A/N: The characters and events of the Hunger Games series belong to the wonderful Suzanne Collins, but this story is my own. I have incorporated some quotes directly from both the books and the films - I'm sure you'll be able to spot them.
I want to extend a huge thank you to my wonderful friend EF for reading this story, encouraging me, offering helpful advice throughout the whole ridiculous process, and for not laughing at me six months ago when I said, "Hey I'm writing a Hunger Games fanfiction."
The title of the story comes from the poem, "Ghosts" by Emily Dickinson.
Katniss
"You stupid bitches!"
The contempt dripping from Enobaria's words is discernible enough that I swear I can hear it before I'm able to even process the meaning behind them.
Am I dead? I don't feel like I'm dead…. I mean, I could be – but I had hoped I wouldn't be in this much pain when I was finally shaken from my mortal coil.
For as close a relationship as I've had with death over the last few years, I only recently began to wonder what would actually happen after I die. And to be honest, being stuck with Enobaria for all eternity had not even crossed my mind as a possible outcome.
"Oh my Odds, shut up Lockjaw!"
Oh good, Johanna is here too. I cannot even try to pass my thoughts off as anything other than sarcastic, even to myself. This is shaping up to be...well, it certainly is something, isn't it?
"It isn't my Odds-damned fault we're in this fucking pit, Mason! I was doing just fine before your little Girl on Fire here threw a tantrum and blew up the fucking arena!" Enobaria's deep voice is somehow getting shriller with each word she spits out.
"Sure you were Queen of the Night," Johanna hisses back at her. "Is that why Peeta killed your boy Brutus before everything went to shit?" She certainly doesn't seem apprehensive of Enobaria's rising anger, but I can't help feeling uneasy as these two powerfully unstable women seem to be on the verge of coming to blows at any moment.
And honestly, regardless of whether or not I am in fact dead, I'd prefer to avoid this fight.
Wait.
Peeta! Johanna mentioned Peeta. Where is he? If I haven't yet heard his voice, maybe that means he is still alive, freed from this apparent waiting room in the afterlife for unpleasant victors.
I must say Peeta's name out loud, because the bickering comes to a sudden halt with Johanna's next words; "Nice of you to join us, Brainless."
My eyes snap open as soon as her words register. My head is pounding, and my vision is swimming in and out of focus as I unsuccessfully attempt to lift myself up. When that doesn't work, I reach one of my arms out, tentatively feeling around to make sure I'm not about to tumble off a ledge high above the ground. It seems I'm on the floor though – I guess one wouldn't need a bed in the afterlife – and I slowly roll on to my front so I can try raising my head up from a different position. This time I'm able to blink away the dark spots in my vision, if not the pain in my head and the nausea that washes over me like the tidal wave from the arena.
I'm in a cage – we all are.
I am in a cell like the ones I had seen in the Peacekeeper station back in 12. Three walls are made of bars that go all the way from the floor to the ceiling, and the fourth wall is simply a cold slab of concrete. I'm lying on a freezing stone floor in my ragged Quell undergarments; whatever has happened to me has left them in tatters, allowing the frigid temperature to seep deep into my skin. Johanna is next to me in an identical cage, and Enobaria is across a small aisle from her. A girl who looks familiar, but whose name I can't remember, is next to her and across from me; she's sitting against the back wall of her cell, her knees pulled up tightly against her chest and her fingers tapping frantically on the floor next to her. Our foursquare is silent as the grave while I take everything in.
"Are we dead?" I mumble, squinting my eyes to try and limit the harsh light hitting my sensitive eyes.
"HA! Wouldn't you just LOVE that, Snow?!" Johanna's shrieking cackle is unrestrained as she throws her head back in mirth. She looks similar to the way she did in the Quell, when she called out the president after the hour of torture with the Jabberjays. How does that sound, Snow? What if we set YOUR backyard on fire? "Oh Brainless, way to live up to your name! We're in the Capitol, you moron." She lets out a small, defeated sigh as she tells me this, and it sends a shiver of fear down my spine, frightening me so much more than any of the times she's screamed at me.
Oh my Odds.
"I think she just figured out what that means for us, Mason," Enobaria chuckles and leans her elbows against the front of her cell, letting her forearms dangle through the bars. "Your stupid stunt landed us here, Everdeen. Care to explain what the hell you were thinking?"
