Katniss

My mind swims back and forth on the sound of electric applause. The shade of green wig that Caesar is wearing reminds me of mint leaves that have been chewed up and spit out. His laugh is starting to make me dizzy.

"Hahaha! That was wonderful! So moving! So romantic!" Caesar goes on for a good while regurgitating 2 cent adjectives. I fight not to roll my eyes at him. I just wanted to finish saying the damn lines, and singing the last song, so I can get the hell out of here. The drugs made my skin itch and I felt sweaty under the bright lights.

"Now for your last song, you had a different kind of inspiration. Is that right?" Caesar asks me in a teasing and suggestive tone.

I frown a little before I regain my composure. I smile and I know it probably looks off kilter. But I felt so strange, my blood was simmering again and the urge to kick off my ridiculously uncomfortable heels was becoming paramount.

"Oh, yes, I went a completely different route with the next song." I say quietly, after realizing Caesar was waiting for a response.

"Now, we don't have any pictures for this next part, which is when you finished your first year as mentors, and returned to District 12. That must have been an interesting homecoming. Can you give us some details?"

I smile, as brightly as I can. That megawatt smile that Peeta always told me I never could quite pull off. I try to clear my mind and shake off the bubbly and muddled effects of the drugs. Caesar looks a little nervous. Maybe I look manic underneath the starry stage lights. Maybe I am manic after everything that's happened. All I know is, the next song has to mean something. I wrote it carefully. It's in line with what they wanted, but after all the years practicing double speak with Peeta and Haymitch, I hope they can read inbetween the lines.

"This next song is what I wanted to say, underneath all the lies I told. This next one, is for the owner of my heart, and all I care about." I tell Caesar in what must seem like a stunning confession, in fact Caesar does look taken aback.

Those weren't the lines I was supposed to deliver, but I just turned away from him. The piano has already descended into the floor, taking Hym and the man who looks like Peeta with him.

I was immensely grateful for his departure. He unnerved me. His hands always held me a little too tightly. And I got the feeling he wasn't just playing to the cameras. He seemed to enjoy making me uncomfortable.

In his place is the dark haired man. The one who is NotGale. He stares at me with a complicated but somewhat closed off look on his face. He sits on the edge of a wooden stool, looking rugged and out of place without the finery that everyone else is wearing. I can only speculate his wardrobe was chosen to illustrate Gale's humble background.

He shifts his guitar in his lap at my approach, and I slide down into a stool next to him. We're separated by a thin hanging microphone. I remove the one that hooks around the back of my ear and lean in slightly. We'll have to share this one, so we'll be singing very closely together. All by design of course.

He looks different close up. His eyelashes are long, and under the bright lights of the stage I can see they are more milk chocolate colored than Gale's nearly black ones. I study his features for a beat as he strums the opening of the song. At this distance I can pick out more differences between him and the real Gale. His lips are slightly thinner, and his fingers are calloused differently from playing an instrument, rather than setting snares and swinging a pickaxe. Really he's not a very good imitation of Gale, once I notice these differences. But then I have to stop listing the differences, because we have to start singing.

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

And though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

I don't like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear

The stairs creak as I sleep

It's keeping me awake

It's the house telling you to close your eyes

And some days I can't even trust myself

It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

We get through the intro, the verse, and first chorus and he's definitely better than the blond NotPeeta. He's got a nice range, even though this song is a little high and he has to sing softly. He's amazing at melodies. He keeps the music from the guitar nice and steady. His strumming and vocal pickups echo nicely in the quiet expanse of the cage they have put us in. The gold bars pressing in around me make me shiver. I close my eyes for a second to try and cover my fear.

There's an old voice in my head

That's holding me back

Well, tell her that I miss our little talks

Soon it will all be over, and buried with our past

We used to play outside when we were young

And full of life and full of love

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right

Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

And though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

The words rang through me, hot and clean and purposeful. I wanted Peeta to feel the truth in the words, even though they were wrapped up in lies like my bruised and beaten body was wrapped up in this flimsy blue dress that he had once loved. And even though I was supposed to be looking into the eyes of NotGale, and I was supposed to act like I was swooning over him, I stared into the camera and sang for all I was worth.

