Hey everybody! I am glad no one hates me. Thank goodness I have an excuse for making Peeta and Katniss fight. Hehehe… Thank you people for asking how I am after surgery. I'm good, but I am on strict bed rest, and so that is why I am typing up so many chapters. I have all of this time on my hands and only a cell phone and a laptop for entertainment. And it sure is entertaining! Thanks to all of my reviewers. You people are so nice to me. And entertaining. In response to one of my reviews, I have to save don't worry. I have everything planned out. Yeah, I am probably going to put Finnick in there more once I figure more of the story out. And I'm not mad at you for not paying attention. Heck, I don't even remember saying something like that, but it is just as well. My memory is horrible. And OMG I know! When I read mockingjay I cried at the end soooo hard. Really. I made my mom read it and she cried too. So many people died that I loved it's not even funny. I am not going to go into details just in case some of you haven't read it, but all I have to say is I HATE SUZANNE COLLINS! No offense. :3 Please enjoy this chapter!
How come I cry so much? For the second time in two days, I found myself leaning against th wall in the nursery/astronomy lab crying my eyes out. Nobody had come in here to comfort me or tell me it will be alright. By "nobody" I meant "Peeta" because he was the only person who knew about this room. I guess he is a pretty smart guy for leaving me the heck alone, because if he came in now, I just might scream at him again. Maybe.
I stared up at the sky, and judging by the sun being just barely above the horizon in the east, I decided that only a day had passed with me being in the hospital. I looked back down and picked at the sleeve of my shirt. As soon as I had gotten away from everyone, I had ripped off my hospital gown and stuffed it in the trashcan. Thank goodness I had a spare pair of clothing in the nursery, because I was getting cold standing in there in only my underwear.
It was pretty creepy in the nursery all alone, I had to admit. All of the other times I had Peeta's arms around me in here and the lanterns in the corners gave off a warm light, not a menacing glow. I closed my eyes and imagined this room as if it were two hundred years later, when I am dead and gone, but all of the same stuff was still there. In my mind, cobwebs hung from the long-extinguished lanterns and the beautiful crib creaked and moaned every time a gust of wind blew on it from the ceiling, which was smashed in.
I gave a shutter and reopened my eyes. Thankfully, there were no cobwebs or shattered glass on the floor. Even though the lanterns went out a while back, there was still enough yellow light from the setting sun to illuminate the room in a non-threatening way. The cradle was sitting as motionless as a stone, being as dust-free and as pretty as ever.
I sat down next to it and wrapped myself in the blankets Peeta had set out. They were warm, so I sank down lower on the floor and curled my body around them. Don't ask how, but I actually managed to fall asleep laying there.
In my dream, I was walking down a spooky hallway, that I knew to be the one to the nursery, but something was different somehow. I studied the decaying walls and dragged my hand along the sides. A thick wall of dust sputtered out from my fingertips and ever-so-slowly settled around me. I had absolutely no idea of how blinding dust was when there was a lot of it. My feet slid against the floor as I stumbled around in the white cloud.
Suddenly, my face slammed hard into something. I cried out and scrambled around for something, anything, to hold onto as I fell backwards. My sweaty fingers closed around something very round, and very smooth against the wall. A doorknob? My heart slowed down gradually and I turned the knob.
Thankfully, the dust cloud did not follow me into the room as I ran in and closed the door behind me. Only then, did I have the time to glance around me to see where I was. Several decrepit old items littered the room depressively: A shelf, covered in cobwebs; a dirty old lantern hanging from each corner; a crib, moldy and faded.
I got the feeling back into my feet and found myself running my fingers along all of these things. My things. An unrecognizable piece of who-knows-what tipped over and fell from the shelf. As if the sound turned all the way off, the item made no noise as it hit the ground and shattered into a million different shards of glittering sparkles. I watched as they sat still for a moment in the air and then slowly begin to rise. Rising up past my face, shimmering like miniscule fireflies, I stared at them. My head tilted upward as the glitters cascaded into the glass ceiling and everything exploded. The sound came back and along with covering my ears, I ducked and covered up my head with my hands as pieces of the world around me fell in slow motion like snow.
Through all of the whistling and cascading glass, I heard a cry, high-pitched and helpless. I struggled through the broken ceiling, trying to find the source of the crying. Logically, the first place anyone would look was the crib, so I crawled over to the cradle and lifted a larger piece of glass off of the top. Inside was a bundle of white blankets, turned away from me. In desperation, I scooped it up in my arms and searched for an opening of the blankets.
Instead of finding a soft baby face like I thought I would, my shaking fingers closed around a piece of smooth paper. I lowered the bundle and brought the paper up to read. On it, was only four words: LET THE GAMES BEGIN
Wind began whistling eerily above me, running over the broken edges of the glass ceiling. The wind caught on the paper in my hand and ripped it from my hands. I flailed my hands in the air, trying to grab the bit of paper back. It was no use; the wind had already blown it out of reach and out the shattered ceiling.
