Chapter 35: Eye of the Storm

Katniss' POV

"Katniss! Katniss help me!"

My eyes fly open. I'm lying on the forest floor, the sun's rays are beating down on me, practically blinding me. I sit upright. I'm still in the arena. My heart is pounding loudly, I don't know where that scream came from and it sounds so familiar.

"Katniss where are you?!"

The scream echoes through the forest. It's like the call of a banshee. I turn in desperation, trying to find who's calling me.

"KATNISS!"

It's Rue's voice. The same distressed voice I heard when she was caught in that net yesterday. I'm running as fast as my legs can carry me towards the sounds of distress. My heart is pounding in my ears. I'm sweating in my jacket so hard I just might pass out from dehydration. I'm pushing my body in desperation to find my ally. I follow the echo.

"KATNISS!"

"Rue!" I yell out. "Rue where are you?"

"Please, Katniss...!" I hear the fear in her voice, it turns my blood ice cold.

I reach a clearing with an unlit fire. I see Rue tangled in a net. She's screaming desperately, struggling to get free. I can practically see the tears in her eyes. I see a dark figure looming over Rue. She's trapped in the same net like before, only instead of the boy from District 1 standing over her, it's someone else... something else.

This...thing has blank, white eyes, soulless eyes. He's a lot taller than any human I've ever seen. He's bald with large black tattoos on his scalp and long clam like fingers. He clutches a long sword that seems to glow. When he sees me, he grins, showing his row of shark-like teeth. This thing is not human...it might be those aliens the other guys are trying to fight. whatever their called Magadorins or something. They are numbers guys' problem, not ours. This is exactly why I don't want to be part of their war.

I bravely face the creature head on, but when our eyes meet, I see a lot more than I bargained for.

I see Prim's face, beaten and bloodied, her face is pale, contrasting the wounds on her face. She's laying on the ground, clutching her chest which is also soaked in blood. Her blue eyes crying out to me. A trickle of blood comes from her mouth as she tries to tell me something before she's swallowed into darkness.

I then see my mother, she lies very still, her neck broken and blood pooling under her head, soaking her blonde hair, dying it red. Her eyes glazed over, much like they were when our father died, only more lifeless and clearly having seen unspeakable horrors before dissolving into nothing.

Gale runs towards me, he's bleeding from the mouth and his face is black and blue.

"Run Katniss!" he screams. He grabs onto me and shakes me so hard I think I might get a concussion. "Run for your life!"

"GALE!" I begin before he vanishes before my very eyes.

"RUN!" I see Peeta come from behind me and practically shove me forward.

"Katniss go, what are you doing?! Go!" he insists. This is the same vision as before, just after the tracker jacker attack. His pale, blue eyes almost hypnotize me until I see them start to cry blood.

I somehow manage to tear my eyes away from this creature. I refocus and see that I'm not armed at all. I can't protect Rue. The creature raises his sword above his bald head that's glistening in the sunlight and brings it down on the struggling figure of Rue.

"NO!" I scream out. I try to run towards them but my feet aren't working. I can feel tears running down my face.

"Katniss...Katniss wake up."

I jolt awake in my sleeping bag. It takes me a full minute for me to realize where I am again. I suddenly see brown eyes staring at me and I practically fall from the tree in fright. Fortunately, my belt keeps me in place. I blink a few times realizing it's Rue.

"Are you okay?" Rue asks. "You were screaming in your sleep."

I wipe the sweat from my face and take a few seconds to catch my breath. I look down to see the other aliens on the ground already, staring up at me. I suddenly become very self-conscious realizing my nightmares must have caused quite the scene. I flush a shade of red.

"Would you like some water?" Rue asks, she offers a bottle.

I take a long sip to settle my dry throat and take a few more deep breaths to calm the adrenaline racing through my blood. I find Rue's gentle voice and soft brown eyes slightly comforting. She and I shared the sleeping bag last night and she curled up to me, happy and content. I could tell at one point that she shook from fear. Probably because she almost died yesterday, but the girl... Marina had healed her somehow. They used these weird abilities...legacies I think they called them, gifts from their home planet that made them much more powerful. They explained to Rue and me the war that has been raging on since they were kids and how President Snow was working with this invasion overlord named Ra to rig the games and attempt to get rid of them. I was told that there are eleven of them in total, plus their other freakish alien friend from the enemy species and some human allies as well. It was a lot to take in and made my head ache. I can't say I trust them at all, but they haven't used their powers to kill us yet and one of them saved Rue and fixed my ear, so they might be worth sticking close too. They might be our safest bet out of the arena. They told me of their plan to literally destroy the arena and bring the fight to the Capitol.

Rue and I agreed that we only wanted to escape the arena and find a way home. We didn't want any part of their war, we just wanted to see our families again.

