale and I talk about our plan, what was wrong with it, how to fly a hovercraft. That horrible question lingering in our heads we talk about last; who was going to the Capitol. No one had agreed to it yet. The mission was horribly dangerous, and no one would let the other go.
Unlike our forest, this one has much more game. Probably because some of the game got tangled in the fence back home, because some of it was loose and went into the forest. District 13 has no fence. Most likely because every family has at least one weapon. That's not including weaponry they make themselves.
After we're done we head to my mother' s and sister's tent to eat dinner. We had deer stew with corn, this used to be a delicacy because of the corn. Now we control transportation and get all the corn we want from District 11. Gale said goodnight then, and I went home to my tent. I had a dream that night.
Rue's dad running, out of breath. He spotted a train, and while running toward it, tripped and hurt his left leg. He was bleeding now, but he still was heading toward the train. Bleeding and panting he collapsed on the train, and blacked out.
After waking up the train was pulling into District 13. Then he remembered why he was running. Panicking, he got himself up and felt extreme pain in his left leg. Looking down made him want to faint again. It was purple, black, blue, and swollen with puss leaking out of it.
But he knew the information was futile. I left Monday morning, and they were dropping bombs on Tuesday. He thinks. The only thing in his mind was spreading the information. He jumped off the train and started screaming about the bombs. A woman tried to stop him. No, this needs to be known. He is yelling at the woman.
I wake up sweating. Why did I have this dream? Maybe it meant something. Obviously Rue was trying to tell me something. I went over the dream countless times. But nothing came to me. C'mon, think. What would Rue want you to know that was so important? Why can't you think?
All this thinking was hurting my head. So I went for a walk. It was snowing, and all of a sudden I knew what Rue wanted to tell her. A word came to my head. His name, Adahy.