When the blast erupts, the only things protecting me from injury, ironically, are the manacles I was forced into. They were attached so tightly to me wrists and ankles that when the room is hit by god-knows-what, I don't move at all.

At first, dust is all I can see. Dust from the shattered walls, the shattered ceiling, the shattered floor... it's everywhere, so thick that for the first few moments following the invasion, I can't see anything at all - I can only hear. Screams and gunshots are the first things I can register - gunshots that are fired off probably by Snow's guards, sent off without any aim or idea where they may be going. Gunshots that are fired solely out of desperation.

The other sound, the biggest one, is like a helicopter flying right over your head. It blasts from over me and I crane my head to try to see what it is, to see if it's coming to save us, but as soon as I open my eyes they're filled with dust and I have to squeeze them shut again.

Standing here tied to manacles in a destroyed room, being shoved from side to side by people, wind, and debris, I experience the most hopeless feeling. There's only one explanation for this and it must be that we're finally, after all those months, being rescued, but at first all I can register is the fact that while there are raging fights going on around me, I'm strapped to a wall with nothing to do but wait or be killed.

The screams and sounds rage on and I try to decipher a voice in the crowd, try to hear for anyone I recognize, but it's too loud and I can't concentrate.

Time goes by impossibly slow during a jail-break. It seems as though everything in the world is happening at once, in one single moment that lasts forever. But before I even know what's happening, a body is pressed up against me and yelling briskly in my ear, in a deep, familliar voice.

"Hold still! Don't move until I tell you to!"

It must be Gale. I can tell by his voice and the way his rough hands feel against my wrists as he takes apart the straps holding me to this nightmare. They move quickly and desperately but I can feel myself becoming closer to freedom with every second that passes by us.

The air is still filled with dust and ash but I start to see what is happening around me. There are bodies laying all over the floor and what looks like flames somewhere in the distance. Most of the building appears to have been destroyed and I wonder how I could've survived this without a scratch.

My heart is beating the speed of a race horse. There is so much around me - so much noise and chaos and death - that I suddenly feel as though I won't be able to stand much longer. Gale has moved on to my ankles and I slump forward onto his shoulders, dark spots dancing across my vision as I start to feel closer and closer to being out of here.

One more ankle. My eyes flutter shut but I force them back open. I try to keep myself conscious but it's as though my brain has caught up to my body and all I can feel is the remaining pain from who-knows-what.

In a sort of daze, I look up past Gale's shoulder and see a dark shape coming towards us. Through the dust it becomes bigger and bigger as it comes closer and I feel my eyes open fully and my heart begin to pound in my head.

"Gale," I say, but my voice sounds hollow and I don't think he can hear me. "Gale."

The shape is comes closer. Now I can see that it's a person - a man - running towards us with some sort of long weapon raised above his head.

I scream Gale's name and I think this time he might've heard me because he starts to yell about my last ankle strap, how it won't come undone and how he's trying everything he can.

"Gale! NO!" I force his head around and he sees what I've been trying to tell him; the person is so much closer now and we only have a few seconds before we'll both be killed if we don't move.

I feel so trapped and so doomed that in that moment I wonder what it will feel like to die. Gale is frantically pulled at my ankle manacle and calling for help, but I know that there's nothing we can do anymore. I pray that he moves and just lets me die, instead of dying with me.

But a moment later I am suddenly pulled out of the way of the man and I hear his screams getting farther and farther away, coming from below me. My ankle feels as though it is on fire, like it's been ripped out of it's socket, but looking down, I see the building moving farther and farther away.

I'm lifted into the hovercraft and put onto a stretcher immediately, my body shaking and my eyes darting from place to place. I see Haymitch looming above me and there's so much that I want to say.

I think of all the ways that I can thank him and all of the things that I can ask him, but instead, the only thing that comes out of my mouth is, "Peeta."

I wonder how I hadn't thought of him before, in the midst of everything that was happening. I was so caught up in my own surroundings that for those short seconds I didn't wonder where he was, I just let myself believe that he would be okay instead of letting myself think too much, worry too much.

But now that I'm freed, Peeta is the only thing that is in my head. I need to see his face again, to hear him breathing, and to know that when I was saved, so was he.

So when another stretcher is pulled up beside mine and I hear my name is his familiar, perfect voice, all I can do is reach for his hand and hold on tighter than I've ever held someone before. And hope, with everything in me, that I never have to let go again.