A/N: Quick note before I begin, I apologize for submitting this chapter and then deleting it and changing it, but I didn't realize how close I was to the end of Part II. I Just added the last chapter, and just scroll down to 18 to read what you missed. Once again, I am so sorry for the inconvenience! ~gfg
15
I have to move, I tell myself, over and over again, trying to fight through the pain and the terrible hallucinations. I have to move. I have to move. I can't stay here, out in the open. Exactly where they know I am. I have to give this one last, final push, then I can succumb to a nightmarish, painful sleep, perhaps death. But I can't give in that easily. Not after all I've gone through to stay alive. I have to fight through this. I have to move. MOVE!
Slowly, agonizingly, I manage to drag myself into a crawling position, though putting any weight at all on my leg is so painful that I'm left on one leg and two hands. The world spins, and I completely lose my sense of direction. But I see a glittering nearby. Maybe that might help? I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's real or not. Everything seems real. Nothing can be real. But I have to get to it.
I crawl like a blind man, fighting my way through overlarge beetles and dead bodies and ashes and blood. Vultures pick over me, eating my raw flesh. Or are they people from the Capitol? I don't know . . . I don't . . .
I pick my way across the earth which is not the earth. Is that grass or tiny worms and hissing snakes? Is that dirt or ashes from bodies? Rocks or skulls? I crawl through an ocean of blood and slime before I hit something solid. A rock. A boulder. I think. It's flat and solid and hard though the color is wrong. Something to cling to. Something that seems real.
I can't fight it anymore. I give in to the hallucinations, and flying, hideous bats attack me. Nasty, tiny rats swarm me and eat away at the cut in my thigh. I hear screams of agony and I cover my ears but that only makes it worse. It's terrible. The pain. The hallucinations. I think I cling to my leg. I curl up in a ball against the boulder. A weird, distorted, Katniss enters my view. She smiles at me and I feel hopeful. Someone at last who will save me. But then an arrow pierces through her skull and I catch her in my arms. But she's dead. Dead, dead, dead . . . I failed . . . Oh God Katniss is dead . . .
Then she decomposes. Flesh gone. Hair gone. Nothing but bones. Then those are gone. There's nothing but air in my hands. It's not real . . . it's not real . . . not real . . . real . . . not . . .
Twice more I see Katniss, and watch her die. The second time she's sparkling, breathtakingly beautiful in her interview dress. She twirls, and the dress makes her look like she's on fire. She is on fire! It's real! She's smoking and burning but all she does is twirl and twirl and laugh. I try to put her out but she turns to ashes when I touch her. The third time she kisses me tenderly before stabbing a knife through her heart. I try to stop her but I'm too late, too late . . . I can't save her . . . she dies in my arms.
How many times do I have to watch her die? I can't lose her once more . . . I can't . . . but the tracker jacker venom has done its job too well. It knows my fears. My biggest fear of losing Katniss. It will force me to see it. Over and over again . . . I fail to save her.
Until finally the pain in my leg brings me back to reality. Not entirely, but enough to know I have to hide. But where? For the first time I examine my surroundings. I've gone further than I thought I had. It's dark. The glittering I saw is a stream. Water! My throat burns from thirst. I crawl weakly to it, and fill my hands, drinking as much as I can until my thirst is sated. I start to dive my face in, too, but the water has turned a blood red and I jump back in horror. The tracker jacker venom isn't finished with me yet.
I turn back to my rock. The blood covering it is a dead giveaway. I try to wipe it away to no avail. I'm making it worse. The whole rock is turning red, dripping blood, more blood . . .
Fearing the hallucinations to come again in full force, I move as quickly as I can and fight through the pain in my leg. Hide. I have to hide.
"It's lovely," her voice echoes through my head. "If only you could frost someone to death."
Frost . . . cakes . . . camouflage. It's my only chance. I crawl to the stream, picking up as many sticks and leaves as I can. I cover myself in a thick layer of mud. I stick grass to my skin and my clothes. I bury myself under sticks and leaves, making sure to position them and bury them in the ground so that if I move or thrash around because of the tracker jacker venom it won't be noticed. I mash grass and mix it with mud. I swirl the green color over my skin in a perfect pattern. I lay down in a position where my leg hurts the least. I have to prop the injured leg up, tangled in sticks. When I look down at my body I can't even see myself.
The work, throwing myself into the design, the creativity that flows through me keeps the hallucinations at bay, but when I've finished, there's nothing to stop them. I surrender completely, knowing there's absolutely nothing else I can do but wait it out.
The hallucinations do indeed come again, but it's more like a nightmare than the world changing around me. This time it's almost worse, though, because all I see is Katniss, dying over and over again, everytime I'm too late to save her. I fade into blackness and watch her die, my veins flowing with fear and horror and pain.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. An end to my nightmares. Something so precious I think I must be dead.