"Hey Katniss," the blonde boy, John calls up to me. All the other aliens and tributes are already up and eating on the ground. "Are you okay?"

I turn red again. I basically had a breakdown in front of aliens. I've never felt so embarrassed.

"Yeah...uh... nightmares..."

John nods and gives me a bit of a knowing smile as if he knows exactly what I'm talking about. "Well, there's food down for you."

"Thanks..." I say. I roll up my sleeping bag and pack my pack as Rue hops from one tree to the next with ease.

"You're pretty fast," John says impressed.

"I had to learn how since I grew up in the Agriculture district. We had to learn to pick fruit quickly and efficiently," Rue says. "Since I'm small, I'm able to reach higher than most people."

"Would you like to be our lookout?" John asks as I climb down from the tree. I see the healing girl, Marina, hand me an apple, some dried beef, and a sandwich. I sit under the tree next to Dani, the girl from District 4 and eat in silence, happy to have some fresh food in my system.

"Sure," Rue says. "And We can signal using my tune, watch..."

Rue then hums her four-note tune, the one that told her she was safe into the trees. Almost immediately the Mockingjays pick up on it tune and the soft melody echoes through the trees.

"That's the tune we used back at home to signal the work day is over," Rue explains. "The Mockingjays are good signals."

"Yes they are," Marina says. "Believe it or not, it was a Mockingjay that led me to you guys."

I snort at this, knowing birds are not smart enough to do things like that, but Rue is actually curious. She clambers down from some of the higher branches and perches herself on a low hanging one to listen better.

"Really? How?" she asks.

"One of my abilities is I'm able to talk to animals," John explains. " I talked to a Mockingjay and asked him to go out in search of the other Garde... that is our other allies. He must've thought you guys were allies and came in search of us."

"Well we are your allies," Rue says with a small smile.

"Until we can get out of the arena," I add quickly.

"Right," John nods. I can actually see the disappointment on his face after I say this. What does he expect? Neither Rue nor I have freakish alien powers and this isn't our war in the first place. Our families are more important than anything else. I do have to admit to myself, I'm actually happy that we might actually get out of this arena alive. These guys may be weird, but they can help us escape.

I take another bite of the sandwich, so happy to have my stomach full again. I never thought that these guys would be hunters at all, but they might be good thieves.

"Where'd you get all this stuff?" I ask quietly, looking at the ground.

"I stole from the Careers before their food pile blew up," Marina explains, confirming my suspicions.

"I was the one who set the charges around the food, but I'm not sure who triggered it," the black haired guy who looks a lot more like an alien than the others said.

I swallow some of my sandwich before I answer. "That was actually me," I say.

"You blew up the food supply?!" he gasps. "How?"

I take one of my arrows out of my quiver and load into my bow.

"There was a bag of apples hanging among the supplies. I used my arrows to tear the bag and..."

"When they landed, they exploded on the mines, brilliant!" he says. He actually smiles at me, looking impressed.

"Thanks," I mumble. "I'm pretty good with a bow."

"Who's idea was that anyways?" Dani says. "Didn't they know it would run the risk of blowing up and destroying all the food?"

"It was Cato's idea," the guy says. "I tried to reason with him, but the guy's so sociopathic that you can't reason with him at all."

"He's the self-proclaimed leader of the group," Dani adds. "I hope someone kills him soon."

"He wouldn't join us that's for sure," John says. "But he's the least of our problems."

"So where do we go from here?" I ask.

"We need to track down the others," John explains. "And once we're all together, we need to find our way to the edge of the arena. Once we're there, Three, one of our guys, will control the electric current, creating a weak spot that Adam, here, will create an earthquake that will crack the arena open like an egg."

"If One is on the other side, she can create earthquakes as well, with the two opposing forces, we'll be able to destroy the arena," Adam finishes.

"From there we take the war to Ra," John says.

"And save Ella," Marina adds.

I have no idea who this Ella is, but I assume she's another one of them. Maybe she was captured in the war. I have to admit that I'm actually impressed on how well thought out their plan is, they are going to use their weird strengths to open the arena and set the captives free. From there, it will just be me and Rue. My heart starts pounding when I think about what we're going to do once we're free. We have no way of getting back to our districts and if there's going to be a war... What are we going to do to survive or... anything? What about my mother and Prim? Gale even? They definitely couldn't survive and intergalactic war. I know we have to get going soon, I have to protect my family.

"It's weird Christina hasn't gotten in touch with me yet," John says.

"How can she get in touch with you?" Rue asks.

"She's telepathic, meaning she can project her thoughts into other people's minds, she can also hear other people's thoughts."

I shudder slightly, I'm wondering how violating that would be. I hope we don't run into Christina before she has a chance to read my thoughts.

