Chapter 2
Peeta Mellark. He was my partner and fellow competitor in the previous two Hunger Games, the Seventy-Fourth and Seventy-Fifth. We were lucky enough to both survive the Seventy-Fourth, thanks to an abrupt rule change by the Capitol. That, and the berries. I beat them then.
And so as revenge they brought us back for the Seventy-Fifth Games. This time, only one of us could live. Maybe neither of us would. I was prepared to sacrifice myself for him, though I'm not entirely sure why. When I think back on it now, my reasoning was sketchy and vague.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't make the same decision in a second… only, if I got to do it over, I would do it better. The Games had never finished. Many of us there, the tributes- the victors- had fought back. We tried to beat the Capitol, to break out of the Games, to join the rebellion.
I only recently learned this. In the beginning, I wasn't privy to the knowledge.
The Capitol was ready for us. District Thirteen, the leaders of the uprising, managed to save me, Finnick, and Beetee. The Capitol captured the rest: Peeta, Johanna, and the others, the ones who hadn't been working against the Capitol with us.
I am now in a hovercraft heading to District Thirteen, the one that isn't supposed to exist. I don't know very much about it, but I have been told that it has been rebuilt and is now a huge city with thousands of inhabitants, larger than any other district. They have a peace agreement with the Capitol. Both are strong, and a war would inflict massive damage on both sides.
I guess truces like that don't really matter to District Thirteen.
We are going to join the rebellion, and fight to overthrow the Capitol. I don't really have any hope that I can rescue Peeta. Even if he isn't already dead, he will be soon. There is no hope for him anymore.
Feeling hopeless and strangely guilty, I try to go back to sleep. But my dreams are haunting and dark. I see Haymitch hovering above me, hung on a gallows. Vomit covers his shirt, and his eyes are glazed. I try to get him down so he can help me open my fridge, but then his skin starts peeling off and instead of him there it is President Snow, blood dripping slowly out of his mouth.
He offers me a can of soda, but I don't want to take it. He says that if I don't he'll kill Peeta, but I don't want to drink to soda because it will burn me from the inside out, and I tell him this. And then he changes, over and over again, so that instead of him hanging by the neck, it is first Prim, and then Rue, and then Gale, and then Peeta, over and over again. Their screams fill my ears, and I fall onto the ground writhing and screaming.
I am woken up by a hard, painful impact. I open up my eyes but cannot see anything; it is too dark. My hands feel along the ground, and I realize that it is hard, cold floor. I must have fallen off of my bed.
I turn on a light, change into some clothes, and leave my room. I have tried sleeping twice, neither time with good results. Haymitch is no longer in the hallway, and I wonder if he managed to drag himself away or if someone else helped him.
I go through a maze of bland, white hallways with doors on every side. The first time I tried this, I got hopelessly lost. Now I am able to navigate the bottom floor and find a flight of stairs. I climb up them two floors, the hovercraft floor rocking ever so gently beneath me.
I emerge into the cafeteria. It is the first room I have seen with windows, and I notice that it is still dark outside. I hadn't bothered to check the time earlier, and now I look at one of the digital clocks that rest on each circular table.
There is still at least an hour before breakfast. I sit down at a table near a large window and wait, looking out at the endless starscape, stretching out to infinity. I can feel the speed at which I am traveling, but the stars barely seem to move. They are strong and infallible.
I am not.
Thanks for the reviews, everyone. This chapter isn't that long either. It's strange, I'm having trouble writing long chapters right now. I just can't do it.
