CHAPTER TWO
I hear something beeping, but I question myself. I am dead. I am dead. But then why are my ears listening to something? I feel a rush of energy at once, and I lift of my now strong body to look around. I am in the hospital of the training center, I think. I see all of the dead tributes' corpses lying on beds. All of them are dressed in what we wear when we go home, a white gown for girls and white slacks with a white shirt for boys. My dress ends at my knees, and I get up, but that's when I see it. My body is still lying on the bed, yet I am up and moving. Am I a ghost? I walk around, and that's when I see the date. The calendar is marked with our names on the days of our deaths. My death was on Day 13, and it is Day 18 today. I hear a horn-ish sound, and then I see another name appear on the death calendar. Cato. His body is wheeled into the emergency room. Since I am a ghost, I walk over there and scream when I see him. He is covered in blood, like he was mauled by a dog. I am thinking of that when the horns play again, but this time they are festive. I hear Claudius Templesmith's voice. "Congraulation to the victors of the 74th Annual Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!" I frown. Why did they win? Cato must have killed in the bloody finale. I am looking through the window of the operating theatre when I see the bite marks on his arms and the arrow in his head. He must have been attacked by the mutts, but still living when Katniss fired her arrow at him. Or maybe the other way. One of the doctors comes over and closes the window, but through his glasses' reflection, you can tell he can't see me. I am suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of Cato's death and I sink to the floor, crying. That's when I feel a small hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, we all have to die at some point, but our times came early." I snap my head around to see the little girl from Eleven standing beside me. Her voice is so sweet. Why did we kill her? "I….I…I'm sorry that we killed you. You did have a chance." I say to her. I think of all the other kids in the community home who were her age. About five of them died in the Games. It was sad to see such small and innocent kids die. This girl, she was only twelve. It was her first year in the reaping. I feel so sorry for the fact that this girl is now dead, and I hug her. "Why did I not stop Cato from sending Marvel to end you? You are so small…I am so cruel. How could I let you die?" I am still crying one her shoulder, and she makes me sit up and then she does something unexpected, she wipes the tears out of my eyes. "You're not cruel, you were just playing the Games. We all were. We all killed someone." she replies. I stop crying at hearing this.
I pick myself off the floor and follow the little girl into a room where it is just the two of us. "Okay, let's start from block one: My name is Rue, what is your name?" she starts. I grin. "Clove. I'm fifteen." I reply. We talk about home and everything, but my heart aches at the mention of home, even though no one I love is there anymore. Rue. The name just tells me, somehow, that this, her death, was bound to happen. She was named after such a sweet thing, a flower. After a while, she leads me to the dorms where we will live together forever. I ask why, and she replies that since we died young, our spirits are not able to enter the afterworld some people used to believe in long ago, before Panem. No one in Panem believes in the afterlife. But I guess there is one. We will wait here together until the youngest one of us, in this case Rue, can enter the afterlife, so we have to wait until she turns twenty, the permitted age of entry. "But, there is a catch: since we died together, all twenty-two of us must live together forever, even in the afterlife." Great. I will have to see the faces of all the kids I killed forever. Maybe they will forgive me. I know I will forgive the boy from Eleven. Anyone protecting Rue would kill to keep her safe.
Our dorms are exactly like the ones in the Training Center. Actually, the whole building we are in resembles the Training Center. We ride up the elevator to floor eleven, and I immediately know that Rue's friend is the boy from Eleven. Rue walks in the rooms, me following her, when the boy gets up. He slides his hand to protect Rue, but she tells him we are friends. "Thresh." He says while he extends his hand. "Clove." I reply harshly, but I still shake his hand. Rue just looks at us with confusion. "He killed me." I say. She understands and gives me a nod. "Thresh, if Clove forgives you, you can enter the afterlife, or your spirit will go back home forever, which is not a good thing." Rue tells us. "Fine, I forgive you, only because of Rue. I would kill you too if you threatened her." I tell him. He nods and walks away, I think to his bedroom. "Allies?" I ask. "Even though the Games are over, this creepy afterlife is not one to be walking in alone." Rue nods. "Oh my god! Rue! Check this out! Your death started a rebellion in District 11! All other districts are now joining!" screams the fox faced girl form Five. Rue shivers, and the three of us run towards the television. They play the full scene of Rue's death, and I am crying, but the part after gives me hope. Katniss is not as bad as I thought. She sang Rue to sleep, and she covered her in flowers, which is a symbol of rebellion. A man pushes his way out of line and beats up a peacekeeper. "Daddy.." Rue says when she sees the man beating up the peacekeeper. Then, the rest of the crowd screams and starts beating up peacekeepers. They are winning until back-ups come and defeat the crowd. "This is what we need: a rebellion. It's time those stupid Capitol people stop killing us!" says the boy from Nine, the one I killed. I am looking at him and thinking about if he will forgive me when all the tributes I killed come around me in a circle. Do they want to kill me? "We forgive you for killing us, because we too had to be forgiven." they all say. I smile and they smile as well.
