Madge held on to Gale's bicep as tightly as possible, almost to the point of losing circulation. They were crouched in a tree, sitting on a thick enough branch to hold both of their weights.

High enough to keep them away from immediate danger, but low enough that they'd be able to jump down if necessary. They were expecting any danger, a muttation that could fly or could climb as well as them.

There were only four tributes left, included the couple from District Twelve. Gale held the hand that wasn't wrapped around his arm in his hands, nervously fiddling with the small fingers.

The overhead speakers went off. "A special gift for our remaining tributes. I hope you'll be as pleasantly surprised as we hope. The thing all of you desires most." Her voice caused a shiver to run through both the tributes' bodies. It wasn't Claudius Templesmith. It was a woman's voice, her voice a tone too sharp and too high, as fake as the arena they resided in at the moment.

It wasn't a moment later that Madge heard it. "Magpie," she heard yelled. It brought her back to when she was a little girl and her then-well mother was calling her in for supper. No one else called her by that nickname. She could hear her mother's sweet voice, the kind of voice that a mother had, soothing. It wrapped around you like a mother's embrace.

"Oh God," Madge murmured, her whole body tensing up so hard she almost fell from the tree, but Gale held onto her.

"What?" He murmured pressing his lips to her hair.

Madge just shook her head. She was obviously just hearing something.

"I-Is that-"

Gale couldn't even finish the thought.

The couple's eyes connected with the blonde, dressed in her Reaping best. This was much worse than one of those animal muttations with the eyes of a loved one, or even a loved one crying out in fake agony. This was real. Her mother was right in front of her. Looking exactly how she was before she had gotten so ill. The same blonde hair that never had a single hair out of place, the same delicate shape and even from a distance Madge could see her blue eyes shining.

"Oh my God," Madge repeated the sentence over and over again as if it would help take her away from the sight in front of her.

Gale leaned into her, pulling her to him. "It's not her. You know that. She's been dead a very long time, Madge. They're just fucking with us. You can't let it get to you."

Madge leaned over the and began vomiting, Gale rubbed her back, holding back her hair, his eyes on the blonde woman in the distance.

"It's not her," he repeated.

It was easy saying that when the woman standing off in the distance wasn't anything to you, didn't birth you or bandage your scraped knees.

"GH!" He heard a man bellow and Gale's eyes darted in the direction of the voice.

No one had a voice like that. His father's voice was one of a kind, deep and resonant. No one called him GH because there wasn't a need after his father passed. That voice belonged to the original Gale Hawthorne and without him there was no reason for distinction.

"Oh fuck!" Gale said, his eyes glued to the man now standing alongside Madge's muttation mother, a better older version of himself.

Madge's eyes shot up and were staring at the spectacle in front of them.

It was like looking into the future, except better versions of who they could grow up to be, if they made it out alive.

"They're not real," she murmured.

"Get down," he yelled, pulling her down out of the tree.

They were muttations, stronger than they could ever think to be.

"W-Why?" Madge stammered, pulling her arm back.

He looked at her like she was insane, like she had turned into one of them.

"You have a bow and plenty of arrows. You know what to do."

Gale shook his eyes, his voice thick with tears, "No. I can't. That's my dad."

Madge stared at the approaching predators, quickly examined the woman who appeared to be her dead mother. She could smell them from here.

"That's not her," she said definitively, but trying not to cry at the same time. Seeing was believing, but this was all wrong.

"Don't you see them?!" He cried out. "That's my dad and that's your mom. They're right there, within arms reach. What you've always wanted, just a few more moments with them. You'll never get a chance like this again," he said, making his way down the tree.

Madge scurried down. She knew it was a trap, but refused to leave Gale to embark on that journey alone.

She pulled on Gale's sleeve trying to show him down. It was like he was rushing toward death. They were going to die by the hands of the people who helped created them, irony at its best and horribly fucked up even for the Capitol.

"Stop!" She screamed, upon smelling her mother. "We've got to get out of here," she murmured.

Her mother gave her a soft smile.

Madge shook her head. "That's not you and that's not him. They're monsters, Gale." She looked away in distaste, successfully pulling Gale a few steps away. "Their eyes are too bright to be real."

Gale looked up, his slate grey eyes meeting with silver ones, as shiny as polished coins. His father's eyes had been darker than his.

"They're monsters," she repeated and Gale nodded. "Draw your bow," she instructed.

Gale followed her instructions, drawing up the bow, pointing it at his father's heart. He could feel tears dripping down his cheeks. The thought of killing the man who had wished for so many nights for made his stomach turn. He was sure it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He could hear Madge draw out her machete, ready to complete the awful task in front of her. He could hear her sniffling.

It took all the arrows in Gale's quiver to take out of his father, one in his neck, a second in his heart and another in the eye.

When he looked over at Madge he saw the girl he loved shaking, her entire body in a ball, and she was holding herself, screaming for her mother. She was covered in her mother's "blood," a sick green.

Gale crouched down, wrapping himself around her, like a human blanket. He buried his face in her neck. "They've gone too far," he murmured. He could feel his brain turning over, the wheels in it spinning. This time they'd taken things overboard, pushed things past the limit.