Winter dies out. The hovercrafts stop bombing District 12. Choosing instead to streak randomly overhead back and forth. Peacekeeper patrols cease. But the forest has grown to be a part of Madge by now, and she finds scant reason to return to whats left of her home. Knowing there'd be nothing left but further heartbreak and remnants of her past she can never hope to recover.

The tugging loneliness in her chest refuses to let up, New Madge or not. It intensifies as the weather warms and the trees return their colour. Imagining her old self sitting on a tree with Katniss without a care in the world. Munching on apples. Blushing at every abortive flirtation. Her heart aches with longing - and the nostalgia proves too much to bear. She shoulders a rifle and trudges off towards the Victor's village.

Dust coats Katniss's windowpanes and a hollow interior greets her when she peers into the shattered glass. The cat's gone. A pang of despair strikes her cold when she imagines this house left permanently vacant. Katniss's bed forever empty. The warmth of her embrace lost to time. Madge clenches her fists and tries to hold herself together. The rational part of her brain ponders whether she'd make it three feet into the house before breaking down. Weighing the emotional cost against whatever spare supplies she can still salvage. Opting not to when she remembers Katniss's house already looted dry so many times.

Instead, she presses three fingers to her lips, and seals the front door with them. A last kiss goodbye for the friend she knew too soon, and loved too late.

She would've missed it if she turned any quicker. The tiny paper corner sticking out of their mailbox. There was a post office in town, yes - presumably bombed to pieces. Who'd still be delivering mail? The envelope's coated with dust like everything else, nearly crumpled dry with age and exposure.

Curiosity gets the better of her. The only quality old and new Madge share. She plucks the envelope from the letterbox.

Her heart contracts when she sees a single letter marked on the centre.

M.

This can't be real, can it?

There's no disagreement between the two Madges anymore. Both sit on her shoulder and tug at her fingers.

To M.

I'm sorry I can't use your name.

Truth be told, I don't know why I'm writing this letter.

To mourn your loss, perhaps - the ghost of which has haunted me every day since witnessing the ruins of your home.

Or perhaps as a momentary fragment of hope I just needed to pen down, to seal into permanence lest this war rob all that's good in me and I can no longer hope.

A few months ago they let me return and take some stuff from my house. And I'd noticed the broken window. The missing food from my fridge and that bow I told you about.

A part of me imagined it was you, or at least your ghost that did this. And when I went to my bed and detected the faintest trace of your hair's scent. The fragrance of lavender mixed with rain. The imagination blossomed to hope.

I know you're alive, M. You're alive in my dreams each night. You're alive in the thoughts I cling onto when things get impossible. You're alive when they make me shoot those videos and all I can see in the distance is your sun-kissed hair and the way you smile.

Tomorrow I head on the last flight to the Capitol to put an end to things once and for all. Perhaps I will die. Fighting for a world where we can be together without restrictions. And if I do, I pray that this letter will one day find you.

Will you promise, dear M - that I'd stay alive in your soul?

The same way you did in mine.

With greatest love,

Katniss Everdeen