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is a ghost of you

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go, we'll meet again soon

This finally is what I want. I'm trying to beg for them to understand they need to let me go. I don't plan on sticking around until Snow can sell me to the highest bidder. They must know this.

Now wait, wait, wait for me, please hang around

I'll see you when I fall asleep

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

The song ends and NotGale reaches out and takes my hand as scripted, he brings it to his mouth and places a quick kiss on the clammy skin of the back of my hand. I smirk at the way he barely contains his discomfort at how sweaty my hand is. Glad that I could make him uncomfortable.

I get up and rejoin Caesar without glancing back at the imposter. I get the feeling he's as relieved as I am to be done with our duet and his part in the charade for tonight.

"Now, Katniss, that song is very different from the others. Can you tell us a little bit about the reasoning behind this?"

"Sure, Caesar. Well first of all, it describes how much destruction we can wreak and how strained our lives can become because of lies and secrets."

"Ah, yes of course. And was one of these secrets how your feelings changed for Peeta by the end of that year?"

"Actually, the true secret was just how much I myself had changed. I wasn't the same girl from before the Reaping, or the Games, or even the same girl from the Victory tour. You may or may not know this, Caesar, but mentoring is a life changing experience. And it certainly changed me, in many unexpected ways."

I can see Caesar struggling to bring the conversation back to romantic topics, instead of what I've steered it into. I was going off script again, and detracting from the salacious drama that they were counting on to keep people entertained. But I had decided. I didn't want them to keep cutting off pieces of Falvius and Octavia and Venia. Recently they had brought me one of Venia's ears when I hit a flat note during rehearsal. I was exhausted, ready to fall over. Still, they had brought the little black bag and told me to keep singing or they'd keep bringing me little black bags. They would never stop, there was no point in dragging out their deaths. And I was tired, underneath all the drugs. I was so tired. I couldn't keep doing this.

"Do you mean to say?" Caesar asks carefully.

"Only that I don't regret the days in the woods with Gale, he knew why I needed to get away from it all. I also don't regret the nights with Peeta on the train or in the tribute center. He was the only one who could ever understand what it meant to me when we lost Maisy Evans, Leed Turner, and Mira Relle. He was the only one who knew what it meant to me when Rue died, and Thresh, and Mags, and Valve, Laurel, and Mr. Mellark-"

"Katniss-" Caesar interrupted.

"Even Clove-" I bulldozed through his objections.

"Ok, settle down Katniss-" Caesar tried to raise his voice over mine, but I just forged on.

"Marvel, Glimmer, and Cato and-" I exclaimed loudly, clearly.

"KATNISS! That's enough! My, my what a memory you have my dear. But you're not here to discuss past tributes-" Caesar says, trying to cover.

"I know Caesar, I know. I apologize. I just wanted to say their names again, before I lose the chance." I tell him with a shaky smile. And I wonder if I have done it, I wonder if I have angered Snow enough that he'll hurry up and kill me. I can't take much more of this slow methodical destruction he's putting me through.

And I want them all to know that I haven't forgotten. I want them all to feel it, even if it's just for a minute. Caesar gives a nervous little laugh and clears his throat.

"Well, you've run a little over your time dear. Let's say goodbye for now and I hope to see you again soon." He says quickly, while shooing me away.

I only offer him a grimace and a small shake of my head. No, I don't hope to see him or this stage, this cage, ever again. I hope to be out of this. I hope to find that blue sky, and melt into it. I hope to be free again, even if the only freedom that waits for me now is death.

I'm about to step off stage when Thread reaches out and grabs me by the back of my hair, wrenching me up hard. I gasp painfully and he just pulls me forward, so I stumble down the stairs as he drags me off. Tears leak out of the corner of my eyes, but not because of the pain, though it does smart terribly. My tears are for the people on the other side of the screens tonight. For everyone I care about. That last part had surely been captured in the background of the camera shot.

I don't want them to see me suffer.

Finnick

They rush me and Johanna out after they drag off a resolute Katniss. She had been so reckless. But there was no time to dwell on what they would do to her now. We needed to block everything out and get in the game. The guards ushered us into the stage area, while Caesar beat a hasty retreat. He only said a few words of introduction before Seeder and Chaff were tossed inside with us and the door on the far side of the cage closed shut.