"We should probably get going," Marina says, picking the bag of food up.

"Where?" I ask in a flat tone.

"Towards the edge of the arena," John says. "Hopefully Christina will get in touch with me soon and tell the others to do the same."

"I wouldn't put all my plans on hope," I mutter.

"Hope is what keeps us going Katniss," John says sternly. "If you've lost hope, you've lost everything." He turns up to Rue. "Rue, can you climb up and see if you can see at least part of the arena?"

"Sure," Rue chirps. She immediately begins climbing upwards into the higher branches, I watch her go so quickly, like a little squirrel.

Once Rue is practically at the top of the tree, she looks out.

"I can see the Cornucopia from here. It's about two miles east. There's nothing but woods south of here. It's hard to tell where the..."

The ground begins to shake. We're all caught off guard, so much so that it takes a lot of effort not to fall over. I grab onto the tree trunk to prevent myself from falling over.

Very soon it stops.

"What the hell was that?" Dani asks.

"Adam?" Marina asks.

"It wasn't me,"

"What..."

The ground shakes more violently this time, it's so hard it's as if we're in a rocking boat on a stormy sea or the arena is like a snowglobe and we've just been shaken.

"KATNISS!" I hear above me. My heart drops and I look up in a panic. The earthquake has rocked Rue right out of the tree. She's clinging onto a weak branch for dear life.

"Oh my god!" I say. I scramble to the tree, planning to climb it and help her, but yet another tremor knocks me off balance and onto the ground, away from the tree and Rue.

"HELP!" Rue's screams echo in my ears as I'm sure these are the last sounds I will hear from her. Tears burn in my eyes, I was too late to save her...

Except I don't hear the thud of a body hitting the ground. I look up to see John has his hands up and Rue is floating in mid-air. She has tears streaming down her face from the fear of almost plummeting to her death. Slowly, John brings his hands down, guiding Rue until she's safely on the ground. I immediately get up and hug her. My heart is pounding in my ears and I burst into tears, clinging to Rue. This is the second time I almost lost her in two days. I was going to protect her and I can't even do that.

There's a loud boom overhead that tears me violently back to reality. It sounds like a mine shaft explosion, like the one that took my father from this world. I cling to Rue tightly.

"It's Christina," John hollers, as the world seems to change around us.

A cold chill runs up my spine. The wind has picked up significantly and the bright day has now become dark and gray like it's about to rain. Thunder rumbles in the distance, I'm so confused, my head is spinning and throbbing as the wind whips my braid around. Rue clings to me in fear as she looks up at the graying sky.

"She says the invasion has begun."

My heart is threatening to break my rib cage. I think of my sister, helpless in District 12 as these alien freaks attack Earth, hell-bent on full destruction.

"Where is she?" Marina screams.

"She can't say right now, but she says she has a guy named Peeta and Thresh with her!"

My heart suddenly stops when I hear the name Peeta. So he is alive, and he's with some of the others. I feel some relief flood my body, knowing he's okay.

"She says he's wounded and needs us. She wants me to signal all of us together."

"What about this storm do think it's..." Adam stops.

"SIX!" John screams. "Six is signaling us. She must be in trouble."

I look up at the storm as ice cold rain comes pouring down onto us. Lightning flashes around us, practically blinding us in the process. I'm thinking that this must be something the Gamemakers are putting together, but it's too strong and from the way, the others are talking indicates one of their friends is doing it.

"We need to follow to the center of the storm!" John calls out. Rue still clings to me and she's so small that I'm afraid she might blow away in the wind. It's becoming almost as dark as night and the icy cold rain slithers down my neck and soaks me to the bone.

John's hands suddenly light up with a strong blue light.

"Follow me, and hurry!" he yells out to us.

Marina and Adam immediately begin rushing towards wherever the storm is coming from. I'm frozen in place as the rain makes it harder and harder to see. I don't want to go towards whatever is happening, I'd rather find shelter for me and Rue. I suddenly feel a strong arm around my wrist.

"Come on!" Dani screams. "This might be our only chance to escape."

I want to squirm out of Dani's grip, but she's strong. She begins dragging me along, Rue holding onto my other hand tightly. We're following the fading blue light of John's hands as we head towards the eye of this storm. I squint desperately, trying to make out anything. The rain makes everything slippery, I do my best to make sure I don't slide away. Rue slips a few times before she gains her footing, she uses me as support. We weave through the trees, over roots and around puddles, my heart throbbing in my throat. This entire time, Dani keeps a firm grip on me, guiding me forward as if I'm blind. I feel so helpless, but I do my best to remain unafraid.

We eventually see the bright blue light of John's hands have stopped. Dani pulls the two of us forward until we're in the clearing of the Cornucopia. It's here that I take in the scene.

