DISCLAIMER: I do not own the storyline or the characters of The Hunger Games. This takes place end of Mockingjay/post-Mockingjay. Some of the end of the storyline of Mockingjay is changed, this is how I thought the story should have ended. Hope you like.
[1.] I awaken from a nightmare in a bright, white room, which is cold and unfriendly. There are no pictures on the walls, there is only white: white cabinets, white sink, white tiled floor, white sheets on the bed. The only other items in the room are machines running wires and tubes to me, beeping and flashing numbers. My eyes are fuzzy and taking all of this in is making me very dizzy. It smells strongly of sterile cleaning products and powdered latex gloves. I try to sit, but my muscles refuse to listen, and wonder what has happened to me? Why am I in the hospital?
My right arm has an IV running fluids into it, and I have a feeling one of those fluids is morphine. My arms and chest are covered in a thin gauze-like material, yellowish goo oozing from different spots. My instinct tells me to look away, not wanting to see such a gory sight, but since it's my body, it's hard to shut my eyes from the mess. Despite the stinging when I move my arms, I put my hands to my face and grasp the breathing tube that is almost gagging me now that I am breathing on my own. I must be pretty injured if I'm hooked up to all these machines and couldn't breathe on my own. I pull the breathing tube gently from my throat and take a few shaky breaths. I feel so weak and tired.
As my eyes shut, scenes flash before them. The streets of the Capitol rigged with death traps like being in the arena of the Hunger Games. I relive the deaths of most of my group: Boggs, Finnick, Leeg 1 and Leeg 2, Jackson...Gale being pulled away from me by the Peacekeepers, mouthing to me to shoot him but I didn't get the message. Now I don't know what happened to him. The worst to see, and hardest to comprehend is the scene at the Center of the Capitol when I came across President Snow's protection barrier of Capitol children, barricaded in and surrounded by Peacekeepers. I can't tell what is real and what is not when I think I remember realizing the only way in would be to attack all the Peacekeepers simultaneously, or come in from above and just then a hovercraft appears, but instead of my plan descending upon them it was supplies, which blew up moments later. The mess of blood and body parts is nauseating, and mangled children still alive, trying to crawl away from danger but not knowing where to go. The next thing I remember is my heart dropping in my chest when rebel medics rush in to help the Capitol children and one of them has the blonde braid of my little sister, my Prim…I tried to run to her, to warn her, I knew what would happen next. The second explosion. What I had awakened thinking was a nightmare was not. It was a flashback. It really happened.
A scream rips from my throat, agonizing, but uncontrollable. "Prim! Prim! No! Prim!" The pain that surges through my body with each scream is tortuous, what is left of my skin feeling as though it might erupt in flames again. My shrieks die down to whimpers as a nurse in white, complete with gloves and surgical mask, finally enters the room. She has a needle poised in between her fingers as I'm sobbing, "Please let me die. I don't want to be here. Just kill me." The nurse plunges the needle into my vein, my body goes limp, and my world turns black.
When I awaken next, I'm not sure if I am dreaming or awake. Gale is sitting by my side, his gray eyes looking down at me, shiny like he was about to cry, but Gale never cries. When he sees that I've woken up, he stands up quickly, rubbing his palms over his face.
"Sorry…" He mumbles, backing away from my bed and towards the doorway. I open my mouth to ask him to please not leave, but he excuses himself, "I have to go. I'll come back…"
He doesn't come back though. I close my eyes and dream of a time not so long ago, when I was his Catnip and he was my Gale. We bonded in our need to survive and provide for our families, but our friendship always meant more to me than a hunting partner. Gale wasn't just there to watch my back, he was my only confidant, the one who told me all his secrets and who listened to all of mine. The only one besides Prim who could bring a smile to my face and make me laugh like our lives weren't miserable. When we were together we weren't barely surviving teens without fathers who grew up too fast because we had to, we were just ourselves. Was that bond of ours gone forever now?
The next person I see is Peeta. Of course he would visit me. I feel guilty that I haven't thought of how or where he was since I woke up in the hospital. I don't even know how long it's been since the rebels won the war that day the bombs rained down on the Capital children outside of Snow's home. I know that is the result based on the fact that I'm in a Capitol hospital and the nurse who came in before to sedate me is one I recognize from District 13.
When I see Peeta's face, I am relieved to see he's okay and glad to see someone familiar. He sits by my side and holds the tips of my fingers, gently. He has burns on his hands, arms, and across his forehead, and I'm wondering if he was close behind me when the bombs went off. Maybe he knows what happened…
My voice is hoarse from screaming, but I croak out, "I know how you feel now, Peeta. I don't know what is real right now. I keep remembering things but not clearly. I'm so lost."
Peeta fills me in on what has happened, patient and kind, not at all like I was to him when he first got rescued from the Capital and brought to District 13. Although to my credit he was trying to kill me and I was happy to see him. Peeta tells me I've been out for a little over a week, and the nurse thought I would be drifting in and out for another week or so. My body had undergone eight different surgeries and skin grafts; the doctors did what they could to preserve what was left of my burnt flesh. I was lucky, they all said, to have had my pretty face spared from the flames. It was basically the only part of my body left unmarred.
"What do you remember about that day at the Capitol before the explosions?" Peeta asks.
"I remember the children, surrounded by the Peacekeepers in the Circle, and there were so many people, so much chaos. I used the flagpole to lift myself up so I could get a better view, and that's when the hovercraft appeared." I try so hard to keep my composure while telling Peeta what I remember. I only want to go over this once. It will be too hard to hear. "Even before the first round of bombs went off, I knew something was going to happen. I felt it. The second the supplies dropped I knew the bombs would be triggered. I dropped to the ground. I remember trying to run towards the barricades, to help. I saw…rebel medics run in. Prim-" My voice catches in my throat and I don't want to go on. I can feel the tears forming in my eyes and dropping before I can stop them. "I couldn't get to her. I couldn't do it."
"Katniss, you don't even know," Peeta half-smiles, "what you did that day, you were so brave. You did make it to her. You flew to that barricade faster than I've ever seen you run, and you pulled out Prim, and you tried to get the other kids to follow you out, too. Prim is alive, Katniss."