A/N: So nice to see you all again… I'm sorry I haven't updated enough, and I know I haven't. I'm getting better, I had a serious case of Writer's Block, and RL is such a pain sometimes. Please continue to enjoy.
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Katniss Mellark
I almost screamed when Gale Hawthorne shook my hand.
The whole point of my volunteering was so that neither of those families had to suffer, and here he was: the blatant defiance of that idea.
The odds weren't in either of our favor.
After the anthem played, we were escorted away to the safety of separate rooms.
I'm in the Justice Building, waiting to be taken to the train station for transport to the Capitol. I'm nervous about everything—but mostly, the coming moments where our families are allowed in to see us.
I worry about the abuse my mother will spew forth, about how these moments are the moments I have left to say good-bye to those who are so important to me.
They burst in—my brothers before my parents, saying encouraging words of love and hope.
We all know it's a lie, and I won't be coming back despite what they say, but these are moments to treasure as I realize that they are loving me the best way they can. This is their apologies for teasing me all these years, and their way of asking me to forgive them for all of the times they had been cruel.
I make amends as well, because I will never see them again. Oddly enough, I am okay with that small fact.
"Compassion," my mother says quietly. Everyone is silent. "You have shown them you have compassion. You always have, and always will. Do not let them use it against you. District Twelve may finally have a Victor again. Watch out for him, Katniss; he's a survivor."
I wince, because that is my mother being kinder to me than most of the childhood I remember… and also warning me that I would not be the Victor of District Twelve that she referred to.
"We will not let the Hawthorne-or Everdeen-children starve," she says.
I gulp, and wonder if I am so transparent that my mother knows exactly why I did what I did today. Why I put myself up for the kill, instead of letting a twelve-year-old child just go.
She doesn't say anything else, and my father just hugs me for a long, long time. He and I have never really needed to say much to each other. We were comfortable being around each other without the necessity of mindless chatter.
That was a special something I had with my father.
I'm shaking when he finally lets go, and the Peacekeepers open the door.
"Time's up," one says gruffly.
My family gawks at one another. This is it. They're leaving me, and I will never see them again. My mother gives me a tight-lipped smile, and my father clears his throat to signal everyone to start moving.
They're disappearing before my eyes—out the door, out of my life. The thought makes me inhale sharply before I collapse on the velvet sofa behind me, half crying and half thinking about the luxury of this room alone.
I wrap my arms around myself protectively, and listen to the silence of my decision save for my own sniffling and unsteady breaths.
There's a soft knock at the door, and it opens abruptly. I look up to find Peeta Everdeen staring at me with his wide blue eyes.
He looks frightened for a moment, and then it's masked to be somewhat pleasant.
"Wrong room," he says quietly, and turns to leave. He pauses at the door.
"You saved my sister's life." He looks back over his shoulder, and I notice I've stopped crying. I've stood, and I'm gripping the arm of the couch.
I nod a little.
"Why?"
This is it, I think. You have the chance to say—
"I couldn't bear to watch her suffer, and know I could have done something," I say. My voice is much stronger than I feel.
His gaze is no longer coolly passive.
"Thank you," he says very quietly.
I look at the ground, flushing.
"Yes."
We stand there for a moment, and the longer he stares at me, the redder I become.
"May the odds be ever in your favor, Katniss Mellark." His voice is almost a whisper, and he pulls the door open harshly, leaving it that way as he exits. A Peacekeeper pulls it shut tightly, and my knees give out, tears welling up in my eyes again.
The door opens once more, and I try to stop them as Primrose Everdeen storms over to where I sit, and throws her arms around my neck.
"It'll be alright, Katniss," she says, clasping my face in her hands. "But you have to take care, too. You're so brave. Maybe you can win."
My heart sinks. I can't win, and the sentiment that I could strikes me as rather abrasive. There will be twenty-two other kids there—some that have been groomed to win since they were very young.
Girls twice my size that could kill me twenty ways with a knife.
"Maybe," I repeat emptily.
"Come home, Katniss," she begs of me. "You will try, won't you? Really, really try?"
Her eyes catch mine, and I wonder what it is that she knows that makes her react this way. Or if she's just maudlin because I volunteered for her.
"Swear it," she whispers, and I can't resist.
"Really, really try. I swear it."
It enters my mind that I have just sworn that I would try to actually win the Hunger Games with a renowned hunter in the other room to go up against… and even with all the experience Gale Hawthorne has had, we are a weak district for the Games.
We haven't had a Victor since Haymitch Abernathy when he was fourteen. That was nearly thirty years ago.
She nods, satisfied, and leaves as the Peacekeepers signal her time with me is up.
This has been the strangest day of my life, and I have the feeling that my life is about to end more abruptly than I would have cared for.
It's been a few hours, and they are finally moving us to the train to get started toward the Capitol. I wonder if that's how long it took to collect Haymitch from the Hob, a black market the Peacekeepers pretend not to know about.
It scares me that he is supposed to be our mentor, and how much alcohol he must consume to be so stinking drunk all of the time.
Effie is saying something about how special it is that we get to be here, if nothing but just for a little while, and there is a sadness to her voice that I both can and can't really understand.
She is a Capitolite. She has had an elite lifestyle all her years, and never wanted for anything at all… yet she has wanted to move up in her career, and been denied year after year. I understand that denial in a different way, but still cannot bring myself to think that Effie Trinket and I will ever be the same.
Her, with her poofy wigs and caked-on makeup, her obsession with trivial things that make me want to scream at the top of my lungs that none of this matters. It doesn't. I'm going to die, and I don't care one bit what is for supper.
She's looking at me, waiting for a response. In the most polite voice I can muster, I ask her "What did you say?"
She huffs for a moment, and yammers on some more. I can't bring myself to listen. It's like everything is muffled, and we're being shown to rooms. I still haven't looked at Gale Hawthorne since I was forced to shake his hand. I couldn't bear it.
He's the last person I wanted standing next to me today, and it really is killing me to think that his family—including Peeta, is one person short.
We won't let them starve.
My mother, who is angry and hurtful and mean all of the time… but when she says something like that, she means it. She will follow through.
Silently, I thank whoever may be listening for that small comfort.
I step into my room, and look around.
There is a bed, which looks fairly simple until I touch it. Lush fabric greets my hand as though it has been there for me, waiting all along. I press down on the bed, and it gives in response.
I wonder what sleeping here will be like, and I sit down for a moment. The bed is so soft I feel I may cry.
Suddenly, I am so very tired. It's as if the emotions of the day have worn me through and demand the closing of my eyes.
For once, I can oblige.
I let my hair down, pulling the pins carefully out of the spots my mother had put them in this morning, memorizing the feeling of it. Then I lay down on my side, praying that this is just a dream, and tomorrow I will wake up at the bakery being screamed at by my mother because I am obviously lazy and purposely trying to exhaust her by making her do everything.
No wonder my brothers both moved out, I think sardonically, and let my eyes shut, willing sleep to come.
)+(*)+(
Running.
Just running.
There is no where to hide, no where to escape to as they're behind me, laughing and telling me to give up. I'm never going to win this anyway…
"Why did you volunteer?" someone asks behind me. I don't dare turn to tell them. I can't, because he or she is so close I can practically smell the earth radiating from him or her. I don't dare turn around.
"Katniss! Wait! Why?"
Finally, I cannot run any longer and I am forced to face the person asking me this.
"To volunteer because she deserved to live," I say bravely, and then there is a stab in my stomach, and I am on the ground.
Dying.
Just like I knew I would.
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tykiki