I hear singing.
Beautiful singing. Singing so lovely even the birds stop to listen.
Down in the valley, valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Roses love sunshine, violets love dew, angels in Heaven know I love you.
Know I love you, dear, know I love you, Angels in Heaven know I love you.
Katniss. Katniss . . . she sings to me. Sings me out of my dark dreams, with braids and ribbons in her hair. So sweet and lovely. She sings me the Valley Song.
Build me a castle, forty feet high; so I can see her as she rides by,
As she rides by, dear, as she rides by, so I can see her as she rides by.
If you don't love me, love whom you please,
Throw your arms round me, give my heart ease.
Give my heart ease, dear, give my heart ease,
Throw your arms round me, give my heart ease.
Slowly, I come out of it, the vision of the five-year old Katniss I fell in love with singing to me, singing to the class. She grows clearer, sharper, growing older, until she is sixteen again, uninjured and unharmed as she was before the games. Utterly beautiful with a long braid over her shoulder, dandelions in her hair and in her hands, wearing the dress she wore at the reaping, her mockingjay pin shining on her chest. Singing through perfectly formed lips with an angel's voice.
Roses love sunshine, violets love dew, Angels in Heaven know I love you,
Know I love you, dear, know I love you, Angels in Heaven know I love you.
Her singing fades, and Katniss smiles at me. Then she too fades away, blowing away with the wind. And with her goes the hallucinations. I drift into a semi-peaceful and deep sleep. When I wake I barely remember the dream.
16
It's still dark when I open my eyes . . . or is it dark again? I have no idea. How many days have I lost? How many deaths have I missed? Who's alive and who isn't?
The terror that Katniss might actually be dead seizes me. There's absolutely no way of knowing now whether she's alive or not. If I've missed days, I've missed the nightly death toll. If I've missed that, they're not going to tell me again who's dead.
What if she's dead?
The amount of times I've just seen her die has done nothing to dull my fear of that. If anything, it's made it worse. I almost want to get up and start shouting for her, but when I try to sit up all the blood drains from my head and I collapse back into the ground. She'll have to find me. I'm too weak to even move to the stream to drink more water. I'm too weak. Weak and tired and in pain.
Somehow, if I close my eyes and focus entirely on the pain, it's less. Almost like with every throb it fades away. Not completely, but enough to make it bearable. I start to drift off. I let myself sleep. I haven't slept properly in probably days. Being in that tracker jacker induced nightmare does not count as sleep. I fall into a deep, dreamless slumber.
The anthem wakes me. I open my eyes and watch the sky. Just the seal. No deaths today.
I'm shivering. But it's not the kind of shivering from outside cold. It's the cold that comes from within. I'm cold on the inside and burning up on the outside. There's only once before I've ever had a fever this bad. My father was so worried. He thought I was on death's door. I was. The district doctor was called, and he gave me a week's worth of pills that helped reduce my fever and some antibiotics to help me fight it off.
But here, there will be no pills to help me. There are some in the arena, I know that. We went through that pile of medical supplies on the first day. I know what I need is in there. But it's impossible. Even if somehow I did manage to make it to the horde of supplies, the Careers would kill me.
The Careers! I wonder if they are looking for me. Cato thought the wound he gave me would kill me, yet somehow I am still alive. They have not seen my face in the sky. Would they be hunting me? Surely not. They have bigger problems to deal with. Their number has been reduced significantly. Two of them I know are dead. One by my own hand.
The girl from District Four. The boy from District Five.
Now I have killed two.
I've turned into a monster. Just like Cinna told me not to. I didn't even bat an eyelash when I killed that girl from 4, and I can't bring myself to regret it now or even feel guilty. I am now just as much of a cold-blooded killer as the Careers, who I was also willing to kill. I am a monster.
I realize I don't even know their names. The face of the boy from Five I will never forget, but already the girl from 4 is fading from my memory. Forgettable. Very easily forgettable.
Don't let them change you . . .
They already have changed me. I would never have killed a thing in my life if my name had never been drawn in the reaping. If I had never come to this God-forsaken arena. How can the Capitol people enjoy this? Don't they know the lives they ruin? Like Haymitch, who can't stand being sober for more than a second.
Speaking of Haymitch . . .
Why has he not helped me? Surely I have sponsors. He could send in medicine for my wound at the touch of a button. Send it down in a little silver parachute. But he hasn't. I haven't received a thing from him. Am I deluded in thinking I have sponsors? Or has my insolence and stubbornness pissed Haymitch off so badly that he will not help me even to save my life? Or are all the gifts going to Katniss?
I wouldn't doubt it. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's chosen to help her over me, but to not help me at all? To just let me die like this?
