This uses information and in some cases quotes directly from chapter 9 of Mockingjay, and a few bits from the movie Mockingjay part 1 because certain ideas from that just couldn't leave my brain.
Finishing touches are being applied to make up and we're reviewing maps. There's been so much devastation and every once in a while the power still flickers and the prep teams are jittery about it. They're not used to such things. One of them smears foundation into the President's hair and there's a big fuss, while another is checking the make up on my wrists and adjusting my sleeves.
I'm starting to feel shaky but I'm sick of people asking me if I'm upset. I'll be fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine! I push the prep guy away as best I can. My leg is itching and I feel unstable walking.
"Are you-"
"If you ask me if I'm upset-" I round on the guard, "There's just a problem with the leg is all."
"We can get a technician," he looks around.
"There's no time," someone else says, "We need to get on the air now."
Snow had wanted me standing in front of the board nearby him, but I wind up sitting anyway, they are able to quickly rig something so that I'm level with it and propped so the foot doesn't hang in case it detaches which seems to be something they're concerned about. This idea concerns me too but nothing to be done now. The show must go on. Caesar must be so sorry that he's missing it.
Screens are live in front of us, scrolling through text. Snow is giving it one final approval given there are many different areas to cover.
Final approval given the President goes to his podium and the cameras whir around to focus on him. I see the Capitol insignia appear on the wall next to us and the anthem plays and then Snow is both next to me and watching me from the side.
"Greetings loyal citizens of Panem," the President says, "We are grateful to each and every one of you watching and listening for your continued support in these trying times. We must continue to work together now more than ever. If you suspect anyone around you of having any connection with or harboring radicals it is your sworn duty as a citizen to report them to Peacekeepers as quickly as you can before more events like these occur-" he turns to me and images on the board by my head flicker on and the prompter changes.
I can feel my head pulsing and my leg is itching more and more, "Everyone," I say as the woman by the prompter is frantically gesturing at it, "I've said before how important it is that we stop the violence, and that has never been more true. A cease fire is more urgent than ever before more people suffer in ways like those in District 7 who have lost so much to this destroyed dam. " Destroy. Destroy, "or those here near the toxic waste spill from the tank cars of this train the rebel's have derailed. The area is a no-go zone so we have no casualty estimates. In District 11 more radicals have set a fire which has caused a granary to collapse, early estimates at least 50 have died and still more are injured."
A blast of strange music interrupts everything.
"-coming to the tree, where the dead men called out for his love to flee," I feel a skipping in my chest. There's a girl standing in rubble. That place is so familiar. I feel things sinking inside of me. She has a braid...the music. I know it too. Somewhere inside I'm weeping for a loss I don't understand.
The image is gone. The President is angry I feel it. The woman by the prompter slams her hands on it. My eyes don't want to focus. That building. That girl. You'd be breaking her heart.
"In Dis—District 6," she's shaking her head at me, "I'm sorry, no. In District 5, the rebels bombed a water purification-"
And there's a slight buzzing noise and a man with curly blonde hair is there, and a young black girl is hovering behind him. I can see her floating in my mind surrounded by flowers as he mentions the tragedy of Rue.
Then she's there again, the braided girl in the ruins, and that sweet voice, "if we met at midnight in the hanging tree." She flickers on and off the screen in and out of the light, "the dead man called out for his love to flee," dead by morning and the blonde man and the black girl, and a dark haired boy. I think he and I have yelled at each other. So much destruction.
That was our home. I lived there and it's gone. I lived there.
She's standing where I lived.
"Strange things did happen here no stranger would it be,"
My brothers. We huddled together there hiding from my mother's anger.
There's a high pitched whine, and I clamp my hands over my ears as people are scrambling about, yelling at each other, placing blame. The President is pacing back and forth in front of his podium, anger rolls away from him and across to me.
"Mr. President we're go! We're go!" someone shouts.
Dead. She'll see him for one last time during the broadcast.
"As you can see the rebels are attempting to disrupt the dissemination of information they find incriminating; but truth and justice will reign. Full broadcast will resume when security has been reinstated. Peeta-"
The President is talking to me. I turn to him.
"Given tonight's demonstration, do you have any parting words for Katniss Everdeen?"
Katniss—she's in danger, no, she's the enemy, I can't..."Katniss—how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts." I'm running through the jungle trying desperately to reach her but the sky is fracturing around me. She'll be dead soon if I don't get to her, "And you in thirteen. Dead by morning!"
"End it!" I hear the president yelling.
"Decimated—they want to decimate y-" something heavy hits me in the face and I feel myself falling.