Disclaimer: The Hunger Games Trilogy is property of Suzanne Collins. This is a parody fanwork by fans for fans. No money was made off of the creation of this fanwork.

Came Back Wrong
By FanficAllergy

-Z-

4. The Aftermath

-Z-

I drift in and out of consciousness with no sense of time or place. I can hear voices around me, talking in low, anxious tones, but I can't make out what they're saying. Sometimes, I hear someone crying. A woman. Other times, I hear a man raging only to be cut off. Sometimes, I think I hear someone singing.

When I open my eyes, I see my mother sitting next to me. In her hands is a glass of water with a straw in it and there's a syringe of something on the table next to her. I take stock of where I am. The room is large with cement walls lined racks of weapons and other strange things I can't even begin to describe. There's a low hum coming from all of the electrical equipment in the room. I'm stretched out on a narrow cot and I can see two other cots behind my mother, but both appear to be unoccupied.

"Where am I?" I ask, my throat dry and raspy.

My mother brings the glass lower and I suck greedily at the liquid. "You're in Beetee's Lab in Thirteen."

"Prim?"

She shakes her head sadly. I can make out the deep circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and red, bloodshot eyes, from crying.

The memory of Prim's death at Gale's hands and teeth floods back. I let out a low cry, pushing the water away and curl up on my side, my back to my mother.

"Katniss..."

"Go away," I mumble into my pillow.

"You've been asleep for almost a week."

"Asleep or sedated?" I ask accusingly.

"It's pretty much the same thing, sweetheart," Haymitch says from behind me.

I roll over to glare at the man. "You left her behind," I accuse.

"She was already dead," Haymitch says flatly. "If we'd stayed, we would be dead too or worse."

"This is worse." My voice is flat.

Haymitch shakes his head. "No, sweetheart, it ain't. You don't want your sister to be one of the ghouls."

"Ghouls?"

"It's what we've taken to calling the infected. The ones like Gale and Johanna. The ones that don't die but ain't living either," he explains. "Cressida says the word's from an old folktale."

"Isn't Prim gonna be a ghoul? Gale bit her. I saw it!" My voice becomes more frantic as the memory plays over and over again in my mind.

Haymitch shakes his head. "No, Coin figured out a way to stop 'em. A bit late. But there's a way to stop 'em."

My heart sinks. "How?"

"Bullet to the brain. Some of the soldiers who got bit decided that they'd rather die on their terms than become a ghoul, especially when some of the people they'd thought were dead started to get back up again. People like Boggs; I think it broke something in Coin to see him charge at her with his one arm extended."

I can't help but feel a little frisson of joy that Coin had to see someone she cared for affected by the Capitol's disease. "So what's that got to do with how they found out?"

"None of the ones that shot themselves in the head seemed to come back," he answers. "Coin didn't start showing symptoms right away, unlike some of the others. But as soon as she did, Coin and another soldier took out as many of the ghouls and pre-ghouls as they could. They didn't have a lot of ammo left after that shitstorm of an execution. Coin made sure that your sister was one of the people who got the treatment. I'm guessing she felt she owed you that much. They made sure to save a bullet for themselves so that they wouldn't come back. The last thing Coin did before putting a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger was to leave orders that once everyone was dead or turned, to try a few other methods of extermination to see if there anything else that might work."

"Like what?"

"Gassing, starvation, grenades," he ticks them off on his fingers.

"And did they work?"

"Poison gas does nothing. It doesn't seem like the ghouls need to breathe. Starvation doesn't work either. The ghouls just eat the dead."

I swallow thickly, imagining Prim's body being fed on by these ghouls. The thought of their lifeless eyes staring as they shove pieces of my sister's flesh into their mouths causes me to gag. "Grenades?" I ask, struggling to keep the water I drank earlier down.

"Depends."

"On?"

"If the head is destroyed or not. If it is or if shrapnel penetrates the skull it works. If it doesn't, all you have is a ghoul missing a few body parts."

"And you found all this out in only a few days?"

Haymitch shakes his head. "Not a few days, sweetheart. You and Finnick have been in and out for almost two weeks."

I stare at him incredulously.

"Then why are we still down here?"

"It's the only secure place left," he tells me simply.

"What happened?" I demand, trying to wrap my head around everything to try to force the grief from Prim's death down to manageable levels.

"Things got worse," my mother says softly. "Some people who were exposed to the virus managed to escape the Infirmary. Without the antivirals to delay the onset of symptoms, they started to become ghouls faster. And even worse, it seems that the initial quarantine was unsuccessful."

"How so?"

Haymitch takes over again. "That medic who patched up Mickleson, he got sick and he passed it on to his wife and kids and they passed it on to others. By the time we figured it out, it was too late to do anything about it. It seems that doctor was wrong about the incubation period. If you're lucky, you turn in a day. If you're not, you turn in a week and during that week you infect everyone you kiss, cuddle, and care about. Whole swathes of Thirteen are now ghouls and who knows how many more are carriers of the disease."

My mind boggles at what he tells me. "So who's left?"

"The Hawthornes, Thom, Delly, your prep team, your propo team, and a few soldiers along with you, me, Finnick, Haymitch, and Beetee," my mother tells me softly.

"Twenty one people," Haymitch adds when he sees I'm struggling to do the math.

It seems like a lot of people to be holed up in Beetee's lab, but I know that it's one of the larger rooms in Thirteen with several rooms off of it. Even so, I know there's no way the small space can support twenty one people indefinitely. "We can't stay here," I say.

