READ: Okay, so half way through a really important part of the Katniss's story is revealed. It starts in bits and pieces. So if you start thinking you missed something from a previous chapter, you haven't. It should all make sense by the end of the chapter.

I also want to warn that there is suicide in this chapter.

Chapter Nine: Katniss

Katniss's POV

For the longest time, Katniss stood in the middle of the field. She looked around at the trees and listened for any noise that would indicate she wasn't completely alone.

The only sound she heard were the leaves rustling in the wind. She didn't even hear birds.

Despite her inner panic, she kept her face calm. She could deal with this; all of it was very familiar. It was just like home. The grassy field, the tall trees, and eventually maybe she'd find a stream or a lake.

She hoped that wherever Peeta was, he felt the same way. If he was in this arena, he would be able to survive on the elements; at least, she hoped she'd managed to teach him something over the years.

What should she do? What was she supposed to be doing?

Katniss would have been content to wander the woods for the entire Games, but she knew that there must be some trick. If there were other tributes nearby, surely they would have killed her while she was standing out in the open?

Her plan to do her own thing and go against whatever Coin wanted her to do was quickly deteriorating. Coin was making it so she had to play into her little games. Katniss didn't like the feeling of knowing she was walking right into a trick, and yet completely unable to do anything about it.

By the time she decided to explore the woods, the sun was slowly moving to the west, indicating that it was almost supper. Katniss wandered around in relative peace. It reminded her so much of home that she was actually happy. After all, if she went back to Twelve and the guards were still forbidding trespasses into the forest, she would never get to roam around them again.

Katniss was an expert at scouting for animals; within an hour of setting traps she managed to catch two squirrels.

It was then that Katniss did something very foolish. She was sure Dad was screaming and cursing at her, but she couldn't resist. She lit a regular fire to cook her squirrels, right on the edge of the tree line that bordered the open field.

She knew she had no weapon to kill if someone saw and decided to attack. But her curiosity was so overwhelming – she just needed to know if anyone was in there with her. The fire lit up a space at least ten feet on either side of her. She kept it on for at least an hour, and still there were no suspicious noises forthcoming from the arena.

Katniss lay back against a log and stared at the fire for a long time. It was almost possible to forget she was even in the Games, or that Coin apparently had it out for all of them.

She thought about her parents. How had the Games been for them? Katniss couldn't even imagine not being able to walk around without looking behind you, or keep warm without fear of drawing vindictive killers to your campsite. Maybe that was part of Coin's plan for these Games – she wanted to be separated from Snow's Capitol as much as possible, so why not completely change the structure of the Games? Just the words Hunger Games would be enough to invoke fear and obedience in the people – after all, the adults had been brought up on the idea that the Games symbolized their lack of control and their mistake of starting the very first rebellion Panem ever had.

Katniss was reminded suddenly of her mentor's warning: Remember your enemy and its goal.

In all of this, was her enemy Coin or the Capitol as a whole? It didn't seem as though the citizens of the Capitol were too pleased, but people usually tend to stick with their own. In the end, the former citizens of District Thirteen would probably support Coin unless she did something grievously horrible to them.

And the goal . . . proving she had so much power that she could control them all? But really, how far did Coin think she could take this? She might have technology, and people, and the means, but if she also had thousands of people against her she couldn't stand too much of a chance.

Katniss felt sick to her stomach when she realized how wrong she was. District Thirteen, District Twelve . . . even the former Capitol - they'd all been bombed in varying degrees. Thirteen had gone of the map. Twelve had taken years to recover. Coin really could eliminate hundreds at a time if she pleased.

After hours of staring into her fire, it finally burned out.

Katniss wanted nothing more than to talk to Dad, or Peeta, or even Effie. Being along in this strange, empty arena was starting to make her feel nervous.

On her second day, Katniss caught another squirrel but was unable to locate water. She was parched, but at least she had food. If there was food, there had to be water. The Capitol wouldn't give one but not the other . . .

Life in the arena was boring. She stared at the trees. She walked around until she became tired. She wondered over and over and over again what she was supposed to be doing and how she was supposed to do it.