Oh yes, I know I'm dying. I'm not stupid. The fever, the pain, the inability to feed myself and the absence of clean water . . . I'll be gone in a matter of days. I don't want to go out like this. But that seems to be the situation. There's no getting out of it, and there's nothing I can do. I should have stayed out in the open where someone would have been able to kill me. That way I would not be condemned to die slowly like this.
So I suppose I will lie here, maybe sleep, but all I can really do is wait for the fever to take me to my death.
17
BOOM!
I wake with a start.
"What the—?"
The ground beneath me shakes. The sound is so loud it's reverberated around the entire arena. It was much, much louder than a canon blast. What, then, could it be?
BOOM!
This time I sit up. It's not as loud as the first one. Two more similar sounds follow, and then the arena stills. I look around.
My view from here is limited, but it'd be hard to miss the acrid-colored smoke trailing into the sky. The origin, I think, is somewhere near the lake. What could have possibly made a sound that loud? Not a canon blast. An explosion. A big enough one to shake the ground.
The only thing in the arena that could possibly explode are . . . are the mines.
Someone has tried to break into the Career's stash. Someone was actually hungry enough or stupid enough to fall for it. The illusion that the supplies are completely unprotected, which they are not. But it really sounded like all of them went off at once. Three had said that if one went off, the rest of them would be unaffected. That they were set off by pressure. He was either wrong, or I'm wrong now, or someone has intentionally blown up the Career's supplies.
The thought makes me grin. I wonder who would have done that.
There's a whole list of people I think are clever and bold enough to do it. Katniss, for one. Thresh. Maybe Rue. Hell, maybe Three himself did it and is now laughing himself silly in hiding. Kudos to whoever did it, though. Good for them. Hungry Careers are a lot easier to kill. They might as well already be dead because they so incapable of feeding themselves, and they've probably never missed a meal in their lives. I guess this is probably the only advantage the poorer Districts have. We've been hungry before. We know how to be hungry.
About five minutes later I hear the canon blast. Someone, somewhere just paid the price. I can see them, all of the Careers and Three crashing back through the woods to the lake to find their stash blown sky high. Cato would be pissed. He would turn on the first person he could assign blame to. Three.
So most likely, Three has just been killed by Cato.
But none of this is relevant to me. It certainly doesn't help me. I lay back down, my entire body feeling like it weighs three times its normal amount. Even though I've lost a lot of weight. I haven't eaten in days.
And yet I am not hungry. Not in the slightest. That's strange. I am thirsty, however. I have a pounding headache from dehydration.
It's a good thing I positioned myself so close to the stream. I barely have enough energy to kick away the sticks I've tangled myself in. Pain flares through my thigh. My leg is asleep. I drag myself to the water. Each movement is more painful than the last. Three drags and I'm there, but it's liked I've climbed Mount Everest, I'm so exhausted. I collapse next to the stream, panting and groaning from pain.
It's at least ten minutes before I can bring myself to move. To drag my arms and raise my head enough to cup water and bring it to my mouth. I can only take a few sips and then I'm done. I should drink more. Next time I'm thirsty I might not even be able to crawl the few feet from my hiding place to the stream. But I can't bring myself to drink anymore. The little water I just drank has settled unpleasantly in my stomach.
I roll over on my back. This one motion is enough to send tremors of pain through my body. I cry out softly, my hands automatically reaching to my thigh. It's also enough for the bile to rise in my throat and I barely manage to roll to my side and lose the water I just drank away from me. My eyes water and my breath comes out in short, erratic gasps. My fever is burning me from the inside out. There's no need for fire. I'm already on fire. I can't even think straight.
I can't go on like this much longer.
This is by far the worst I've ever felt in my life. Aside from the tracker jacker hallucinations, of course, but this kind of pain is in a whole other category from that. This is a sick, slow, gruesome pain that I know will only end with help or my death. But the longer this goes on the more likely it is that the latter will happen, regardless if I get the former or not.
I have to get help. But here, there is no one to help me that doesn't also want me dead.
I wonder if Katniss would help me if she found me. I hear Haymitch's words echo in my head. "It's like she owes you for something . . ."
Would my saving her earlier be enough for her to feel like she owes me? Owes me enough, perhaps, to save my life? Maybe if I wasn't in such a bad state, it would be. But how I am? She could easily pass me off as already dead. Too sick to bother. Too much of a risk to her own life to help me, having to care for someone as sick as I am when she should be worrying about herself. No, Katniss cannot help me.
My only chance, then, lies with Haymitch. But if he hasn't sent me anything yet, then he isn't likely to anytime soon. Perhaps he can't find me to send me anything. Then I remember the tracker in my arm. No, he knows where I am, but has ignored me. Maybe he doesn't know how bad of a shape I'm in.
