Though the trip to District 12 is a fairly short one by our hovercraft, I can't help the anxiety that gnaws on my gut. I do not want to think about—much less see—the remains of my home, though I know it is necessary for me to do so. I need to see the mass devastation brought on by the Capitol once more, as if each Hunger Games, every public whipping or execution is not enough. As eager as I had initially been to partake in this mission, I can't help but think that this will break me up further than the Capitol has already managed to.
Yet, I feel I owe it to Gale to be here, to do something for him. We both know that I haven't been holding up my end of our friendship lately. He says nothing, though I'm sure he knows it, whether consciously or deep down. I haven't been there for him, and this is inexcusable. Not when I could have—and should have—been.
I haven't spoken to anyone since he and I discussed a drop-off and pick-up location with the pilot. That doesn't even count as a conversation, either. The three of us—with the oversight and approval of Lt. Whetstone—came to the conclusion that it would be best for us to be dropped in a small clearing to the north of the district, where we would be able to quickly take cover if need be. We would then make our way south and eventually be retrieved in a large meadow that is several miles beyond District 12. Though I was skeptical about the large meadow—Gale and I have never entered it due to its openness—the locations were approved after little debate, and I retreated to a small, private bedroom, where I now sit.
Its low ceilings, combined with the walls being so close together that the mattress bows slightly upward as a result of not fitting between them, make the room seem far more like a holding cell than a living space to me, but I'm comfortable. It is here that I sit cross-legged on the bed, back against the wall behind me and stomach churning in anxiety, as I wait for the craft to reach the destination.
Our mission, as described to me, is very loosely defined: sweep the area, search for survivors, report back to the drop site by tomorrow's sunset. There's a lot of room for error, and I can't help feeling that all will be for nothing. Nothing, of course, excluding the wrath of Haymitch, though I'm positive that I will be subjected to this regardless of the mission's success. Even when we are on good terms, he is not the type to let rash decisions go without consequences.
It doesn't really matter, though. I could care less about Haymitch's reaction at the moment, as it's not the thing that needs to be focused on. However, I can't think of any way I could possibly prepare for the moment of impact, when the state of District 12 finally hits me in full force. It's not as if I don't understand the meaning of what Gale told me, and it isn't like I'm clinging to the hope that somehow there has been a mistake—I know such things are ridiculous. The thing is, none of it feels quite real. I hear the words, I comprehend them. I just can't seem to grasp their weight. And no matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to picture the Seam up in smoke, people frantically running, the shrill screams of children. It's the likely scenario, and I know how it should go, but I just can't see it.
For the several hour-long flight, I fix my eyes on one of the hinges that holds the metal door to the wall, though I don't really see it. I'm mentally preoccupied. My mind goes through thoughts in a cycle, constantly rotating from one issue to the next, and rarely phrased in words. A series of pictures and emotions replace lines of text or internal dialogue. Imagination and memory intermingle in the front of my brain to create such a display that by the time the door swings open, I am hardly responsive.
"We're nearing the District." The mouse-like man stands in the doorway. "Thought you'd want to know. See it from the air, maybe."
His deep, smooth voice catches me off guard, as I had half-expected him to squeak based on his uncannily rodent-like appearance.
My thanks catch in my throat and are forced out as a cracked whisper in contrast. He lingers for a moment, as if waiting for me to follow him, but I don't get up. I don't have the will to. After he leaves, I resist moving for as long as I can, though I know I owe it to the people of my district to see it as the Capitol planes did. Finally, I guilt myself into getting a look at my ruined home from the air, and slowly pull myself from the cot.
As I learned on my most recent hovercraft voyage, having windows throughout the ship would make it very poor from a durability and defense standpoint. This being a military craft, the only place where physically viewing the scenery—rather than via targeting computer as the turrets do—is possible is the bridge.
Exemplified by the cell-like rooms and narrow hallways, the craft is quite small—much smaller, in fact, than the behemoth Capitol models—so it takes me no more than three minutes' walk to reach the bridge, located in the front of the rectangular ship.
The flight of traitorously steep metal stairs that leads to the bridge is guarded by the one of the Flintlock twins, who allows me up without comment. Each of the three chairs bolted to the floor of the ships bridge are occupied, but there is plenty of space to stand before the pane of glass, which nearly stretches wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
I freeze where I stand, at the top of the stairs, paralyzed by anticipation. The tall, dark man who looks so much like Thresh looks up from the panel of screens he is seated in front of to give me a grim but encouraging nod.
