Chapter Three

Rue paced. She felt strange. There was a tug…. Slight, painful tug, like she was tied to something and someone was pulling on the other end…finally she sat down on Claudia's kitchen chair.

"WHAT!" Claudia hollered after Rue explained how she was feeling. She knocked over a giant crystal ball. Rue caught it before it fell to the ground and shattered.

"What is it? What's wrong?" She asked, flustered.

"It means-it means- so you say it feels like something is pulling you?" She asked Rue again as she sifted through a huge mountain of books, clearly searching for something.

"Yes. Why?" She asked, confused and alarmed by Claudia's strange behavior. "Well, let me see!" She responded, her voice muffled by the hill of books now on top of her.

"Can I help you?" She asked hesitantly, slowly rising from her chair.

"Oh, no, I'm fine, you know me, always-"She gasped and made a triumphant huff- "Here! Here it is!" Tugging out a fat book, she shoved her glasses up her nose and slapped through the book, mumbling to herself. She stopped at one page, read through it, and looked up at Rue with wide eyes.

"Someone is doing something to your corpse." Rue felt herself fainting for the first time ever.

Chapter four

Katniss awoke, ate breakfast and lunch, and pretty much paced, cried, and stared out the window. She would have visited Finnick, but Tephaan said that only Annie could see him now, for she clearly needed some time alone with him. So she sat in her room, itching with excitement. Finally, she heard quick little feet flitting down the hallway to her room.

"Knock Knock Mrs. Everdeen! Dinner time!" She waddled into the little room, squeezing herself through the door. Katniss got up and followed her to the dinner hall. Again, she sat down and ate the delicious food impatiently. Why am I not with Rue right now? She thought impatiently, stuffing more food into herself.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the fat man exclaimed "To your rooms, everyone!" And Katniss was pulled back into her room. She sighed and plopped down onto her bed. She would gladly have met with Finnick today, but the capitol people said he was being tested on their accuracy. She sighed again, feeling lonelier than ever. She waited right there for what felt like hours, and finally, the tapping little knock came.

"Knock Knock, Mrs. Everdeen, Rue's coming!" Katniss ran to the door, flung it open, and stumbled out. Eeno looked extremely surprised. She smiled and started leading Katniss down a long white hallway. Chattering away, she walked hurriedly, her legs bouncing with every step.

"Oh, Mrs. Everdeen, Rue looks just wonderful, they've laid her on such a pretty silver table…." She started downing out her words in boredom, itching to go see Rue, but also scared. What if Rue didn't turn out to be like she was before? What if she was mean, cold, sad, angry…..she was terrified. The last time she had seen her was when Rue was a Wolf-Mutt who wanted to kill her. She whimpered quietly.

"Here we are!" Eeno sang cheerily. She shoved open a large black door that did not look welcoming. Inside, all of the lights were out except for one spotlight. Katniss walked forward and saw that there, under the light of the spotlight, was a cold metal table. On that table lay Rue's corpse.

She shouldn't be here.

This was wrong.

Just too wrong. Too scary.

Rue's shell lay there on the table, her brown skin seeming dead and lifeless. She was naked except for one white cloth over her waist down, and her shiny black hair was sprawled around her head. There was still one flower in her hair, left from the arena….

Eeno slammed the door shut. Suddenly, there was a whirring machine sound. This was it….Rue was on her way. She was coming. Katniss jumped when she saw a rattling breath shake through Rue's body, and then the fluttering of her eyelids.

Chapter Six

Rue sat with Claudia, Araminta, Akiko, Teagan and Prim. The tugging was worse. It was extremely painful now.

"What is it? Is it worse now?" Prim asked worriedly.

"Yes. It feels…it…feels…like…my soul..is being….torn….to…..piec-pieces…" She gasped, choking on her own air between each word.

"But that's not possible, because you are a soul!" Teagan exclaimed.

"I don't know why…but I'm…leaving…here, please…don't leave me…until I'm gone…." She didn't know where the words came from, but they still rolled from her lips. Everyone took her hands and squeezed them softly. What good friends she had. She was sad that she was leaving to go to…somewhere. She had no idea where, though. Suddenly, she could no longer breathe. She felt herself cracking, dissolving, liquefying, leaving. The faces of her friends wavered in front of her eyes, and she dove into darkness. She saw a horribly light. She felt her memory leave her.