"Help," I croak out. Can he hear me? My voice seems so quiet. "Help," I say, a little louder. It's still pretty low, but it's as loud as I can go and I don't dare try to project my voice more. Who knows who might be near? The Careers might be. And Cato knows I am not dead. He hasn't seen my face in the sky. Both Clove and Cato would kill me if they found me.
I wait, but nothing happens. No silver parachute. Nothing at all. Haymitch has abandoned me. I am on my own.
Anger flashes through me. We had a deal, him and I! How am I supposed to keep Katniss safe when I'm lying in this ditch half-dead? I don't even know if she's . . .
Oh, God, what if she is dead? That's the only good reason I can think of for Haymitch not helping me. That I've failed. I've failed, I've failed. . . .
The despair at the possibility that Katniss Everdeen no longer exists is so terrible that it takes me out of my senses. It's like I've been infused with tracker jacker venom once again. Awful, horrible thoughts and images fill my brain. How did she die? When did she die? Who killed her?
Who killed her . . .
And I find a reason to keep surviving.
Revenge.
18
I have returned to my hiding spot, and arranged my camouflage more accurately and smeared more mud and grass on my face, covering the tracks of tears. I drift in and out of sleep during these two days, my fever growing worse, the pain in my leg growing worse.
The night comes. Two more faces appear in the sky when the anthem plays. I was right when I assumed Cato killed the boy from Three. The boy from District Ten is also dead.
I have stopped thinking Katniss is dead. I tell myself I have to believe she is alive, or I will die myself. I almost have felt myself fading a few times before I come to this conclusion. Believing she is alive helps me hold on to life.
The fever has made me delusional. I have the worst nightmares that are hard to wake from. The night passes and the day comes in a haze of dreams my feverish brain produces. But I hear something during the second day from the explosion that wakes me right up.
Singing. Mockingjays, singing. Somewhere off in the distance. It's faint, but I can hear it. It gives me hope. There's only one person I know who the mockingjays would sing like that for. Katniss. My mockingjay. And I know, somehow, maybe because of this, or maybe because my heart is not as broken as it should be, I know she is still alive. And it's enough to keep me alive.
That night in the sky there are two more faces. Marvel, who I cannot help but breathe a sigh of relief over his death, and Rue.
Tiny Rue, our shadow. The child that followed Katniss and I around during training. The little girl who seemed too innocent to belong in such a violent affair as the Hunger Games. Even though I knew she had to die, her death seems so wrong. Tiny little Rue, so innocent in her Gossamer silk gown. I find myself wondering how she died. And somehow this death makes me want justice, more so than when I thought Katniss was dead. Justice, not from the person who killed her, but from the Capitol.
You know that could be interpreted as Rebellion.
The next day goes by in a blaze of heat. Nothing interesting at all happens to wake me from my feverish slumber. All I seem to want to do anymore is sleep. I'm not hungry. I'm not even thirsty anymore. I reapply more mud to my skin, and it cools me down somewhat. But it's not nearly enough. My leg now has a sharp aching pain. And it's spread. My whole thigh hurts, my groin and stomach and the top of my other leg. Sleeping is the only pain reliever I have, yet still reaches me through my dreams.
I wake up for the anthem. No deaths. I close my eyes to go back to sleep. But then I hear the trumpets blare, and I snap my eyes open, listening closely as I can through my dull, throbbing hearing. Trumpets mean an announcement from the outside world. Probably an invite to a feast, which I have no chance of going to anyway. But still, I listen.
Claudius Templesmith's voice booms down from the sky, and there's no need for me to listen closely. I can hear his voice perfectly. He congratulates the six of us who remain. Six people. Valuable information, information I have been almost literally dying for. But he has more to say, and it's not to invite us to a feast.
There's been a rule change to the Games. A rule change? That in and of itself is confusing, because there really are no rules once you're in the arena. But what he says next explains everything, though it takes two tries for it to sink in.
If both tributes from the same District survive to the last two, then they will both be declared winners.
Both Katniss and I can survive. Both of us can live. Both of us can become Victors. We can both go back to Twelve.
Katniss's name escapes from my lips in a very hoarse voice before I can stop myself.
A/n: FINALLY, I have finished Part II.
What did you guys think of the Valley Song? I had to do some research on that, lol. I typed in the Valley Song in Bing and came up with Jane's Addiction, haha . . . so I had to add the american folk song to the end of it . . . the song I picked is 'Down in the Valley,' which seems the most likely option (there was also 'Red River Valley' but that didn't fit). And most likely most of you have heard that song, at least, if you've ever had a music class in your life, I'm sure it rings a bell. Anyway, the idea popped into my head two chapters ago and I thought it was so lovely and very Peeta that I had to put it in somewhere. I hope you liked it!
As always, thank you so much for continuing to read this story, and please please please leave a review! ~gfg