A/N: Is anyone enjoying this story? If you aren't then I why should I continue with the rewrite/story? Does anyone want me to continue? Please review. I love reviews.
Daddy, can you hear
the devil drawing near
like a bullet from a gun
That simple whisper. Those four words managed to weave their way into my dreams that night. Making me see Finnick in his chair again. This time screaming insults at me. Only his insults make me realize something. I'm worthless. I'm pathetic. I make everyone die. I only can create pain. Nothing else. I shatter hearts. I create a mess and then leave it for others to clean up. I should be dead. Everyone would be better off without me. I am everything he says. And it hurts that he, one of my friends, is saying that.
The next is him being blown to bits with my father. Ashes spewing all over. Why is he showing up in my dreams…er should I say nightmares?
Then Peeta is in his bakery and his mom is beating him. She eventually beats him until he is unconscious. She doesn't stop then though. She keeps beating him and eventually stops once he is dead. He just lays there. Cold and motionless, dead.
Johanna is there. She looks at me. Or should I say behind me. I turn around and there are two females and two males. The older female looks nothing like Johanna, except for her eyes. The male is just a living breathing male version of Johanna. I can't even try to contain the gasp that escapes my mouth. The other female looks more like the other female than the older male. But you can see the resemblance between the little girl and Johanna. Oh! That's her sister, mother, and father. The girl has to be 12. She is – was – so young. Just like Rue. The other male, well he looks like none of them. Black hair, green eyes, hooked nose, freckles scattered all over his cheeks and nose. Her boyfriend. Why are they here? That's when it hits me. In the arena, Johanna said she had no one left she loved. Snow killed them all.
A bloody smell hits me. When I look up, I see Snow, not even bothering to wear that putrid white rose on his lapel. He looks straight at Johanna, not even seeing me. Am I invisible during this?
"Hello, Miss Mason. I told you what would happen if you declined my job offer." He hisses, approaching Johanna as he does. He gets close enough to whisper in her ear, "You know, sex goddess of Panem." I gasp, regretting the sound that came out immediately, my hands flying to my mouth, but it looks like no one even heard it.
Snow turns from Johanna and stalks towards her family. He brings out an ax, as a peacekeeper ties her family in chairs. Legs and arms bound to it. He hands the peacekeeper the ax. Of course, he wouldn't the actually work, make someone else carry it out for him. The President nods his head and the peacekeeper brings the ax down on her mother's knee. I hear a cry and it's not even her mother's, who is trying to stay strong for her poor daughter. I turn to Johanna and there she is bound to the chair, like she was earlier, tears streaming down her face. She screams as the ax comes down on her mom's elbow, completely tearing through the bone, the limb completely cut off. Johanna tries to close her eyes, but I see she can't.
Limb by limb later, Johanna's mother is dead, slumped in her seat. The little girl is sitting there, chin stubbornly high, eyes set on Johanna, a determined, hard look on her face. She will be brave, she will be brave for her sister. Her dad is equally trying to look brave, but desperately failing – that probably has something to do with his wife dying before his eyes and he knows he is next. Her boyfriend is looking the same as the little girl. His eyes go cold whenever Snow walks by him.
The guard brings the ax down on her father's abdomen, but not hard enough that he would die, no definitely not that hard, wouldn't want him getting a quick death. The guard keeps chopping down on his body. Then with one final, fatal blow to the head, he is gone. His chest stops rising and falls with one last breath, "I love you, Jo."
Johanna's cries and screams fill the room as Snow slaps her across the face.
The peacekeeper approaches her boyfriend, so he is next. The guard slowly cuts each one of his limbs off. He sputters and coughs up blood. The scene is gruesome. Entirely gruesome. As he starts convulsing, he somehow manages to get out a few words. "It's not worth it, Jo. I love," and he dies right then. Johanna's screams fill the room like a wild fire, igniting everything around it.
Before the guard even approaches the little girl, Johanna screams out her name. "ASPEN!"
"Jo, remember. I love you. And I always will. Remember what Gabe said. It's not worth it."
"I-I lo-love you, Aspen." She says with a shaky breath. Aspen nods her head.
Then, I guess Snow got tired of her pep talk, the ax is brought down with immense force to her head. Her last breath is a sharp gasp, "Jo."
Johanna screams and screams and screams, tears streaming down her face like a waterfall, her body shaking with her sobs.
Next thing you know, I am gasping for breath, sitting up in my bed with tears running down my face. My body convulsing with sobs. I don't even know those people and their cruel, violent deaths and those painful insults have this much of an impact on me. Strong arms are wrapped around me. I can't even move to shove them off. I lean in closer towards the body, desperately seeking its warmth. A hand finds its way to my hair, stroking it. The other rubs small circles on my back. A warm breath whispers sweet nothings in my ear.