The hovercraft that is supposed to be collecting bodies is being thrown around in this massive storm, quite often being struck by lightning. The clouds above us are so dark, that at one point it resembles a face, like an old man with a beard. The wind is whipping so hard I'm almost knocked over. I take shelter behind a tree and actually end up dragging Dani with me as she seems mesmerized by the storm. Behind the tree, there's less wind and rain and I'm able to actually see what's happening more clearly. In the center of the storm is a girl with long black hair which is whipping in the winds she is creating, there are several other figures around the golden Cornucopia. I can only pick out John amongst them with his glowing hands. The lake has also overflowed significantly most likely from the rain, flooding the field, but not around where John and the girl controlling all this stands.

"John! John!" I hear behind me. I turn to see three figures coming towards us. My heart drops and I fumble for my bow, ready to attack until I hear Rue call out.

"Thresh!"

Sure enough, a young girl, about my age with brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail comes walking towards us, followed by a large dark skinned boy who towers over everyone. The boy seems to be carrying someone, I realize who it is.

"Peeta!" I blurt out.

The patch of blonde hair looks up and I see those blue eyes. I can't help but smile. I do have mixed feelings about seeing him. He was first distant from me, then we allied together, then he wanted to train alone, then he proclaimed his love for me, then he allied with the Careers and then he saved me after the Tracker Jacker attack... I think I see a smile on his face as Thresh approaches us.

"Hey sweetheart," Peeta says weakly as Thresh places him against a tree. Rue rushes over and hugs Thresh like a sister would hug a brother. I can't tell if he's smiling or not, but he pats Rue's head affectionately. I turn my attention back to Peeta. I'm shocked about how bad he looks, still a bit dirty, thin and apparently wounded. I immediately lean down next to him. "Long time no see."

"Now's not the time for joking," I say to him. He looks up at me with an odd half-smile. I'm so taken aback by his blue eyes that I lean in in concern. He then pulls me in and kisses me.

I want to push back but his lips are so soft that I don't to... My heart hits overdrive in confusion as a gust of wind interrupts us. I'm speechless and I have an urge to slap him, now was definitely not the time to play the "star-crossed lovers" angle that Haymitch talked about.

Someone comes up behind me and I realize it's Marina. The girl with the ponytail seems pleased to see her. I'm shoved out of the way as Marina leans into Peeta.

"Where are you hurt?

"My leg..." Peeta grimaces.

"This is going to hurt..." Marina warns.

She places her hands on his leg and Peeta immediately tightens up. He instinctively grabs onto my hand and squeezes it to the point that he might break my hand. I want to pull away, but the agony on his face makes me think better of it. I watch as the gruesome wound on his leg slowly heals, bit by bit. I'm actually fascinated by how Marina does this, as I was frozen in the spot when Marina healed Rue. I watch his leg go from purple, to red and then to flesh again. The blood is gone and all that is left is a large tear in his pants.

Peeta releases my hand. He looks up at Marina in great gratitude.

"Thank you," he says.

He then turns to me. "Sorry if I hurt your hand."

"It's okay," I say quietly. My face flushes slightly when he looks at me. I act like it's not a big deal and help Peeta to his feet. He's a little wobbly at first and holds the tree as to prevent himself from being blown over in the still prevailing winds.

Marina stands up next to the girl with the ponytail.

"One is outside the arena with the others. The invasion is beginning, the earthquakes were her signaling to us."

"What's up with the hovercraft?" Marina shouts.

"It's been taken over by Mogadorians, Commander Deltoch, they were going to retrieve Antonio. They set up some kind of deal for him." I actually hear sadness in this girl's voice for a moment. "But then he found Six and Eight and decided to help them."

"What are we going to do?" Rue shouts.

The girl looks back at us and then back out into the storm. We watch as the hovercraft finally crashes into a fiery explosion in front of the Cornucopia, splashing water all over the flooding field. I watch as the girl brings her hand down a large bolt of lightning strikes the ship once more, causing it go up in a fiery explosion. The flood waters are no electrified, I can see little sparks in it and it almost looks pretty. My mind immediately becomes nervous that we might be electrocuted by the deadly substance, but the water is being kept away from the treeline by the girl in the ponytail.

"Six is going to use the lightning and deactivate the field around the arena..." the girl says. "I'm in touch with One... on my count..."

"One..."

The wind picks up, even more, the thunder is practically destroying our eardrums and the lightning gets brighter and brighter.

"Two..."

Rue reaches out and grabs my hand. She then grabs Peeta's, her face looks rather brave in such a serious situations.

"THREE!"

"Do it now Adam!" I hear Marina scream.

"Hold onto something Katniss," the girl calls out.