Shake It Out
Chapter 10: Haunted Darkness - Hush Little Baby
The twelve-year-old girl lies under the shadow of a tall tree, in the woods surrounding District 12. She loves this place, but it's still haunted. The ghost of her father constantly follows her around every time she shimmies under the fence. Her father, Jaden Everdeen, the only person she could truly trust. Not the only one now. She trusts Cato, but that's different. He's her friend and she is his best friend, not like the relationship she shared with her father.
Her father was the person who constantly cared for her, family. A father is nothing like a friend, they are similar in some ways, but not all. She loved her father, and now all that was left of him was his hunting jacket that Katniss had stuffed herself into. She wanted to remember him, and she thought she would never ever forget about him if she wore his hunting jacket every time she went on a hunt, or when it was just particularly cold outside.
Katniss never thought ghosts could exist. She heard people say things related to ghosts about Haymitch Abernathy, District 12's only living victor of the Hunger Games. They heard people mumble things about his drinking and would complain, but then one person would always step up and say that he has a reason to drink. So he can block out all of his ghosts. The ghosts of the children from his games, the fiftieth Hunger Games, the second quarter quell, where there were double the amount of tributes.
The young brunette - Katniss, never thought that ghosts could ever be real. When she began to believe they were real, it wasn't her who was haunted. It was sweet Cato.
It all happened two weeks prior, when Katniss and Cato were lying in the dried up Meadow under the afternoon Sun. The thirteen-year-old boy sat up slightly, and glanced at the fence surrounding the District. Correction, he glanced at the woods. The woods. He saw a figure in it, tall and muscular, with short blond hair. That's when he realized it; it was his father. Cato quickly got to his feet, then sprinted towards the fence.
Katniss was chasing him asking him what he was doing, but he just didn't stop. He saw his father and nothing could stop Cato at this moment. He lunged at the hole in the fence and scurried under it as quickly as his body could manage. He saw a whiff of blond hair but every time he got closer to him, he just seemed to get further away. Cato kept on running, though. He didn't even remember that his father was actually dead. All he remembered was that he hadn't seen his father in a long time, and he wanted that to change.
He sees his father stop, and then he says, "Goodbye son. The family need you. Take good care of them." Then he begins to fade away into nothing, and leaving the woods forever and ever, never to return.
Cato is on his knees, tears streaming down his face, begging his father to stay with him. "No! Don't go! I need you, mother needs you, Dabria and Nuri need you! You can't go dad, you have to stay! Don't-" Cato finally breaks down into tears, face in his hands. Katniss kneels beside him, wrapping her arms around him and he leans into her. She begins hushing him, whispering that everything will be okay. He shakes his head, he doesn't believe that. How can life be good - be okay, without having a father in it.
"What happened?" She whispers in his ear.
"I-I, I saw him."
"Who?"
"My father."
Her eyes go wide, but she holds him closer, making sure it doesn't happen again, that he won't see a familiar ghost. What Katniss just witnessed was heart breaking. She had never seen Cato like that. On his knees, crying, and broken. She never realized how broken he was until that moment. In all fairness, he was hiding his emotions very well. He was better than Katniss. She never wanted to see him like that again. Never ever ever...
She honestly doesn't know what to do. She feels selfish, but she thinks she deserves at least one moment to let it all out. It's been a year, and she has never fully released all of her pent up emotion, and now seemed like a good enough time to do so.
Katniss brings her knees up to her chest and curls into herself, letting the tears fall, and fall hard. She puts her back against the hard bark of the tree, ready to move incase something finds her, so that she can get away as quickly as possible.
She never had a breakdown like this. Actually, she had never cried enough for it to be counted as a breakdown. The girl thinks it's good though, to get out all of the feeling of loss that has overcome her emotions over the past year. She believes that crying is healthy, it is good for her.
It could do her some good.
Suddenly, she feels the familiar warmth of him surround her, as her cradles her in his arms. He's sitting down, and Cato holds her close to him, putting her on his lap as she curls up against his chest. His back is against the tree, his head resting on her shoulder.
"Okay, okay." He whispers.
She groan, as the tears continue to fall.
"Hush little baby, don't you cry." He whispers soothingly into her ear.
"Okay." She replies.
Lyrics of a chorus from a sad song play over and over in her head and soon she begins mumbling those words while Cato rocks her back and forth.
"I should say goodbye, before I say hello, so darling, hold me, closely tonight... Because if you open your eyes, I'd never let you go, moving slowly, we'll both sleep tonight..." She pauses before continuing with the final line. "I'll just be dreaming till you wa-ake up."
He tightens his grip on her, and presses his lips to the crown of her head. She sighs as the final tear from a waterfall of tears, rolls down her her cheek and slides off of her face. Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, and her face has dried tear tracks running down it.
She slides out of is grip and kneels in front of Cato. She sees the worry written all across his face. "I needed it." She whispers looking down in front of her.
He nods. "Ghosts?" She shakes her head 'yes' in response.
"I've been having nightmares lately." She starts, not knowing if she can carry on. Cato is her best friend, and she can trust him with anything and everything. If she had a secret, he would already know it by now. His eyes are questioning her, silently asking her if she has anything really important to tell him, or if she does have something very important to tell him, that she actually feels comfortable telling him about it.
"It's been about what happened. With our fathers." He tenses up, but she decides to continue. "What happens is, I'm standing above the mines and I can see them both; your father and mine. Then, some sort of rumbling noise comes from the direction they're mining, and they know what it is, and everyone around them runs, but they don't." She pauses, but finds that no tears are threatening to escape her eyes, so she continues.
"I just stand there, watching them, screaming for them to run, but they don't and they won't. Then the mines explode, and I just watch them get engulfed by the walls and the coal, and them being blown to bits. A-and there's nothing I can do but, watch." Katniss finishes, looking down.
He clears his throat. "It wasn't real, you know."
"I know."
"I think it's reached a time, that we need leave."
She nods then jumps to her feet, yanking him along with her. She grasps his hand in hers, intertwining her fingers with his. They walk to the fence like this and then they slip under the chain-linked fence.
They stand there for a few moments, before she walks up to him and presses her lips to his, for one second, before running back home, not looking back. She doesn't know why, but she feels like some sort of weight has been lifted from her shoulders.
But little did she know, what she had just got herself into...
Real short chapter. Sorry I couldn't update yesterday, my internet failed and I recall thhrowing something across the room...
Well thank you for reading, sorry it's short, I thought it was nice. PLEASE REVIEW! I AM STARTING TO REVIEW SOME THINGS AND I ENJOY IT! I'M TWISTED AND I LIKE IT! PLEASE REVIEW!