I finally regain my composure and lean a little bit away from the warmth. I look up to see the face. It's Finnick. He takes the arm that was wrapping around my waist and caresses my cheek. He leans and places his lip against my forehead. He mumbles, "Do you want to talk about it?" If I want to he would understand. Nightmares are definitely something victors understand. I shake my head quickly, I don't even want to think about it. "Alright, anything you need?" I shake my head again. He pulls his lips from my forehead and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
I get a better look at his eyes now, sea green, specks of gold here and there, still have that fire in them, the one that everyone would think would have been gone by now. He was the one who whispered those words. The voice matches. I place hand on his shoulder, "What was me, Finn?"
His eyes fly closed, like he can't stand them being open, and I think I said something wrong. He leans his head forward and rests his forehead against mine, "You. You were everywhere in that damn hallucination. Everywhere. Dying, hating me, being tortured. You, Jo, everyone I care about. I love you, Kat. You and Jo are my only family. You and her are like my sisters. Parents dead. Annie may as well be dead. Everyone gone. Except you and Jo. They are going to try to take that away from me too."
I see he needs my comfort now, as tears slip down his cheeks. I quickly wipe them away with my thumb. "Try as they might," I take a deep breath. "There is no getting ridding of me."
A sharp, precise voice rings out, "Primrose Everdeen."
No. No. No. I volunteer! I try shouting but I can't. I am ineligible for volunteering. Prim walks toward the front with confidence she had to reach down deep to get it.
It flashes to Prim in her costume. This red unitard that glows blue, orange and yellow. Fire.
"Primrose Everdeen with a score of 7." She was amazing at painting so good at camouflage, climbing, and well healing.
It skips to the last two. Prim and a large male from 5.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the victor of the 77th Hunger Games, from District 5, Harlem Dint!"
"Finnick! Johanna! Where are you?!" I turn around in circles looking for them. Then I spot them, tied up to a tree, the tree is on fire, if I don't untie them they will die. I run towards them, but with every step I take they are ten steps farther away. Then after my desperate attempts to reach them, the tree catches fire completely, a blazing Finnick and Johanna, my fellow tributes, victors, friends, and family.
Next thing you know, I am back in that putrid metal chair gasping. My eyes spring open, adjusting to the bright light.
"Hello, Miss Everdeen, we are doing something different today." Snow says, tapping to the needle with red liquid. Before I can even respond, the needle is shoved into my neck, the hot liquid pumping into my veins.
My vision obscured with black lines, my head starts pounding, I feel my forehead get moist.
"He tried to kill you, Katniss." I don't know whose voice that is. I can't see anything so I can't match the voice to a description.
This image pops up, making me growl with hate. It's Peeta with the careers in my games, trying to kill me. Why did I try to save him?
"He will try again." That monotone voice. I know it. From where? Then there is him with his hands around my throat.
"He will try to break you through your loved ones." Photos flash from Prim in a casket, to him holding Johanna under water, Finnick lying on the ground with a knife protruding in his abdomen, Gale's neck being slit, everyone, everyone flashes before my eyes, dead, because of him.
Then I am sitting upright in the chair panting, Snow and his guards standing in front of me.
"Why, Miss Everdeen, just remember while you might be fully hijacked yet, we will get you to that goal before you are sent back to 13." Snow smirks, it doesn't look good on him, it looks purely evil.
I am sent back to my cell after that. Dinner awaits on my rock hard bed. Dry bread, peas, chicken. Nothing like the Capitol food we had on our wait to death.
Finnick's bunk is across from mine, Johanna's is next to mine. We had moved them so Johanna's and mine were parallel and Finnick's was perpendicular to ours. We had moved them to be closer together so we could hold hands awaiting the nightmares to come. It worked; whenever you had a nightmare you just squeezed their hands as tight as you could. Sometimes, that would wake them and they would save you from the terror. Sometimes, you squeezed saved them. There was a night when no one had nightmares; none of us. It was the best sleep we had since we were captured.
"So, what do you think they are going to do to us when they are finished?"
"Well, brainless, they are going to send you to 13 to try kill their enemies since they are hijacking you. Us," Johanna says, gesturing to herself and Finnick. "They are either going to kill or just scar us for life."
I hope it is over soon. That's all I want. I can't handle these hallucinations or whatever they are. And it looks like they can't either. Johanna gained stress lines on her face. She has big purple bags under them. The way she moves, she doesn't stand as tall as she was. Her voice more sluggish, from loss of sleep. Finnick lost his happy stepping, well it never was happy, but it was never this sunken down walk. He has even bigger, purplish bags under his eyes.
They have battle marks too. Finnick lost weight and so did Johanna, I bet I did too. Half of Johanna's hair is shaved. She has bruises riddled all over her body. Finnick is a black, blue, purple, green, yellow paint job. I don't even want to know what I look like. All I can hope for is that this will be over soon.
"Get to sleep!" A loud, guttural voice echoes throughout our cell.
A/N: So is anybody reading this story? Could you take just a minute to review? Tell me how I am doing? Please?