The walls of the large cage inexplicably began to shrink with a loud groaning noise as they collapsed against each other and folded into one another in a puzzle piece-like pattern. This forced us four victors closer together. In the middle of the floor were their weapons. Chaff's spear, Seader's sythe, Johanna's axe and my trident. Nobody wanted to go for the weapons first. But then a voice rang out over a speaker system. A very familiar voice.

Claudius Templesmith.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, pick up your weapons. You will soon find that you have need of them." He says in an ominous voice.

Then there is a hissing sound as a small hexagonal compartment opens us towards the front of the cage.

"Mother fuckers," Joanna says angrily before rushing forward to grab her weapon. A split second later we're all following suit. We know what this means.

Mutts.

The four of us back up, fanning out into a half circle with the cage wall to our backs. Our eyes peeled on the hole in the floor.

At first it was dead quiet, and tense. I could feel all the energy reverberating through my body as I waited to see what horrors would emerge from the pit in front of us.

But then a sound spread through the space, and with it a cold chill ran down my spine.

A hiss.

Then a head bobbed up from the darkness. Its eyes were small beads of wet black stone, worked through with an intelligence that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It rose in an undulating movement, emerging inch by inch revealing its slick scaly body. It was jet balck, along its top and back, with a coal grey color underneath that accentuated its interlocking scales that looked thick as armor. It had a hooded attachment of scaly flesh that wrapped around the back of its head. No limbs of any kind, only a long tail. And almost as soon as the first one wriggled up to our level, more followed suit.

Snakes, and not just any snakes. Cobras.

"Finnick?" Chaff called out to me in a worried tone. There were at least 10 snakes that had piled out of the hole, and more seemed to be coming.

I tried to wrack my brain for strategies.

"Oh, fuck it Finnick, let's just climb the goddamn thing," Johanna says when I don't answer Chaff right away. She motions to the bars behind us, the ones that are interlaced with swirling designs that would make for good hand and foot holds. I squint at them, trying to figure out if this plan is too easy.

But the snakes start advancing on us with a litany of hisses alternating between them. There are now 16 in total, and they are fast closing the distance between our group and theirs.

"Go, go! Climb!" I shout and Johanna and Seeder are up and climbing quicker than the blink of an eye. Johanna is a natural climber, coming from the lumber district. And Seeder grew up around orchards as well as fields in District 11. But Chaff has a harder time, since he only has one good hand. I slip my trident into the back of my shirt, so I can use both my hands to climb. I go behind Chaff, helping him up. I brace him with with free hand when he wobbles or loses his grip. He looks down at me thankfully, but then his eyes catch on something just behind me, and open wide in surprise.

"Duck!" He yells, and I jerk my head out of the way of his oncoming kick.

His foot makes contact with a snake as it reaches out to strike the back of my beforehand oblivious head. It goes flying to the floor. But I don't feel a sense of relief. I look down and find the rest of the snakes are close behind. They are winding their bodies up the sides of the cages and climbing at an astonishing rate. I look back up at Chaff, panic registering in his brown eyes.

"Faster!" I scream at him, and he seems to wake up. Then he's climbing as fast as he can, and I'm right behind him, pushing him forward, catching him when he starts to fall.

We soon reach the girls and they are fending off advances from wriggling snakes to the left and right sides. Chaff gets his feet hooked securely in some twisting spirals and pulls out his spear. He goes to work trying to stab the snakes that are coming at us from below.

I hook into the sides of the cage as well and pull out my trident to start swinging.

The sounds of weapons hitting metal ring out in the minimized space. As well as our heavy breathing and occasional shout of warning. I lose myself in the automatic movements of my body killing at least three snakes.

The others keep the snakes at bay, and Johanna manages to cleave two snakes in half, while Seeder neatly dismembers one as well. Chaff spears two snakes, but almost gets bitten by a third, and narrowly escapes falling down a good 14 feet or so. From this height it would be very bad.

