Chapter 10 ; "Home Sweet Home"
. . . . . The ground puffs up dust the very moment my boots hit the ground at the bottom of the hovercraft stairs. The barren and abandoned place around us is desperately trying to dispel smoke from the chunks of buildings left behind. I can barely take in anything around us at the very thought that these are the streets I grew up in. I can't recognize anything, only able to see burnt wood and crumbled stone. The whole district around us is filled with the aroma of smoke, blood, and terror that had only recently filled this place. I can't make out where in the district we are, even with the alignment of the hills and the paved stone under our boots. "Where are we?" The words scatter from my lips as if they were trying to escape from me.
"The Town Square." Haymitch says, his eyes looking glazed over as if the sights didn't effect him at all. Now I see it, the designed stone pavement, and the pillars of the Justice Building that are chipped and shaved away. The buildings around it have nothing but foundations left to them, and scattered wood amongst the ground around them. The Mellark's bakery, just to the left of the Town Square looks as if it had never existed at all. The homes just to the right, the prettiest houses in the district that I passed every single day on the way home from school, gone. It feels for a moment like we're there, in the bombing that did this. Complete horror and fear is taking over my body, and I have to force myself not to cripple into a ball; instead, I place my hands loosely over my lips, refusing to let the tears come into my eyes.
. . . . . The Seam is an entirely different story from the Town Square. Rather than bits and pieces of the buildings left, there's absolutely nothing but scraps of metal and burnt items around. I can see the spot where my home used to lay before I won the Hunger Games, and feel lucky that I had gotten my family away from there a whole year before this happened. I crouch by the chunks of wood, rummaging through it as if hoping to find something we left behind. There's nothing, except a broken chair underneath the rubble. The home after that has items scattered throughout it's rubble. I still remember the family that lived there, since I used to play with their son at a young age. A few old and shattered picture frames, lots of broken glass, and a rusty fork sit right out in the open. I can't imagine what else is buried in there.
The timeless walk up the hill towards the broken down electric fence seems much longer than when I traveled it before. Burnt patches of grass here, crumbles of burnt wood there. The only thing missing was a dead body, which we came across not long after that. Her face was to the ground, the back of her leg torn up like it had been sliced by metal. Burn marks are scattered amongst her bare arms, her strawberry blonde hair, and pretty blue evening gown drenched in her blood. My mind is suddenly racing. Gale is staring at her too, and the very thought that comes to both of our minds reflect to each other like ricochet. This girl was no stranger, to either of us. This girl, is Madge Undersee.
I can see the hurt drowning in Gale's eyes, staring down at the pretty girl like it had been him instead. I realize that this isn't his first time seeing her dead, because rather than shock, his face is full of regret. A regret so deep, it makes me feel as if my insides might collapse on me. "Gale," my tongue twists up, coming out as more of a sob than anything else. He doesn't say a word. We're alone up here, since Haymitch and Finnick went towards the Victor's Village, so all is silent around us. Not even the birds are chirping out here. It's as if the air is made of death itself. "Gale?" I say again, but he stays quiet for a long time more, making me wonder if he has stopped breathing.
"It's my fault." He finally chokes out, and my heart drops into my stomach at the sound of his voice. It's broken, and struggling to form the words. I can hardly take seeing him this way, but I don't know what to say. "It's my fault that she's dead." His eyes won't move from their spot. "I couldn't get her out fast enough."
"It wasn't your fault Gale-"
"But it was." He interrupts me in a way that softens my heart even more. His eyes finally trail up to mine, and thats when I see the tear streaming down his pale cheek. The sky is grey around us, only adding to the hurt we both feel so deeply. "She was dying, a-and I tried to get her to the forest, but I-" He interrupts himself with his own sob, as he buries his eyes into his palms and sinks there. He falls until he's squatting on his toes, suddenly shattering into a million pieces. I have no idea how to fix it; how to fix him. "she didn't make it... S-she died in my arms, and I just left her here..." He won't look up. "How could I do that to her?"