My thoughts are cloudy and difficult to sort through. "I... I don't…fully remember." Enobaria scoffs at my stuttered response, but I keep on trying to grasp at the events that took place on the last night of the Quell. I pull myself into a seated position and scoot my way back to the wall, so I won't have to work at staying upright on my own. "We were following Beetee's plan…. We wanted to take out you and Brutus. Johanna –" I swing my gaze over to her and pay for it immediately when my stomach violently lurches. I swallow hard and try to keep from heaving. "Jo you...you hit me, right?" She nods, affirming my memory of the spine-shattering blow she delivered to my head while we attempted to drag that metal wire down to the beach. "When I finally got back to the tree, Beetee was on the ground and the wire was attached to a stick. I think he was trying to use it as a spear? I... I don't know…. But then I saw Finnick, and I think I wrapped the wire around my arrow. I shot it at the roof of the arena when the lightning hit the tree. The last thing I remember was Finnick yelling at me." I meet Johanna's eyes and ask, "Have you seen him? Or Peeta? Are they here?" I can hear the desperation in my in voice, and I know she must too, because she doesn't snark back at me.
Instead, Johanna just shakes of her head before looking over at the girl in the cage across from me. "That's Annie," she states quietly. "Annie Cresta. I'm guessing if she's here, then Finnick is long gone. Same with you and Peeta. If you're here, and he's not, then they definitely don't have him."
I look across the aisle to Annie. Annie Cresta, the mad girl who Finnick loves. And I'm the bad-tempered hunter who Peeta loves. My mild-mannered baker is nowhere to be seen, and I can only hope that the Capitol hasn't managed to get their hands on him.
Before I can think of how to even begin processing any of this information, an alarm goes off inside the room we're being kept in. The blaring horn sounds three times at a volume that I can feel in my teeth, and I bring my hands up to brace against my temples to keep them from exploding with pain.
"Shit," Johanna mutters as the only door leading out of the room from our block of cells opens and reveals none other than President Snow himself. If it's possible, the temperature in the room has dropped down so low I expect to see my own breath as I struggle to calm myself.
"Ah, my victors!" Snow's voice is almost gleeful. The scent of roses precedes him into the room, and I have to fight back the bile I feel climbing up the sides of my throat. When no one responds to him, he simply continues to goad us. "Oh, come now. Where are your manners? I know your escorts imparted some semblance of social etiquette to all of you at one time or another." As he walks slowly up to Enobaria's cage, he murmurs, "Let's start with you Miss Brass." Enobaria moves back a step in response to Snow's proximity, standing with her back straight and her arms down at her sides. "Miss Brass," Snow entreats, "What do you know about the rebels and their infiltration of the Quarter Quell?"
Never in my life has a silence been so loud. The rebels were in the Quell? That would mean…well, that would certainly explain some of the other victors' more questionable behavior. But what in the world were they hoping to do? Obviously not stay alive until they were rescued, since that Morphling from 6 threw herself in front of Peeta when that mutt-monkey went for his throat, and Mags let herself be taken by the fog so that Finnick could get Peeta and I down to the beach.
Enobaria doesn't break eye contact with Snow as she answers him. "Nothing, Mr. President. I may not have volunteered for the Quell, but I was not a part of any rebellion."
Snow turns his back on her before the final word leaves her mouth. He's done with her.
He takes a step towards Johanna, and to her credit, she doesn't budge from her position at the front of her cell. "How about you, Miss Mason? Can you tell me anything I'd like to hear?"
Johanna squints her eyes at him, and I can see her lips forming into a smirk. "Hmmm... Get bent! Nope, seems that I can't."
Snow smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. Taking a few steps further down the aisle he simply prompts, "Miss Cresta?"
The noise Annie makes absolutely breaks my heart. She brings her hands up, pressing them against the sides of her head and whimpers like the President's voice is carving into her skull.
"No, I thought not," he mutters.
Then he turns to me.
There was this one time when I was hunting in the woods outside of 12; I think I was newly fourteen years old – not a novice with my bow but nowhere near as skilled as I am now. I had been out in the forest since before the sun touched the horizon and I had had a successful morning. Five squirrels, three rabbits, and a quail were stowed in my game bag, but I had my eye on a deer that I'd been tracking for the better part of a week. I somehow knew that I would find it that day. I knew it. I had stopped briefly to eat some dried rat meat Prim had prepared for me while I checked the trail I was following, when I heard a stick snap. It couldn't be another person – I was too deep in the woods and Gale was busy helping his mother that morning. After the longest two minutes of my young life, I finally spotted what was stalking me: a cougar – or a ghost cat, as my Papa called them – was ten feet away from me and was crouched like it was looking to pounce. I was struck with such a sudden, helpless fear – there was nowhere for me to go and nothing I could do except be afraid and to fully exist in that all-consuming dread. My deer was forgotten, and I was now the prey.
