My nightmare leaves me sweaty and shaking, I breath deeply but I still feel as though I'm suffocating. After finally calming myself enough to catch my breath I move up the bed and press my back to the headboard. Moonlight streams through the windows that stretch the length of the room, it illuminates the furniture and makes everything seem sinister. I hold my head in my hands and drag my fingers through my tangled hair, I can't go back to sleep, the thought alone terrifies me.
I contemplate turning on the lights but decide against it, it's highly unlikely but there's still a chance Haymitch is coherent enough to notice. I visit each room again, turns out I picked the smallest bedroom to sleep in. I give up after I find a third sitting room because the wastefulness was making me angry, there's twelve of these things sitting here empty and families of eight living in single story, two room shacks. The contents of my pantry could probably feed a family for a year and I have enough fire wood to keep every household in the seam warm.
I realise I need to do something, my whole life has been about doing something and I've become accustomed to being busy. I went in to the games with the intention of becoming victor and I did it. Now, I need to feel like I have a purpose again and there's only one place I've ever felt like that.
The old shack was always so much more than that to me. When my father bought it secretly, so I had somewhere other than the woods to train I spent every spare second I had here. When I needed somewhere to hide treasonous documents, I had it. When Darius and I needed a meeting place, there it was. When I needed somewhere to think and now when I need to feel safe, here it is.
I take comfort in the smell, old paper and the lemon drops Darius and I shared every day. I enjoy the groan of the floorboards as they protest to my weight and I relish the sense of belonging. When I notice the amber glow of the desk lamp, seeping from the door to my records room I skip across the room and throw myself at my best friend. I realise too late, it's not Darius.
Of all the people who could have found us out I never could've imagined it would be Gale Hawthorne and even though he has the power to have me and almost everyone I hold dear executed I'm more worried about the file he's reading and how I failed to prevent his fathers death
"What the hell are you doing here?" I growl
"Madge" he gasps
"What are you doing here?!"
"I- Madge" his brows furrow but he's smiling more than he's frowning
"Answer!"
"Madge! You're knee is- an inch from making me infertile" he forces out uncomfortably
"Oh!" I gasp and jump to my feet "now answer me!" I demand "why the hell are you in here?!"
"I wanted to finish reading this file"
"How did you get in here?"
"The door isn't locked"
"You know what I'm talking about"
"While you were ... away ... Darius introduced us to ... all this"
"Us?" I hiss
"Me and Katniss"
"So he's just blabbing to anyone?!" I'm away for a matter of weeks and Darius jeopardises a lifetime of work
"You volunteered for Prim. You think Katniss was just gonna drop that?"
"That's not the point! Hundreds of lives and years of work are at stake here and he's just telling anyone who asks"
"We deserve a chance to fight back too Madge!" he speaks quietly but it feels like he yelled. That's what all this is really, a chance, who am I to deny him that?
"When did you start calling you Madge anyway?" I frown and cross my arms over my chest defensively, I don't like him being here
"When I got over my prejudice towards you" he sighs and rubs his face "Madge I have to thank you"
"What?"
"You've done a lot for my family, for my family and the district, for all the districts"
"It's never enough" I counter automatically, nothing anyone does is ever enough
"It's more than enough Madge, you've given up your life for this"
"Thanks for reminding me" I murmur and wrap my arms around myself more tightly
"I didn't mean- I don't know what I mean- just ... Thank you"
"You shouldn't be thanking me Gale" I mutter, eyeing the file he was reading when I found him
"Madge you took Rory's name of the tessera census. That's huge!"
"It's still not enough"
"It's more than anyone should ever ask Madge"
"No one asked!"
"Exactly, you do it because you're a good, fair person"
"Okay" I interrupt awkwardly "who are you and what have you done with Gale Hawthorne?" he half smiles but pins me with an intense stare
"I haven't changed Madge, I've just opened my eyes"
"Yeah you're definitely not Gale"
"I'm sorry I was such a jerk to you" I shrug "you didn't deserve it"
"I understood"
"No. Orion was right" and then it's like I've physically been hit, my breath catches and my chest tightens painfully. My head throbs and I can feel my pulse at my temples "Madge are you alright?" Gale's voice is distorted but it pulls me out of it long enough for me to realise I'm going to fall apart
"I have to go"
"Madge?"
"I have- I have to g-go"
"Madge are you? Madge!" I'm aware of the fact I'm falling I just can't do anything about it, I still can't breath and my vision is blurring "Madge!" the tone of Gale's voice makes me believe that I'm looking a little worse for wear, my thoughts are relatively coherent but I can't make myself answer him.
I scramble to my feet clumsily and throw myself in to the street before taking off in the general direction of Victors Village. The air is biting but I push myself to move faster, take longer strides, outrun anyone following me. I'm not sure if there is actually someone calling my name or if it's my mind playing tricks on me. My muscles burn and protest at the strain but it's easily ignored, my chest clenches tighter and tighter so I hold my breath and force myself on. I nearly take the front door off it's hinges and run blindly through the house until I fall to my knees in the kitchen. My eyes fall on the pantry for the first time and my stomach rolls at the amount of unwanted food. At the back of it is a shelf housing boxes of wine and various bottles of liquor. I've only ever tasted champagne and while crisp and refreshing I didn't like the taste enough to reach for a second flute. However something pulls me toward the shelf and I take down a bottle of whiskey. The first swig burns and I spit most of it in to the sink unable to understand how Haymitch drinks the stuff with his morning coffee. The second mouthful I'm prepared for and it's followed quickly by a third and a fourth until my mouth is numb and I'm glugging it down like cool water on a hot day. When the bottle is half empty I know I should stop because it takes three tries for me to climb on to one of the kitchen island stools but I don't. I finish the bottle in just a few sips and fall face down on the counter top.
Something tugs at my arm, it takes a minute for the numbness to recede but then there's crunching and pure agony. When I turn my head I find my hand in the mouth of the lion mutt, it's gnawing on my fingers and I can't pull my arm away. As the creature begins to maul more of my arm something digs into my calf and I look down in time to see the boy from 2 jabbing a dagger back into my leg. Then there's slicing and burning and the boy from 1 is carving shapes into my arm with a small blade and I still can't move. The girl from 3 is the next to join and she simply starts snapping the fingers I have left. The pair from 4 use scorched blades to burn my legs and as my skin melts I scream, only nothing comes out. When a dark figure appears above me I'm ready to die rather than endure any more pain, then I see who it is
"Hello Goldilocks" he grins but it's not his carefree smile, it's something else. Instead of helping me fight back like I'd hoped, he straddles my hips, pinning my useless body to the ground. I forget about my limbs being torn to shreds the moment I see him pull a knife from his belt and the face I've come to trust so completely, morph in to something sinister and evil.
He digs the knife into my abdomen and blood bubbles out of the wound. I don't feel it until he smiles and wriggles the handle of the knife around. It takes my breath away when he draws out the knife and it feels like fire when he plunges it back in to my chest.