"Go ahead," he says to me, not unkindly. "Get a bit closer."
As the blood pumps harder and faster through my body, my muscles seem to regain their function. Slowly but surely, I inch over to the adjacent wall, squeezing my eyes shut before anything comes into view. Wouldn't it be nice, I ask myself, if I could just keep my eyes shut until this whole thing is over? But I know that I can't.
Something my father once told me comes to mind. Once when he was teaching me to shoot, my hair kept falling into my eyes, and I'd release the bow's tension to sweep it off to the side. The process kept repeating, and I hadn't fired a single shot. I remember him chuckling and telling me, "Katniss, you do know the hunter who blinds himself can never get the game, right?"
He was right, of course. But it's like getting out of bed on a dreary winter morning, when it takes all your willpower just to force yourself to do even a mundane task such as that. No matter how imperative it is that you get up, sometimes you just can't. I rarely want to wake up and face the snow—and I certainly don't want to witness this—but it's inevitable that I deal with it anyhow. Better now than never.
This similarity in mind, I employ a tactic for getting up that—while it doesn't always give me such an infusion of joy that I do a tap dance out of my room, grinning ear to ear, sunshine pouring out of every orifice—does, at least convince me to throw off the covers and stand myself up. I count. Five seconds, I tell myself. Four... three... two... one...
It's all very anti-climactic. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe that the charred skeleton of District 12 would start unfolding in front of me just as I opened my eyes. But all I can see is the forest. Somehow, it's worse this way. At least if I had gotten it over with, I wouldn't have to deal with this gut-wrenching anticipation. I can't tear myself away from the window, but I do begin to feel restless almost instantly.
Arms folded and foot tapping, I lean into the thick pane of glass, peering down at the trees. I wait for them to break, to reveal the remains of the district, but there is only green forest below. Waiting like this is agony, but the worst part is knowing time could not possibly go slower, despite the fact that a mere five minutes ago, I would've given anything to stop it from going so fast.
With a sigh, I turn sideways and rest my forehead against the glass, eyes drooping in anxious boredom. That's when I see it. Though the miserable, overcast sky does its best to conceal it, I can still manage to make out the faint plume of smoke rising into the air around the horizon line. It's no wood fire for certain, but instead has the all-too-familiar darkness of coal-produced fire. The smoldering remnants of the coal mines that characterized District 12.
The cloud of smoke grows more prominent as we approach, but it still takes several minutes for the district itself to show. The first thing that hits me is not the piles of rubble that used to be buildings, nor the ash layer which coats them. It is the scale at which the Capitol has destroyed my home. Everything is gone, nothing still stands. Had I not known that we were heading towards the south, I would not be able to say where anything at all was located. Tragic as the obliterated district is, it is apparent that my mental preparation has served its purpose. I'm numb.
We're over the wreckage for under a minute, and the rest of the flight is a blur. The craft lands in the designated clearing in no time. The rest of my company and I disembark with our gear and move to the clearing's edge as we watch the hovercraft take off into the gray sky. There is a moment of silence before Lt. Whetstone starts giving orders.
"We're going to be splitting up so we can cover more ground. You two—" she points at Gale and me "—are going to be responsible for navigating because you know the area so well." I glance at Gale, whose countenance is as blank and unreadable as it always used to be in the district, outside of the woods. It's unusual to see his face so apathetic, so lifeless on a backdrop of trees.
"However," Whetstone continues, "the responsibility of making decisions and the power of final say still rests in either my hands or Major Arbor. Hawthorne—" Gale hardly blinks as she barks out his name "—you will be guiding Julin, Bowline, Toggle, and Rex Flintlock, in the charge of Arbor. Fulcrum, Latchkey, Rio, and myself will be with Everdeen. Rendezvous at the pick-up point two hours before sunset tomorrow."
As the group assignments are called off by the lieutenant, the company rearranges itself so each member is nearer to either Gale or myself, depending on where they should be. There is a moment where the group seems temporarily stunned, unsure of whether or not we should be doing anything. During this time, Gale murmurs that he will lead his half around the district to the east and I should take the west half. I nod, not really paying attention, oddly transfixed by the small exchange being made between Lt. Whetstone and Arbor.
