Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. I will never own it.

Sass says: I'm going to go ahead and tell you guys to PREPARE yourself for what's in this chapter. Thank you everyone who's followed, favorited, or, especially, reviewed this!

I don't recognize myself anymore. In District Eleven, when someone died, everyone tried to make sure that the family was alright. No one ever had a lot, but people would try to make sure that the family had at least enough to eat the day of the funeral. No one ever wants for people to die. To wish so is terrible. I keep telling myself that.

But, when I hear the cannon go off and I see Thatcher in front of me freeze and look up, I'm so happy. The more people that die, the likelier that one of us is going to go home and live. I think about the look on everyone's faces; how happy everyone will be that, for a year, District Eleven won't starve as much as it usually does.

I'm too busy being happy that, when it finally occurs to me that the cannon could mean that either Adit or Wedge is gone, my step falters. I haven't thought about them in a day or so. It's been three days since we've last seen them. This is the first cannon that's gone off since Hadrian. I sincerely hope that they're both okay. I remember the hope I had - if it's not one of us, I want it to be one of them.

Thatcher is a lot better at some stuff than I am. Apparently, tracking people isn't one of them. It's the end of day five, and neither of us have seen anyone since Twelve left. We climb the trees - admittedly, it's a lot harder for me than it is for Thatcher - and make ourselves a sort of bed in the high branches.

"Go to sleep, Rosey." He tells me.

But, I'm wide awake. Until I know for sure who it was that died, I won't be able to sleep. Instead, I swallow the lump in my throat. "No, you. I'll keep first watch and wake you up in three hours, okay?"

He peers around at me from his side with a frown. "You'll wake me up when you start to feel tired, deal?"

I smile. "Deal."

He turns away from me, but I'm pretty sure that he's having trouble sleeping. Whatever happened to him before he found me, he won't talk about it. When I was younger, there weren't a lot of things that would bother me. Even with how horrible District Eleven was, there were only a couple of things I was afraid of. Still, I wouldn't really get nightmares. I'd be afraid for my brother - for the lashes that he brought upon himself and all the trouble that Rolex managed to get himself into, too, but I was never afraid of going to sleep. I never woke up screaming and had to have my parents or my siblings comfort me.

Etta was the one that had nightmares, and, even then, they were only ever once in a while and usually brought on by the Games. By the time I was old enough to participate in it, I feared it, but not as much. I'd already gone through several years of being scared that my brother or my sister would be reaped that it didn't really occur to me to be afraid for my own life. As the years went by, there would be no one I knew personally who was ever called in. Since Chaff, people had kind of resigned themselves to not expect a winner.

We get nightmares now. I know that Thatcher tries to play it off when we're awake, but I know that he gets them. He sort of stills when he's going through them. He stills and when he wakes up, he reaches out for me. The only time he calms down is when he's certain that I'm there. I reach behind me and grab a hold of his hand, clearing my throat.

"Go to sleep, rest upon your bed; May this night bring dreams to your head. Hear my voice, never let it die, keep this lullaby. Soon the sun shall set on, long it will be till dawn, ever from you will I be gone. Carry on, rid this world of fear, now the time is near, peace will soon reign here…"

His grip on my hand, while extremely tight at the beginning, slowly begins to loosen throughout the small verse. He's not the only one who gets nightmares. And, even though he is not a good singer, his voice wouldn't help me sleep. When I blacked out over the pain of them resetting my arm, I hoped that I wouldn't get them. Every time that we slow down enough for me to catch up on sleep, I see Hadrian.

They never start out bad.

I'm not sure if three hours have passed or not. I hum the melody over and over under my breath until they don't even sound like real words anymore. The Anthem comes on, and I know who it is that died. Julian from District Seven. Finally, it's getting so hard for me to keep my eyes open that I turn around and softly shake Thatcher awake. Enough for him to realize what's going on. When he nods at me, I smile and drift off to sleep myself.

My mom is always braiding my hair before we head off to work. The times she didn't, my hair could get stuck in the branches or leaves would come home with me. She'd tell me to behave myself, to pay attention to what I'm doing instead of letting my attention drift to the birds. She tells me she's done and hugs me from behind. When I turn around to hug her back, I scream instead because Hadrian is there with a knife. She stabs it into my shoulder and pins me down. I can't fight back, and I'm still screaming for anyone.

The only person who answers is Etta. When my sister runs into the room, Hadrian turns on her. She doesn't stand a chance. Hadrian's knife digs into her heart. I wail and dive for her, not caring that there is a knife in my shoulder. Instead, my arms wrap around her middle as I shove her on the floor. It's too late to save Etta, but it makes me feel better tackling her to the ground. She turns towards me quickly, digging her elbow into my neck. I choke and tumble away from her rolling away.

Hadrian whirls away from me, getting to her feet faster than I can. She opens her mouth and tells me something, but all I hear is a...

boom.

When I wake up, Thatcher's yanking me up on my feet and pulling me onto other branches. I'm still half-asleep, but I follow after him clumsily. My cheek is hurting so bad that I think - I think he might have slapped me.

"We have to run!" He's screaming. We're on a full out sprint. The branches in my hands feel hot and rough on my calluses' as we swing around, "Didn't you hear it?"

"Hear what?" I scream back at him.

"The boom!" He pulls me up, and we're running again.