In this moment, here with President Snow, I feel that same awful, hunted terror of being someone else's quarry. I am sure he can hear my heartbeat and his horrible dead eyes can absolutely see how hard it is for me to take a full breath into my lungs.
Sadly, I don't think my previous method of tossing dead game into the forest behind the prowling predator as a distraction would end up serving to save my hide this time around.
Snow takes a step towards me and for the first time since he entered our prison, I see him genuinely grin. His smile is harsh like cut glass and it makes me want to press myself into a corner and scream. But it is real – oh it is real. He is truly glad that I am caged behind these metal bars, regardless of his arena having burned to the ground to get me here.
"Hello, Mockingjay," he greets me, his voice kind, like I imagine a grandfather's would be. Instead of comforting me though, it only serves to set me more on edge. I know better than to trust that tone. He pauses for a few moments to take me in before his mouth quirks up on one side. "My, my Miss Everdeen. Look at the trouble you've caused now."
"I didn't…" I begin, but Snow interrupts me before I can cobble together some sort of defense.
"I do not particularly care to hear what you have to say about your actions Miss Everdeen," he hesitates in his speech to take another step closer to me. "What I am interested in however, is your involvement with the Rebellion."
When I stay silent on the matter, Snow tilts his head slightly to the side, examining my reaction to his words. "Nothing to say then?" he asks. "Please do not make me go all the way to District 12 to retrieve your family for questioning, Miss Everdeen. I have many tasks that require my attention, and I would hate to travel so far."
This gives me the kick in the rear I'm sure he was waiting for. "No! No, please don't!" I manage to croak in response to his threat. My throat burns and my head spins as I push myself on to my hands and knees and inch my way closer to the President. "I had no idea about the Rebellion. I swear!"
President Snow lets out a loud, determined sigh, like he's disappointed in me. "My dear, you were allied with tributes who have been identified as rebels. Your mentor and escort are missing in action – presumably they have fled to assist in the rebellion. Your stylist has been executed for treason. Please explain to me how it is that you, of all people, have been kept in the dark when everyone who surrounds you is neck-deep in treasonous activities?"
I gape at the president, unable to force any words out. I have no idea what to tell him, other than, "I… I don't know, President Snow. We were never told anything; I promise that we knew nothing!"
"We, Miss Everdeen?" he prompts. He knows who I'm referring to, but at this point he's just playing with his food.
"Me and Peeta. We don't know anything about the Rebellion. Please, please believe me, President Snow!" I beg from my place on the floor.
Snow turns on his heel without another word and walks towards the door that will take him away from our prison. But I just can't let him leave yet; I need to know.
"Please!" I yell, raising my voice as loud as I am able, though the dizziness threatens to take over once again. "President Snow, please! Where is Peeta? You have to know that we don't know anything!"
He pauses at the door and cranes his neck to catch my eye over his shoulder. That icy smile is back, and I can feel dismay spreading through my stomach. Whatever he is about to say to me…he's going to enjoy hurting me with it. "Why my dear, did you not hear?"
No. No.
I know what he is going to say before the words leave his mouth, but even as I hear them, I cannot let them take hold in my mind.
"I am saddened to inform you that Mr. Mellark, Mr. Odair, and Mr. Latier did not survive the destruction of the arena. So, as you can imagine, I am unable to verify your claims of innocence, Miss Everdreen."
The moment after the door clicks closed behind Snow, the lights are turned off and Annie lets out a scream that I can feel in bones. I give up on holding myself up on my hands and knees, letting my body drop to the hard ground and succumbing to the haze that is rapidly taking over my mind. In my head, I begin listing all the things I know to be true, cataloging facts to help me understand what I have gleaned from my conversation with the President.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. I am from District 12. I won the 74th Hunger Games with Peeta Mellark. I was reaped for the Quarter Quell with Peeta. I blew up the arena. I am in the Capitol, imprisoned by President Snow, along with my fellow tributes. My family is in District 12; I must keep them safe. Cinna has been executed; he probably did not survive long after the beating I witnessed in the launch room. He died because of me. Haymitch is a part of the Rebellion. He lied to me. Beetee is dead. Finnick is dead.
Peeta is dead.
I wish I were dead.
We victors are left alone in the cold and the dark, and I lose consciousness with just the sound of Annie's cries to accompany me into the muddled unknown.