She pulls a small package from a nearby bag, which I assume is hers, and hands it to him. What happens next catches me by surprise. Though I can't see her face, I can tell that whatever Lt. Whetstone is saying to Arbor is neither stern nor commanding, but, if anything, worried. She places her hands on his shoulders, just as Gale had done while visiting me before I left for my first Hunger Games. I never would have expected the stoic, serious lieutenant to care about anybody, or show it, and especially not on a mission. This reminds me of how horrible I am—and have always been—at gauging people's lives and motives.
The pair separate, and Whetstone appears by my side, showing no indication that anything unusual just happened, or that anyone had witnessed it. I stare at my feet for a moment, awkward and uncomfortable in the silence, before I tell her that our group will be covering the west half of the district while Gale and his portion of the company will go east. To this she nods, motioning for Cerise, one of the twins, and the dark-skinned man to join us.
"Lead on, Private," the lieutenant commands in my ear, with an emphasis on the last word that I cannot decipher the meaning of. Puzzled, I shoulder my bag and start into the trees, the rest of my company noisily following.
I can stand the snapping of twigs coming from behind me for all of about five minutes. As at-home as I feel in these familiar woods, the four behind me combined sound like a stampede of deer, which completely ruins them. I pause for a second, mouth already open to beg them to silence their feet when the familiarity of the scene strikes me, rendering me paralyzed.
Peeta. Back in our first Hunger Games, he couldn't for the life of him keep quiet in the woods. I remember making him take his shoes off, though that hardly helped. How impossible it was to stay frustrated with him. How his incompetence at gathering ultimately allowed us both to go home from those Games. And how now he's gone, maybe forever.
"Something wrong?" The rest of the company has halted. Some stare at me with a quizzical expression, while the others try to find the cause of my sudden stop. They won't, though. Not here. Not within a few hundred miles of here, even, if that. And, sad as it is, I doubt they—or anyone, really—will.
"No," I mutter, before catching myself. "Wait, actually, yes. Sort of." My brief mental venture to the Capitol, to the small metal cells, the chairs with restraints and tables with cutting instruments, has completely derailed my train of thought. Clearing my throat, I start again. "Could you maybe walk a bit more quietly?"
Of course, there's no rational need for this at the moment. It's hardly as if the instant we get too loud—about six minutes ago—a squadron of Peacekeepers will drop from the trees and hogtie the lot of us. But there is something about these woods that is sacred to me, something I know is to Gale, was to my father, to Bonnie and Twill and to the red-headed Avox girl. Something special to anyone who has ever sought refuge from the world among its trees. They should not be disturbed. Not needlessly. But I can hardly put this reason into words without coming off as selfish or rude.
"Do as she says." Fortunately, Lt. Whetstone can. "When you don't know who is around to find you or why they want to, it tends to be best to keep as low a profile as possible. Do your best to mute your boots."
The noticeable change in volume is blissful. While my platoon hasn't come close to mastering stealth, they are doing a much better job of treading lightly. The relative silence allows me to concentrate on looking for signs of people, though I have little luck with this. The heat of late summer has left the earth loose and dry, making it difficult to distinguish even a squirrel's track from a bird's.
Poor as the ground may be for tracking, it looks as if it will become impossible at any moment. The sky is as ominous as I've ever seen it, having gone from a dreary overcast to one dark mass overhead threatening to swallow the small lighter gray patch that rests near the horizon—and the rest of the world with it. I know that the rain can't wait much longer.
But as there is nothing in the scope of our abilities to let us control the weather, we keep pressing on through the woods. It is the brilliant flash of lightning that breaks the silence and prompts Cerise to make a suggestion.
"Perhaps," she says urgently, "it would be good if we got away from all these trees?" I think of how her brother was killed by electricity. I don't know if it's a contributing factor to the urgency in her voice. Either way, I agree with her. Gale and I usually do our best to get away from the the trees in thunderstorms.
Whetstone, on the other hand, looks skeptical. With a frown, she muses, "Wouldn't any remaining people keep to the woods?"
Though the question is more likely rhetorical than not, I add my input. "Maybe, but it would be safer for us to get to the open. The district isn't far from here."
And suddenly, I'm uneasy about leaving the emotional protection of the woods. I know the state of District 12, but it's a lot more unreal from an aerial view. I was able to stand that, but to be among the ruins? I'm not so sure.
Lt. Whetstone, however, is. "To the district, then."