But then I hear a low humming noise, and I turn just in time to see the section of cage that Chaff is secured to, begin to move. The cage's mechanisms have been switched on, no doubt by the Gamemakers when they realized we were gaining the advantage. I call out a warning, saying his name, but Chaff is too preoccupied fighting two cobras that have tried to flank him. He doesn't move in time, before the metal closes over his foot.

His scream of agony tears through the space, followed by Seeder's scream. Then his foot is severed from the rest of his body and he falls like a stone to the floor.

"Chaff!" I cry, and scramble down the lattice work as quickly as I can.

"Shit, no! Finnick! Come back!" Johanna calls, but I don't heed her voice. A few of the mutts try to bite me but I bend out of their way, while swinging my trident to keep them at arm's length for good measure.

But when I get to him, Chaff is lying in a growing pool of blood, and a few of the remaining snakes have wriggled down and are racing towards him. I rush over to his side and make my stand as I guard his broken body.

I blink away hot tears as I parry and lunge at the deadly venomous reptiles. The last 8 snakes have all descended from the cage walls and are converging on Chaff and I.

I can hear Chaff moaning something, my name maybe, but I'm fighting too hard to make out what he's saying. I'm trying to keep the snakes off both him and me, and it's almost impossible, they strike almost as quickly as lighting.

Then just when I think that my arm is going to give out from overuse, an axe cuts off the head of the snake that was diving for my ankle. The blade bounces off the impenetrable marble floor, and Johanna curses behind me.

"You owe me a new axe Odair!" She calls and I smile.

"Sure thing Jo!" I answer as I fend off more attacks, but then her and Seeder finish descending the cage wall and are at my side.

"Go help Chaff! We'll cover you!" I tell Seeder, and she nods quickly as she rushes past me. She almost swipes off the head of a cobra that was slithering low and stealthily towards Chaff. But it pulls back at the last minute and retreats a step. Just out of reach.

Its eyes glint darkly, though, and just as I'm about to turn away, I see it rear back, and flare open its hood. It hisses, but Seeder is too busy trying to tire her shirt around Chaff's foot as a makeshift tourniquet to notice it, since its staying a relatively normal distance away.

"Seeder-" I started to yell, but it was too late.

It spits some kind of liquid out in a stream, with pinpoint accuracy. It hits Seeder across her face, namely right in her eyes.

She screams in pain.

I can actually hear her skin sizzle.

"These shits can spit acid?" Johanna shouts in alarm and dismay. And the next second, we find out that yes, indeed these mutts can spit acid.

They descend on us in unison, forcing us to retreat to Seeder and Chaff, as their vile spit corrodes even the marble floor wherever it falls.

Seeder is still screaming. Chaff, having come out of his dazed stupor, probably because he recognized Seeder's screams, hefts himself up and looks at me squarely in the eye.

I can tell by the look he's giving me, what he's thinking.

"Chaff-No!" I yell, but he dives in front of me and Johanna anyway. Rolling and swinging out with Seeder's discarded sythe.

He cleaves off the heads of four snakes, in two strikes. But he takes about three shots of acid venom straight to his chest. He merely grunts in pain, and he crumbles down to the floor. The other snakes converge on him, and Johanna screams at me to move.

I know what she means too.

We throw ourselves forward and start spearing and splitting the cobras open. Sometime in between all the commotion, Johanna had recovered her axe, though I hadn't seen her do it. It doesn't matter, anyway, because we make quick work of the three of the snakes. But the last one flits away, towards Seeder.

Seeder who is blind now and writhing in pain.

"Seeder! To your left!" Johanna calls out a warning. But Seeder can't move, she can't see. The snake makes a wide arching leap for her jugular and hits home.

But Seeder rips the monster from her chest in one swift movement, and incredibly bites down onto the underside of the creature's scaly neck with a furious shout. She falls back, limp and completely still.

The snake slithers out of her grapes in jerky movements, its head half severed. Johanna grunts and throws her axe with precise and deadly aim, finally cutting off the beast's head.

Then she collapses in the middle of the blood soaked floor. Little tendrils of smoke still waft up in the spots where the acid is eating its way through marble and concrete. I sat down next to her, in a daze.

Now there were only three of us left.

(Listening track for Katniss' duet: Little Talks-John D & Julia Sheer)