Finnick had been dead for 3 weeks now. 3 weeks. 21 days. 504 hours. 30240 minutes. And 1814400 unbearable seconds. I lay in Johanna's bed, my eyes glued to a tiny speck of dust as it drifted across the room. It was 3 in the morning. Johanna slept soundly beside me. I couldn't sleep. I rarely did, these days. The only thing that kept me going was the child growing inside of me. His child. Finn would hate me if I let his son die. I slid my slender fingers across my tummy, thinking about the baby boy that grew there.

Pregnancy was a frightening concept to me. There was a child growing inside of me, and that was scary. I was responsible for a life when I could barely keep myself alive. I couldn't run away from this. I couldn't suddenly decide to go back. And Finnick wasn't here with me. That was the worst part. Our baby boy would never know his Daddy.

Suddenly my eyes were filled with tears. I couldn't stay in bed any longer. I rolled silently out of bed, wobbling for a moment on my thin legs before running out of Johanna's room and into the darkened hallway wearing nothing but my thin white nightie.

I walked down the hallway for a minute before I took off running. There was nothing but silence, my ragged breathing and bare feet slapping off the cold floor.

My heart was beating quickly, but I wasn't alive, not really. A beating heart could not constitute life. My heart beat. My brain thought. But I was dead. My life was tied with Finnick's. When his ended, mine had to. This was all I had now. Silence and darkness.

District 13 was like a maze. I could barely catch my breath as I raced through the deserted labyrinth. I found myself in a concrete stairwell, running up the steps two at a time.

The physical exertion made it hard to think. But as I reached a dead ended hallway, everything came flooding back, like the water in the arena had during my games. I thought I had felt the worst pain there. But this was the worst pain, this loss. I couldn't run, or swim, or fight. It was pulling me down and I could do nothing but drown. I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, resting my head on my knobby knees. I pulled my legs into my chest and I began to wail. I screamed until my throat was raw and I could make no more sound. I cried for Finnick. I cried for our child. I cried for the world. Suddenly, I was thinking about Marius Brooks.

He was my district partner. We had been best friends back home. We had even kissed, once. That was before Finnick, of course. That was how I categorized events in my life. Before Finnick. After Finnick. And now, after after Finnick.

Marius and I hadn't planned to go into the games together. He was going to volunteer—it was his last year, and his parents were pressuring him into it. His older sister, Sulaa had won when her games. His brother, Bo had been killed brutally in his, but his family had forgotten that. They wanted another winner. So Mar went to the reaping that day meaning to volunteer. I had been called, then he volunteered, and suddenly we were on the train together and it was all very surreal. The interviews… The parade… It was all a blur. Then… The games.

Marius and I stuck together at first. For a while, we thought we could do it. We aligned ourselves with the other career tributes and things were going well. I could tell the others didn't like me—at first, I looked away every time they killed someone. I slowly became more and more used to it. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of blood. I could handle that. I could. If it meant getting home, I would do it. I would be strong.

One night, however, everyone was asleep. I was keeping watch when a girl from district 12 ran out of the woods, her eyes wild. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and in her hands she clumsily wielded an axe. I yelled and lunged for my dagger, and her dark eyes flicked up to me. They didn't look threatening. They looked frightened. Apologetic. Desperate. She doesn't want to kill anyone. She wants to live. I realized. While the other careers woke and scrambled for weapons, I was frozen, locked in a stare with a girl who wanted to live. Suddenly, she turned away from me and swung her axe downward with a scream that sounded less like a battle cry and more like a wounded child. Before I was able to comprehend what was happening, the blade was embedded in Marius' back.

"NO!" I shrieked, lunging at her. She brushed me off, and ducked below the arrow of the still half-asleep district 2 girl. She pulled the axe out of his back, resulting in a terrible scream from Marius and a flow of crimson blood from his wound. "MARIUS! NO! DON'T HURT HIM!"

She was going for a death blow this time, I could see it in those captivating eyes. But she wasn't good with the axe. It smashed down onto his hand as he struggled to get out of the way. His screaming seemed like it would never end.

I tried to lunge at her, but I just fell to the ground at her feet, sobbing profusely. She glanced at me, then back at Marius, whose face was contorted with pain. Our eyes met. Then, her axe swung, and met it's target. His screams were cut short as her axe severed his head. Blood poured from my best friend's neck as his head rolled towards me. I was still shrieking. Then the girl was too. She continued to scream as one of the careers, a boy from district 1, finally thrust a sword through her pale stomach. The girl fell onto their sword, her blood mixing with Marius' as she doubled over. We still hadn't looked away from each other. There was so much pain in her gaze. Not just physical. Emotional. She had killed a boy. That's all he was. A boy. A child. That's all we all were. And here we were, alone on a cold night, covered in the blood of those whose only mistake was being born, being reaped. I screamed and screamed as the district 12 girl was impaled again and again on the boy's blade. Why wouldn't she just die? Why did she continue to scream? Why did she continue to live? She should have died by now… Surely she had lost enough blood, been through enough pain. Her screams were sobs, now. The pitiful, dying sobs of a person who had lived through years of a painful life only to die painfully. Her blood was on my hands. Her blood was on all of our hands. Finally, she stopped crying. The district 1 boy pulled his sword from her limp form. Her body fell across my lap. I screamed. I screamed and I stared at the stars and I screamed.

There was a conversation happening. They were talking. They were talking about me. I heard my name. But all I did was scream.

"We've got to kill her. We've got no other choice. She's lost her mind now, anyway. It's more humane…"

"Here, Diamond, you do it. We'll all have equal kills now."

Diamond was coming towards me, a sword in her hand.

"Sorry, Anna, I'll make it quick."

They didn't even know my name. They didn't care. No one cared. I didn't care. I wanted to die. Maybe when I died I could stop screaming.

I stood up then, my shrieks fading to ragged breathing. The girl's limp body rolled off my lap and lay face down beside the headless corpse that had once been my best friend. I didn't know her name. I would never know. I would fall to the ground beside them and die here. This was the end of me.

But as I thought this I was running. By the time I realized that I had turned and run, I was far away. I curled up in a ball and cried for hours. I was weak, damaged, crazy. And yet, a few hours later, I had won.

I wasn't a victor though. I had lost. I should have stayed there and let Diamond impale me on her sword. It would have been less painful.

I opened my eyes. I wasn't in the Games. I wasn't in the hallway either. I was in a hospital bed, strapped down. My eyes looked around the room until they found Johanna, whose eyes were burning a hole in the wall. She glanced down at me.

"Annie." She said. Her voice cracked.

"Valora." I gasped. "Her name was Valora. Her blood was on my hands, Johanna." My voice was raw. The words barely forced their way out.

"They found you at 4 in the morning, in an abandoned hallway, screaming. You wouldn't stop. They had to sedate you."

"There's blood. There's always blood. Why? Why does it have to happen?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Johanna whispered. "They said the medicine would make you confused. Just calm down, Annie, try and focus. You don't know what's happening."

"I'm not confused. They're confused. They're all confused. They think that fighting will solve all their problems. Finn did. I did, once, but all it does is spill blood. Blood, all over your hands…"

"NURSE!" Johanna cried. Her eyes were desperate. A flustered looking woman I didn't recognize rushed in and began messing with the IV that was attached to my hand. "Annie, you can't do this again. The baby, Finn… You've got to try."

As sleep claimed me again, I whispered.

"I am."