The wind died down as soon as it had begun. I sat still on the broken glass, clutching the limp, empty blankets, staring out at the night sky. A spooky full moon hung directly above me, and what was odd was that it seemed to be getting bigger the more I gazed at it. Sure enough, after some five minutes of trying to decide whether I was going mad or not, the moon was a good five times the size it had been earlier, and growing rapidly.
With the swelling of the moon came a second whistling. Like something large and heavy falling from a great height. It didn't take too long for me to figure out I was just about to get crushed by the moon. There was nowhere to run, and even if I did, it was impossible to escape the increasing air pressure and the sense of dread as you watched Earths' moon come falling onto on you.
The last thing I heard was stillness, and a little tinkle of wind-chimes, then an enormous weight crashed down on me and everything went blank.
My eyes opened and for a second, I thought I was still in the nursery, but I adjusted to the darkness and saw that I wasn't. The dark squares littering the walls suggested that many painting and pictures were hung up, so I guessed the room I was in was Peeta's.
Funnily enough, when I turned my head to look at my left, Peeta was there sleeping soundly. When I was there, watching him sleep so peacefully, it was hard to be angry at him. In fact, I felt horrible that I had screamed at him earlier and wondered dolefully why he kept coming back to me after I had hurt him so many times. Don't get me wrong, I wanted him to forgive me each time I was nasty to him, but I'm sure it wasn't easy sticking up with me 24/7.
I sat up and turned my body to face him, sitting on my knees with my hands in my lap. The blanket was tucked up to Peeta's chin, and his lips were curved into a frown. I wondered if he was having a bad dream or if he fell asleep looking like that. If he did, I knew it was because of me.
"Peeta," I whispered, leaning over to gently shake his shoulder. No response. "Peeta, wake up." Peeta mumbled in his sleep, sinking lower into the covers. I put my hand on his cheek and debated whether to flick his forehead. I knew that would wake him up, but it just seemed really mean. "Wakey-wakey."
Peeta's eyelids opened heavily and he blinked. "Are you okay? Is anything wrong?"
"I wanted to apologize for screaming at you yesterday." I sat back and bit my lip, hoping he wouldn't be mad for me waking him up in the middle of the night to tell him that.
"Are you still sleeping?" He raised his eyebrows.
I shook my head. "I had a nightmare and woke up. I assure you, I am not sleeping."
"Oh." Peeta stifled a yawn and struggled to sit up.
"I'm really, really sorry." I began, looking down at my hands. "It seems like you are always getting yelled at by me and you always come back to me."
Peeta blinked again. "Do you not want me to?"
"No, no! That isn't what I meant." I hugged my arms to my chest and discovered that that hurt the cut on my stomach, so I let go. "You just never seem angry at me. I can't keep going on like this, taking all of my anger out on you, and expecting you to forgive me the next day."
"Katniss, there isn't really anything to forgive." Peeta shook his head at me.
"There isn't really anything to forgive?" I snorted. "I scream at you on a daily basis. That right there is something that needs to be forgiven."
"You always have a good reason to scream at me. If anything, you should forgive me. I am just so wound up around keeping you safe and following the rules that I fail to see beyond that point. I will always forgive you if you will forgive me."
I scowled. "This is also what I am talking about. You direct everything towards yourself to make it seem like everything is your fault, which it isn't."
"If it makes you feel any better," Peeta smiled a tiny bit. "I am pretty angry at you for half an hour afterwards. I suggest you come to me during that time, so you won't be disappointed."
I smiled weakly back at him. "If I were in your shoes, I would have left me a long time ago."
"But you aren't in my shoes, so that is what matters."
"I know." Peeta's logic was so utterly stupid and true at the same time that I had to laugh.
Peeta shoved the covers off of him and opened his arms. "Come on, Katniss. Hug-time."
I didn't know whether to frown or to laugh. "Hug-time?"
"Yes." Miraculously, Peeta managed to keep a straight face, and I applauded him for that.
Giving in to his complete inanity, I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder. "Just don't call it 'hug-time' ever, ever, ever again, okay?"
"Deal." Peeta rested his chin on the top of my head.
Suddenly, I gasped in pain and jerked away from Peeta. Even though it was not quite as bad as the day-before-yesterdays' pain, it still felt as though I was being stabbed with a small steak knife.
"What is it?" Peeta held onto my shoulders, and then gaped at the red stain spreading slowly across my stomach.
OOO how scary. Originally, I had chapter 50 end right before Katniss woke up, but then I decided it was too short. Well, here is the real ending, and it seems too long. Oh, well. :3 I hope you guys enjoyed it. I have the next chapter (somewhat) planned out, so I think I am going to download them at the same time so you people won't have to worry about what is going to happen for a week. It is not going to take that long for any chapter to come out, I promise. :D see you guys next chapter! TheSoggyBug