"Tell us something we don't know already," Haymitch mutters. "But with you and Finnick down for the count, we didn't have a whole lot of choice. We're gonna need fighters if we're gonna get out of here."

"Do you have a plan?" I ask next.

"We're working on it. One of the soldiers, Leslie Leeg, can pilot a hovercraft, so that seems to be our best bet. The problem is getting to it in one piece and where to go afterwards."

"Do you think you can sit up?" my mother asks. "It will really boost the morale of the others to see you up and about and we can discuss it with the group."

I nod. I'm overwhelmed with everything they've just told me. I'm not sure how to process it. The whole thing feels like a trackerjacker induced nightmare except that I know it isn't.

With Haymitch and my mother's help, I manage to get to my feet. The world spins and goes black for a bit while I try to get my bearings. When I'm ready, I nod at my mother. With her supporting me, we walk out into the main lab.

I'm immediately assaulted by the smell of twenty one people living in close quarters with limited bathing facilities. It isn't pleasant.

Most people seem to be huddled around a set of screens watching something on them intently. Over in one corner, Delly is telling a story to the Hawthorne kids, while I notice a few others are standing guard by the door leading to the lab.

The first person to see me is Cressida. The woman with the bald head and vine tattoos smiles at me in relief. "Katniss! It's so good to see you awake!"

The effect of her words is electric. Posy leaps up from the floor and flings herself around my waist. While others crowd around me, smiling, saying hello, and tentatively touching me. Only Beetee, Finnick, and the three soldiers guarding the door hang back.

I smile and nod awkwardly at everyone. I don't know how they all can be so happy while everything is falling apart. I listen to Delly and Octavia and Posy babble for several minutes all the while I'm surveying and assessing what we have left.

There are several crates with weapons and other supplies scattered around the room. Large canisters reading 'potable water' line one wall while next to it is a shelf holding food supplies. Nothing fresh but there are large boxes holding the ready to eat meals that we had when we travelled to Eight. There are tables covered with maps and partially assembled electronics. I don't see much in the way of medical supplies or clothing. I'm guessing Beetee wasn't working on that kind of thing and didn't have a store of them available.

My survey done, I disengage from the group and walk over to where Beetee is seated. Both he and Finnick are watching something on the computer monitor intensely.

"What's going on?" Noting that several people head to the room I just came from while Delly leads Thom and the kids back to the corner they were in earlier.

"We're watching the slow and inexorable death of District Thirteen," Beetee tells me.

"It's that bad? Haymitch told me some of what happened..."

"He probably didn't tell you everything, Katniss," Finnick says sourly. "That seems to be his style. The man likes to keep things close to the vest."

"So what isn't he telling me?" I ask, leaning down to see what they're looking at on the screen.

What I see on them is chaos.

Without the strict schedules and routines that they're used to, most of the citizens don't know what to do and without a strong leader to guide them Thirteen has descended into anarchy. Bodies litter the halls, some of them torn apart by ghouls while others have been killed in other ways. I can see that others have had the same idea we have with limited success. There's a group of about fifty people hiding out in the commissary defending the place from looters and ghouls with what weapons they've managed to improvise. Another group has staked out a home near the armory, but I can see that without food and water, they're fading quickly.

Unconsciously, I look at the Infirmary next. I can see what's left of Coin and Prim's bodies. The only identifiable features left of the two are bloodied strands of their hair. "Where are the ghouls?" I ask, while internally I know I'm really asking 'where's Peeta?'

Beetee answers. "Approximately a week after the room was sealed; a boy of about eight opened the door and let those ghouls trapped in there out."

"How? I thought the room was sealed."

The victor from Three scrubs at his face with one hand. "Someone forgot to turn off the emergency overrides. The boy was sick and like a diligent lad he was, he went to the infirmary to get better. Because the scanners placed outside of the door read that he was running a fever of 104 degrees Fahrenheit the override kicked in and unsealed the door."

My heart sinks. "What happened to the boy?"

"Katniss," Beetee says with a sigh, "you really don't want to know." His voice is tired, almost haggard, and I can see the faint shaking in his hands as they move over the keyboard in front of him.

"There goes another group," Haymitch mutters, distracting me from Beetee's condition.

I turn to look at the screen he motions to. Sure enough, a group of four has managed to make it to the exit to District Thirteen. The guards that used to be stationed there are gone, but that isn't the only obstacle to their escape. I can see a few ghouls shambling on the cameras outside and with no barriers to hide behind the group are sitting ducks.

My thoughts turn out to be prophetic when two of the ghouls spot the group and charge them. Without ranged weapons, the four don't stand a chance. First one then another goes down until they're all nothing more than another dead body on the screen. Seeing that helps me understand why Haymitch wants to try leaving via hovercraft. Even though we have weapons, there's no guarantee that we'd be able to shake off any pursuing ghouls.

"Has anyone made it out?" I ask.

"A few people," Beetee answers. "Early on, before things got worse. We have no idea if they've managed to get to safety or if they were uninfected when they left. However, once the ghouls got outside, no group has made it very far. "

I nod, my thoughts swirling. I look back to the dwindling food supplies. "We've got to get out of here."

"I know, sweetheart. You got an idea of where to go and how to get there?"

I shake my head. What we need, what I need, is a plan.

-Z-

AN:

Written: 10/28/14
Revised: 10/29/14
Revised 2: 11/16/14
Beta Read by RoseFyre