I don't think my brother understands that it hurts me to run. That every step is like a needle is being stuck into my side. I don't even know what we're running from. If it's another tribute, couldn't we handle them? Even Jiang and Garnet, I'm sure we could give them a run for their money.

I look over my shoulder, and I wish we wouldn't have. I don't think I heard the boom that my brother did, but I can see. I can see the giant column of smoke that's making it's way towards us.

Thatcher continuously pulls on my arm, urging me to go faster. The wind starts kicking up. I don't know what I expected. It's been a while since someone died, so the Gamemakers had to make it interesting for everyone again.

Rocks started falling on us. Some of them were small - like the little pebbles that were on the dirt roads on our streets. Small, but they still burned when they hit our flesh. I didn't stop and scream, but that didn't stop me from wincing and calling out when they pelted into us. Those were still easier to manage than the bigger rocks - much bigger. The bigger rocks were the rocks that were usually still on fire.

That wasn't even the worst part.

A rock hits Thatcher as we find a wide tree, knocking him from the branch and propelling him forward and down. He catches himself far more gracefully than I ever would have been able to. He still looks banged up. When I lower myself from the branches, he's already gotten cover. Still, however much the burning rocks hurt on our skin, the moment we got under a wide enough tree, a lot of the damage the rocks were doing weren't that bad. The worst part was feeling like we couldn't breathe.

When we had a chance to look at each other, I was shocked by the amount of...ash all over my brother. It was in his hair, on his shoulders, on his hands. I didn't even realize that it was on me until I looked down. I cross my eyes trying to look at my eyelashes. The normally dark lashes looked...gray.

I pull the neckline of my suit away from my chest and rub at my eyes with the inside - it's not covered with the same amount of ash that the outside is. I swallow the lump in my throat in time to start coughing. I can still breathe, and I can tell that Thatcher can, too, but it's uncomfortable. Our eyes are watering from how dry everything is.

That's when I hear a scream, and when I feel how hot it's becoming.

"Come on!" Thatcher takes off running, and I try to run clumsily after him.

For a moment, I think that we're running away from the danger. I think that we're going to be okay for a while because it almost seems to cool down.

"Do you even know where we're going?" I scream after him.

"Don't you know who that is?" The look he gives me is dark and jaded, and I have no problem knowing who that scream belongs to.

We have trouble getting to them, particularly because of how hot everything gets. I have a little trouble understanding just why until I see it. The ash really should have been some indication, but it didn't really hit me until that moment.

There is lava, everywhere. The trees are ablaze. It's moving a lot quicker than I would have expected for it to, right down to us. It's already reached where we are in a lot of places, but we keep running. There's a smell of meat cooking.

When we see them, Thatcher's hand in mine is the only thing that's keeping me from collapsing. Adit is trying to pull Wedge away, but he's hurt, and it's obvious that he's having difficulty. Wedge is screaming and howling. Thatcher pulls Adit away from Wedge and tries to help him. His own legs are badly burned, but not nearly as much as hers. I grab on to Wedge's arms and run after them. She's not nearly as heavy as she should be.

I hate the Capitol.

I hate it more when I can't feel the heat on me anymore. Instead, I feel a slightly cool breeze and, I think, I smell salt. I can hear Adit crying, and Wedge's screams are softer. More often than not, they're gargles. When I feel the water on my feet, I turn around. It's something I hadn't seen from the top of the volcano. We're on a sort of beach. There's no sand - the grass just gives away to a large body of water.

"Rosey! Rosey." She cries. I fall to my knees and pull her into my arms, but I don't trust myself to speak without breaking down. As it is, I can feel tears streaming down my face. I rest my head against the crown of her head as she clings to my arms. I see Thatcher and Adit out of the corner of my eyes, but I'm too busy being focused on the little girl in front of me.

I here some beeping, and a small container drops near the boys.

"W-would it make you feel better?" My voice shakes when I talk to her. She's calmed down a little from her screaming, but she's still weeping and hiccuping. "I-If I sing you a son-song?"

She can't talk - or doesn't trust herself to talk- but I feel the short, weakening bobble of her head and think of one.

"Day to night, dark to light, falls the sands of time. Let the years like the gears of a clock unwind. In your mind walk through time, back to better days. Memories, like a dream, wash tears away. Like a star in the sky, darkness can't reach you. Light the night, joy is light, till the new dawn. Cast away your old face, let go your spite. With this mask, I'll ask to borrow your light."

My voice wavers a lot. I try to play it off, but it's definitely not the best one I've ever done. Still, my chest hurts and Wedge only bawls harder. The burns are so bad on her leg that several parts of her skin have turned an ugly shade of black. She's blistering badly, and I don't want to think the some of the white that I see is her bone.

"Rosey...Rosey, please." She sobs. Her hands are shakily reaching into one of the bags. She pulls out a knife and presses it into my hands. "Please, it hurts. It hurts so much. Please."

I grab the knife and swallow the lump in my throat. As quickly and as hard as I can, I bring it down in her chest. She lets out a shaky wheeze, but doesn't stop me. She doesn't move in my arms, and I find myself crying harder than she was.

I hear another cannon sound.

There's six of us left.

AN: I'm so sorry. How upset are some of you? Please, let me know what you think of everything that's happening. And, remember! Please, please, please remember that just because Rosey and Thatcher think they know everyone's who is dead, they might be wrong. If you don't recognize the two 'songs' Rosey sings, look up "Zelda's Lullaby" and "Song of Healing" by Adrisaurus. I got the inspiration from her!