No weapons, no tributes, no gifts. Just this empty forest.

In some sick, twisted way Coin was beginning to make Katniss wish the Hunger Games were the way they had been when her parents had been in the arena. And that was something Katniss would have never thought possible.

The third day Katniss decided to hike through unfamiliar territory, farther and farther away from the open field. She was hoping above anything else that the other tributes had been placed far apart from her, and that all they needed to do was find each other. The faster they did, the faster the Games would be over.

The arena was never-ending. Trees and plants and every now and then a wall of rocks to climb. But no more fields, and no more signs of life besides her woodland friends.

Dad, what are you telling me to do?

Katniss wished she could close her eyes and listen, and hear Dad shouting instructions at her. She knew he was back in the Capitol, watching her every move and willing her to win. But she couldn't – she didn't know how to win. She didn't know how to do what Coin wanted to her do, or how to go against what Coin wanted. The only thing she knew was that she had to stay alive until Dad managed to send her a sign, or until the pieces of Coin's mad plan finally clicked in her brain.

She had just started to assemble new traps to catch her lunch when she heard a noise behind her.

Katniss turned around slowly. Tingles ran up her spine – she shivered and felt goosebumps on her arms. Her heart stopped beating for just a second, and she drew in a deep breath of surprise.

Someone was watching her.

It wasn't a tribute.

A woman dressed in white stood twenty feet from her. Her hair was blonde. Her face . . .

"Hello," said the woman. Katniss squinted her eyes in disbelief.

"W – Who ar –are you?" Her voice wasn't as strong as she would have liked it to been.

The woman raised her eyebrows. "You know."

Katniss shook her head. "No. I – I don't know. I don't know. I don't know! Who are you, really?"

The woman gave her a small, condescending smile. "You know, Katniss."

Katniss didn't like the woman calling her by name. She hated it. She wanted away from her. This wasn't funny at all. There were some things – fundamental rules – that people just didn't joke about. Katniss had known Coin was evil, but this . . . this was different.

"This isn't funny, Coin," Katniss wanted to shout but all that came out was a whisper. She stumbled backward into the tree trunk.

"This isn't real."

The woman took a step towards her, and then another, and another until they were ten feet apart.

"This is real," the woman told her. Katniss wanted to look away from the woman's eyes but she couldn't. In her eyes, Katniss saw compassion and truth and love. It was something Katniss had always wanted to see, but it was also what made this all the more disturbing.

"You're not my mother. You look nothing like her." This woman might have the same face, the same hair, even the same dress . . . but those eyes weren't Maysilee's. Maysilee had never looked so clear-headed, so sure of herself, so . . . calm.

The woman looked sad. "See what they've done to us? You don't even recognize me."

Katniss gave a cold, startled laugh that sounded borderline hysterical.

"Get away from me. I – I don't know who you are, but you aren't Maysilee Donner."

The woman stepped closer and looked intensely into Katniss's eyes.

"Don't you see, Katniss? They're doing it to you – they've been doing it to you. What they did to me. They made you believe I was dead! They've fed you lies!"

The woman looked ready to spiral into more explanations, but Katniss cut her off. She grabbed a branch from the tree and pulled hard. The woman looked at it in confusion.

"What are you doing?"

Katniss swiped it at her before she could figure out what was happening. The woman cried out and cringed.

Katniss stared in disbelief as blood seeped through the woman's white dress where she'd been hit. Apparitions didn't bleed . . . did they?

"You're not real," Katniss said again. She watched as the woman put a hand over her wound and winced.

"I am real –"

"I SAW YOU DIE!" Katniss screamed.

Katniss closed her eyes despite her fear. There was no way the woman in front of her was Mama . . . her mother wouldn't look the same after what happened to her. There would have been scars.

"They healed me, Katniss," she said.

Katniss shook.

They couldn't have healed her. No one can heal something so horrible.

Mama would never step foot in an arena again.

Mama wouldn't mess with me like this.

"I don't believe you," Katniss snarled. The woman gave her an appraising look.