She was in the 74th hunger games again. She lay there, the spear crushed through her body. Why didn't it hurt? Katniss's face hovered over her. Why wasn't she singing?

She fumbled around her stomach. There was no spear. Where was it? Where was she? What was happening? Then all of her memories flooded back into her mind. There was no light around her, only on her. Why was someone shining a spotlight on her? She felt heavy. So very, very heavy. She noticed, shocked, that she had a soft heartbeat throbbing in her chest. Heartbeat? That was something only living people had. She was dead. Or was she? Teagan and Prim and Claudia weren't there. What where they doing? She had told them to stay until she was gone. She wasn't gone. She decided to try and figure it out, so she concentrated on Katniss's worried face hovering over her. Why wasn't She covered in other tributes blood, the dirt from the arena, the fear glowing in her eyes? But they weren't in the arena…..

"Rue?!" Katniss exclaimed, clearly alarmed.

"Katniss?" She was shocked to hear her voice so hoarse and uneven. "Katniss, what's going on? Where am I? What happened?" Katniss just threw her arms around her. She gasped and hugged her back tightly, rejoicing in the fact that she could actually feel her, without falling through. Katniss started explaining how they were in the Octagon, and why she had come here, to make Rue a Mutt.

"Oh my gosh….that's…that's…so sweet of you!" She said, her smooth, beautiful voice slowly returning to her. She threw her arms around Katniss once again. When she pulled away, she looked down at herself.

"Um, can I please have some clothes? This feels weird,"

"Oh, um, let me go ask Eeno, I'll be right back."

"Oh, okay. Hurry back." Katniss nodded and darted through the heavy doors. She waited for about five minutes, getting lonelier. Suddenly the door slammed shut and a chubby woman with purple hair walked out with Katniss, who was holding a pile of clothes in her arms.

"Oh yes, it's wonderfully soft and comftorable, and we know her brainwaves so we have a perfect idea of what her favorite clothing type is! Comfy, fitting, warm, soft, kind of attractive…" She kept on blabbering, but Rue drowned out her words. Katniss sat the clothes at Rue's side, who then began to inspect the outfit.

There was a brown, long sleeved, button-up sweater with white cuffs, a pair of comfy looking red-brown slacks and a pair of black tennis-shoes, and warm, soft underclothes. She quickly hid behind Katniss's back and started dressing. It felt wonderful to be in different clothes after so many years. She smiled.

"Rue, this is Eeno Beelanz. She's our guide." Katniss swished her hand to the pink haired woman, who nodded her head excitedly. "Oh, you're even prettier when you're not dead!" She blurted.

"Uh, thanks."

"Hey Rue, do you think you can stand up? I'll help you," Katniss asked. Eeno nodded and went to help turn Rue around on the bed so she was sitting up on the edge. She looped her arms through Eeno and Katniss's arms, and slowly, stumblingly, pulled herself up onto her feet. After a minute or two, when she was steadied, she took one wobbling step. Then another. And another, until she had walked to the metal door.

"I want to get out of this room…it's scary." Katniss agreed and pushed open the door with her free arm. After a while they arrived in a quaint little yellow themed room. There was a second bed with forest green sheets, her favorite color.

"Oh, wow! This is so cute," She exclaimed happily, grinning.

"Yeah, these capitals really know how to make the perfect room for you." She responded. She headed over to Rue's bed and carefully set Rue down on the fluffy blankets. Rue sighed.

"Well, I'd better be on my way, Mr. Alpoon needs some assistance. Good-bye! Click the buzzer if you need me." Eeno said cheerily, pointing to the red button next to the bed.

"Alright, see you later Eeno, thanks for helping me with Rue."

"No problem, Mrs. Mellark!" She said, and waddled out the door.

"Funny little woman," Rue said.

"Yeah, she sure is."

"Katniss….I'm, I think, I'm tired!" She said, awestruck.

"Oh, you are? Alright, here look! One of the workers must have left some PJ's for you." She reached over and helped Rue pull on a blue Pajama dress that reached around her knees.

"Thanks, Kat" She said, yawning. She stretched and curled up under the soft, fluffy sheets.

"You're welcome, Rue. Sleep tight." She began to drift off into the deep, beautiful abyss of sleep, but before she closed her eyes, she saw a flick of Red curls and a Ocean blue colored Eye, shrouded by a white, ghostlike form.

It was Teagan.