"You couldn't have done anything else, you can't beat yourself up for trying to save her." I move closer to him, and put my hand to his shoulder, but he moves away too quickly for my comfort to reach him. "Gale, please stop crying." I beg, kneeling beside him. I don't try to touch him again, because I'm afraid I might break him even more. He doesn't say anything in return, so for some reason, I just sit there and let him suffer.
. . . . . The atmosphere is much different than I expected it would be at the top of our hill. The view over the forest doesn't seem as magical, or as peaceful as it once did to me. The place I ran off to in order to get rid of my chains, is the same place that is locking me up all over again. I feel a heaviness grow in my chest that I have never felt before, and the true sadness is setting in on me. This isn't my home anymore, and it never will be again. It will never feel the same way as it did, and my body aches at the thought. Everything is gloomy and cold. Not even Gale's company could bring me the comfort I needed in order to break away from my thoughts; maybe not even Finnick's.
Gale sits moping at my side, his face still stone cold and aged with tears. We're sitting so close together, that our shoulders are pressed against one another. We can hear each other's breath, but neither of us says a word. It must just be instinct for us to do that when we're both afraid. It's the same instinct we had before the reaping just a year ago, and before I went into the Quarter Quell. I still don't understand why we do it, especially since it never seems to help me. I can only hope it helps him.
. . . . . Gale and I are silent during the entire walk back towards the Victor's Village. We can see all the way from the top of the hill how polished and untouched it really is, so it will undoubtably turn out to be our venue for sleep tonight. It's hard to know wether I'm excited, or utterly devastated to have to walk through my home again. The memories it holds, and the thought of why I was rewarded with it makes it seem like less of a treasure to me now. It was once a place where I could keep my family safe, but now it merely serves as a reminder of the fact that I took lives away in order to get it. It isn't a reward anymore, it's a burden.
We go to Haymitch's house first, where we find him and Finnick standing like ghosts in the middle of the rug. There are liquor bottles all over the room, just as Haymitch had left it. There's some glass broken on the floor below the table, but other than that, it seems as if it hadn't been touched by the explosions. Perhaps the broken glass hadn't been a victim of the explosion at all, and just a victim of my drunken mentor's stupor.
"Katniss," Finnick says, walking to my side the moment he sees my pale and teary eyed face. He wraps me in his arms, but I can't feel the comfort I expected the embrace to bring. "are you okay?" He asks, and I nod to reassure him. I try to smile, but it comes out as fake as a fake smile can get.
"I'm fine." I stutter out, when I realize how bad my acting was. I adjust my bag on my shoulder, before turning towards the front door again that sits entirely ajar from our entry. "Where are you going?"
"To my house." I reply, sealing the door shut behind me.
. . . . . I feel a chill creep up my spine as I walk towards the big vacant home that once belonged to me. The door opens with that familiar creek, and my breath snags at the sight. On the coat rack hangs my hunting jacket, next to it a jacket that belongs to my mother. I freeze in this stature, staring at the coat as if it was made of snakes. My hand is suddenly exploring the fabric of her coat, finally pursuing to take it off the rack and press it to my nose. The scent brings another wrack of chills on my body, and I put it back in a quick movement of fear.
I continue through the house, my boots gently scuffing the rough wood floors with each movement. The kitchen sits still, with no sound to be heard other than my own breath. The counter where my mother treated her patients was dressed in a bowl of medical supplies, a small bag filled with bandages spilled on the floor as if she had been rushing to get out of the district; which she was.
I make my way up the stairs carefully, as if the floor boards would snap underneath my feet. The hallway is just as still as the kitchen was, but with the window opened at the end of it. The small lace trimmed curtains blow softly in the breeze, and yet another shocking chill encases my body. That's when I smell it, the obnoxious fragrance that tickles my nose in the presence of my biggest opponent. The man that came to my home, ordering me to be careful for the sake of my family's lives. And there it sat, on my bedroom night stand through the door to my left; a single white rose.