"You will."

Katniss was opening her mouth to argue when the arena exploded all around them. The woman disappeared from her sight, but then again – Katniss couldn't really see anything at all. Everything was shaking and blurry and the sound was so loud that she could barely stand it.

Katniss screamed as the tree behind her started to fall. She ran as fast as she could, farther and farther away from the falling trees. It wasn't easy – the ground shook violently and she was already disoriented from her encounter with the woman.

It took her several minutes to realize the explosions had stopped. She slowed to a stop, panting but somewhat grateful for the sudden chaos – it had given her a chance to escape.

Thankfully, the woman was nowhere to be found. Katniss looked around corners for her as she searched for a safe place to rest.

I'm going crazy.

Her brain was slow on the uptake; it wasn't until she was sitting down comfortably on the forest floor that she noticed there were no fallen trees. Had she really run that far?

It was dark now, but Katniss didn't want to light a fire again. She didn't want to move. She didn't want to hunt. In fact, Katniss wasn't planning on eating anything more. The Capitol must have drugged her somehow – it could have been in the squirrels.

There was no way that woman had been her mother. No matter how much power the Capitol had, they didn't have the power to raise the dead.

"I want to see her, please! She's my mom. Just let me say goodbye to her."

The man – Plutarch – looked at Katniss sadly. "I'm sorry, dear. You can't see the body. She wouldn't want you to see her that way."

Katniss sniffled. "I want to say goodbye."

Plutarch ignored her plea. "We've arranged for you to live with your dad in District Twelve."

Katniss shook her head. "No. I want to stay here."

Plutarch looked at her sorrowfully. "And where would you live? Dear, you need to leave. Your dad will take care of you."

Katniss cried. "No! I don't want to be around him! He's the reason she's dead!"

Plutarch looked at her sternly. "He is not the reason she is dead. Your mother, she –well, she had many reasons to – to end her life, but your father was not the cause of it. Remember that, Katniss."

When Katniss awoke from her dream, she felt panicked but still opened her eyes slowly. She was used to dreaming of that conversation with Plutarch Heavensbee. It had haunted her for many years.

He had been the one to say the words – She had many reasons to end her life.

Even though Katniss had grown up with the struggling Maysilee, even though Katniss had witnessed her death and knew no one else had been there – her seven-year-old self had not thought of it that way. She took her own life. She had many reasons.

Worst yet, Mama had seen Katniss that day. She knew her daughter was right there and she didn't even try to save herself.

Katniss realized she was crying. It had been years since she'd allowed herself to think about that day . . . and now she recognized the bitterness she felt. Mama had been her whole life when she was little – her only friend, her teacher, her only parent. And yet, having Katniss must not have been enough to save Maysilee.

You never really knew her, Katniss.

It bothered her so, so much that no matter how much she wanted to hate her parents, she just couldn't. She kept reminding herself that it wasn't their fault they were so miserable.

Katniss jumped when she heard a noise. Looking around, she realized there was nothing out of the ordinary. The tree and the plants all looked back at her. No imaginary Maysilee.

Regardless, Katniss felt paranoid. She decided to leave the area and head back closer to the open field. Maybe these woods were part of the reason she had hallucinated yesterday. There had to be a logical explanation . . .

"Katniss!"

She froze in place. Thinking she must have imagined it, she waited to see if another call would come.

"Katniss!"

Peeta.

"Peeta?" She yelled.

She ran towards where she thought his voice was coming. Was it really him? What if he was just an apparition too?

It wasn't as hard for her to find him as she'd imagined it would be. He hadn't been moving while he called for her. As she approached him and saw his wonderfully familiar face, she saw that he had created a little nest for himself at the bottom of a tree.

"Peeta! I'm so happy you're all right!" Katniss cried as she got closer.

He turned his head away from her and shouted her name again.

"Peeta? Peeta, I'm right here!"

He didn't seem to hear or see her. He sat down in his little bed of leaves and sighed. Katniss crouched down in front of him and stared at him intensely.

