4

"REALIZATION"

Time moves on whether you will it or not and I have started a count down with the days. It was unconscious at first; an annual habit of anxiety. But as the date drew closer I realized what was drumming in the back of my mind. Like a death march that has long since passed but with an aftermath that will never be forgotten; The Reaping. Once again, it is here.

Even though so much has happened in the past year and I should know that there will never be another arena, never another name drawn or youth torn from their family and forced into that awful reality that the Capitol dare call a "game", I still wait through the day with baited breath.

Prim would have still had her name in the drawing. I don't know if it feels like any consolation to know that if it were still a possibility, she would not be around to answer the call. But, no. The Capitol, with or without the games, has still taken her from me. The weight of this awful paradox weighs me down as the hours pass to evening. All of this began with me volunteering my life for hers, and I still lost her. Fate is a cruel thing and I am starting to see maybe a force to be reckoned with.

Greasy Sae comes and goes like the world still turns and I become a fixture against the couch; hard flooring eating into my bones, keeping me conscious of the minutes. As the light reflects sunset around the room, I force myself onto the cushions and curl into a ball for warmth. The fire has long since burned itself out. The ever present fatigue wins and through silent tears my eyes seal themselves and allow the ghosts to live again.

I relive every reaping I have ever attended. Feeling each pain and farewell anew. I recall clearly the day I had my own name placed and was able to put it in repeatedly for the tesserae. What an awful joke the Capitol forced us into. A false sense of security in gambling with our lives. A risk we were all more than willing to take. Out of necessity and survival. A risk I also would not allow Prim to wager on. How much of her life did I shelter her from? Deny her of? Wish for her? Beg for her to have...

Her memory conjures the emotions that went through me the day her name first appeared in the reaping bowl. So sure was I that with only one slip among all those names, my own twenty times over and Gale's...the odds were so small. I hear her name. This time fate has its way and won't let me speak. I feel the words of Prim's salvation in my throat but cannot get them out. She looks to me with terror in her eyes and turns as if in a trance toward the Town Hall steps. Without agency she is drawn toward them. I try to grab her, turn her away, forfeit my freedom for hers again, but it is in vain. I am a statue, sending my sister to her death. I burn with the struggle to speak, to run, to scream and the relief does not come.

Convulsions spasm through my mind and body as I picture Prim in my place in those games. How would this change all of our fates? Would Peeta work to save her? Would her own strength save her? Would she have the heart to kill instead of heal? To destroy instead of make whole? To be brutal enough to make it to the end as victor? No. No. NO!

"PRRRIIIIIMMM!" Acid tears through my throat as I find my voice. A deranged strangled scream rips through the square and the people of district 12 watch in silence as I begin to tear through them toward the stand and my baby sister. Pushing and struggling against them I am slow to any progress as hands grab me through the crowd. I scream louder. Aching for her to hear me and know that I will take her place. That she will never have to face that reality. But the hands are now iron bands around me and restrain all my efforts. As I thrash and kick, Prim's name is mixed with my own until it is ringing in my ears. Katniss! Katniss it's okay. Look at me.

"KATNISS! IT IS ALL RIGHT! Wake Up!" I feel hot breath against my cheek as sweat runs down my face. The harsh light of the square fades into the cold darkness of my living room as my nightmares of sleep meld with the reality of waking.

"Katniss, look in my eyes." But he is here. And his tender hands pull my focus to his face and I see so much in those eyes. The Reaping forgotten. Now the tears come for so many things lost. Not just Prim, but my Peeta. He is my Peeta and I realize that Gale was right. I've found the one I cannot survive without.

As my breathing returns to normal and the ache of body and mind subside I find a peace that hasn't come since before the Quarter Quell. Not a drug induced morphling kind of peace, a deep true stillness that allows me to fall into oblivion.

Dreamless. Screamless. Painless.

I feel the warmth of day on my face, the growing light behind my eyes, Buttercup curled snugly at the back of my legs and tight sheets holding me securely; and nothing could feel worse, as his absence fills my room. I roll to my side and try to hug some semblance of my life together as my feelings slowly register and begin to sort themselves out.

I recall my first conversation with Peeta upon his return to 12. You are going to have to meet me half way this time Katniss. If this is the only thing I have left, I certainly hope I have not lost it completely. At least this time, he knows what he is getting. No Cinna-created blinders of makeup, lights and fire. And no desperate survival instinct to draw upon. At least on Peeta's behalf. Mine swings in the balance and nothing could save me more right now. But where do I begin? How does one start such a long road back to a life I no longer know how to live? But here it is. The beginning. I can at least confess that it is a life I do want to live and I can't do that without him.