Her entire world was fire, brilliant flowers of orange and red, blooming in front of her eyes and eating up people and buildings and the rubble that spilled onto the street. People were screaming, swarming, trampling each other as they all ran, desperate to get away from the bombs that were whistling down towards them, eating up their district, their home.

Madge had lost her father in the chaos – she had had no choice but to run, to leave him behind, as the crowd had been huge and violent in their terror and they threatened to sweep her away.

"Papa!" she screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but her voice was lost in the hundreds of other voices, all of them calling for missing loved ones, missing friends. Maybe his voice was in there too, yelling her name as he was swept in the opposite direction.

She stumbled through the square, away from the screams, away from the struggle, away from the people – she stumbled through the town, past the sweet shop, past the apothecary, past Mellark's Bakery, past her house – and she stumbled all the way to the Victor's Village, where the houses stood empty and quiet, away from the screaming and the terror and the fire, oh, the fire.

Mrs Everdeen and Prim weren't in their house, she didn't think they would have been – the only creature there was their mangy old cat, yowling and hissing at her from the corner of the room.

She heard more bombs falling, heard them tearing apart her home, and the cat – Buttercup? – fled, running upstairs with a terrified howl, scratching the floorboards in his panic to get away, and Madge was left alone in the empty house of the only friend she'd ever had.

She curled up into a little ball, hugging her knees to her chest, and hoped, hoped, hoped that someone would come to rescue her. Her father. Gale. Her mother – "Mama," Madge whispered, and then she was up and on her feet, slamming the front door closed behind her, and stumbling her way back in the direction she'd come from – her house would still be there, her mother would still be inside – Madge stumbled, and stumbled, and stumbled.

Smoke rose from where the Town Square had once been, and Madge tried not to think of her father, who she'd left behind, who she hadn't helped – but she could still help her mother. Her mother, with the headaches, her mother, who could barely move, her mother, who she'd almost left behind just like she'd left her father.

"Mama!" she yelled, stumbling through the front door and stumbling through her house, stumbling up the stairs and down the hallway and into her parents' bedroom where her mother lay, hands pressed to her ears, her cheeks wet with tears. "Mama, it's okay, I'm here," she whispered, and her mother turned to her, her eyes as blue as summer skies.

"Madge," her mother said, and groaned, a horrible, guttural groan. "Hurts, Madge."

"I know, Mama, I know – come on, we have to go now, Mama, we're not safe here." Madge grabbed her mother's arm and slung it around her shoulders, and her mother stood with a pained cry, leaning all her weight against Madge, and Madge stumbled.

"Too loud," her mother said, and Madge was half-dragging, half-carrying her.

"I know, Mama, I know, but we have to go now, come on," Madge said, and they stumbled out of the bedroom and down the hallway and down the stairs, and they had just gotten to the bottom when –

Fire. Madge's whole world was fire. Beautiful blossoms of red and orange and yellow and white and blue and purple – and Madge was surprised, because she'd never seen purple flames before. But here they were, licking the ground, eating up the polished floorboards and the floral wall-paper and their beautiful old piano and Madge could hear someone screaming and maybe it was her mother but it could have been her, too, she wasn't sure, and –

Fire. Her whole world was fire.