Peeta looked real – he was wearing the tribute outfit, the bright red number 12 plastered on the arms of his jacket. His face was tired and slightly dirty. He certainly looked like he had been in the forest for the past few days.

"Peeta, can you hear me?"

His blue eyes didn't come close to meeting hers. Instead, he tried fluffing the leaves around him and laid back on them.

"What did they do to us?" Katniss asked in wonderment. He was right in front of her . . . and yet he was completely unaware of her presence.

Katniss tried screaming at him, kicking him, shaking him – but he didn't respond to any of it. Instead, he ended up falling asleep.

With a frustrated sigh, Katniss sat down next to him. They could be allies even if he didn't know she was there. She'd follow him around until he eventually saw her.

Katniss sat in silence for close to an hour. She felt slightly more comforted, knowing that Peeta was still alive and well. And he'd been looking for her. It was more than she could say. She had worried about him, of course, but she hadn't wandered the forest calling his name.

She was watching a purple butterfly – the first insect she'd seen since entering the arena – land on a boulder when she heard it.

A crackling. Even though she had no way of knowing what was coming, Katniss felt dread settle in the pit of her stomach. That sound. She'd heard it before.

Katniss stood and examined the area. There was smoke.

A woman screamed.

That scream.

It set Katniss's heart rate flying. She lost all reason. The only thing she could think about was that scream, and the crackling, and the smoke.

She'd felt like this before. But then, she'd been seven-years-old and hadn't had a clue what was happening. She'd been sitting in her room all day, trying to teach herself simple multiplication. Katniss hadn't noticed anything was wrong until Mama screamed.

She'd run through the living room, into the kitchen.

And now, as she took a turn around a tree, Katniss knew what she'd find.

Mama was there, in her white dress. Just like in her nightmares, she stood with matches in her hands, throwing them all around her. Instead of the kitchen catching on fire, the blaze was now spreading throughout the forest.

"DON'T!" Katniss screamed.

This wasn't real. She wasn't really dying again. Mama had already died once, she couldn't be dying again!

But her blue eyes still cut across the flames, just as they had all those years ago, and stared straight into Katniss's grey eyes.

Mama lit a match and threw to her feet.

"YOU CAN'T!"

It was so much more horrible than the first time. The first time, Mama had looked back at Katniss incoherently. She hadn't been fully in her right mind. But now – now Maysilee's eyes were sharp and accusatory.

"They made me do it. You should have helped me while you could," Mama's voice was garbled.

Katniss realized she had started to scream. Words that she wasn't actually thinking about – she was saying anything at all to get Mama to stop.

"JUST JUMP AWAY! YOU HAVE TIME!"

It was close to what she'd screamed the first time. Seven-year-old Katniss had begged and pleaded with Maysilee to put the fire out, to run away, to end it all.

This scene had haunted her nightmares for years. The image of her mother burning alive, first her legs, then waist, and then finally her face. Katniss hadn't done anything about it – she'd just stood there and screamed and coughed and watched.

But now she was older. The biggest regret of her life – not trying to save her – maybe she could rectify that. Mama was right there. The fire hadn't yet burned to her waist. They still had time.

Just one jump. She's right there.

Katniss looked to the fire. She met Mama's eyes. Her blue eyes were dreamy – a wonderful look Mama used to get when she was happy.

Really, could anyone fake that? Katniss wondered. Maybe this actually was real . . .

The fire was quickly rising up Mama's arms and towards her neck. Katniss needed to decide soon.

And then she realized – how could she not save her? This was her second chance. Just reach out and grab her and pull her out.

But as she did just that – leaping right at Mama with an outstretched hand – Maysilee disappeared and all Katniss knew was the unbearable pain of the fire devouring her whole.

AN: ... I'm sorry if that seemed rushed. Honestly, it's hard to write multiple chapters of people who believe they are alone in a forest. For real, they can only look for water and food so many times. Unless there was action, it was hard to come up with different things they could do without seeming redundant. I know I shouldn't complain, considering I came up with the plot . . . lol. But they really were (I promise) alone for a reason.