THE 150th HUNGER GAMES

District 2 Goodbyes

I'm sorry I haven't updated and I'm sorry I was inspired to tell all of you this Peacekeeper's life story

Peacekeeper Dedd's (District 2) P.O.V:

The hall is silent except for the thuds of our footsteps as I escort the District 2 tributes, Mildred East and Oscar Leigh, into two separate rooms so that they can say goodbye to their families. I am slightly nervous about being around Mildred as she has killed so many people and seems almost insane, but as a Peacekeeper, I have been trained not to show any emotion, especially fear. Fear is out of the question.

Any Peacekeeper who shows that kind of weakness deserves death, according to those who trained me to be the Capitol's soldier thirteen years ago... Thirteen years I've been a Peacekeeper, yet it feels like yesterday my final Reaping passed and my father enlisted me.

I push open the door for Oscar first, and he enters the room that the photographer and his family are already in. I observe a middle-aged man that must be his father with a serious expression on his face, black hair like his son's just beginning to gray, a girl probably about thirteen with the same face as Oscar- his sister perhaps?-, eyes wide with worry. A third figure, grey cloak covering their face, a rather suspicious figure. Oscar enters the room, and I shut the door behind him.

Across the hall is the room where Mildred will be saying goodbye to her family. I push open the door and see three people in addition to the cameraman but swing the door shut behind her before I can study them closely, wishing to be as far away from this sadistic murderer.

I wait outside the room, keeping a close eye on my watch as the tributes are only permitted a total of five minutes to say goodbye. Thirty seconds pass. One minute. One minute and forty-five seconds. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The hall is silent except the clock.

At two minutes, twenty-six seconds, and fifty-seven milliseconds, a piercing scream shatters the stillness.

Came from the room Mildred was in, definitely one of surprise but from the way it was abruptly cut off also of pain. Before I can even enter the room to see what is going on the tribute storms out, sending the door catapulting toward me as I was standing next to it. I step out of the way and the door handle makes an indent in the wall from the force it was thrown open with.

She turns to me and she's holding a bloody knife, red oozing down the shiny blade. Where did she possibly get it? It wouldn't have been in the room, and everyone, including her, went through security before entering. How could she get past our forces? "Yesssss," she whispers, a crazed smile on her face. "I've killed them."

She's gone mad. She's gone completely mad. She's just slayed her entire family by choice. She's not even in the arena and she's murdering people on purpose and even seems to enjoy it.

"And now... Now I'm going to kill you."

A lightning bolt of shock and then fear overcomes me and all thirteen years of Peacekeeper training have been vanquished in this one moment. Gone is my military training, gone is my ability to use a gun. Gone is the expressionless, cold, detached face that never shows weakness. It is as though I have completely frozen- my mind is blank and I can't move and I'm utterly petrified of this...this monster before me. I can't think straight, all I can do is stare at Mildred East and wonder if these are my last minutes of life and if this is truly my death- death due to this slaughterer for no reason but to satisfy her craving for blood and increase her reputation for being a deranged killer. I don't want to die in this way. I don't want to die at all.

Life flashes before my eyes, as they all say it does right before death, as Mildred raises her knife and brings to down toward me. My earliest memories, starting training for the Hunger Games, always being the best from early on. Wesley Dedd, the popular one, the one everyone knew was going to volunteer when he was eighteen, the one who most certainly was going to win the Games. Yet I was also the coward. Deep inside, killing was not my passion and neither was the sword. My final Reaping, the day I was supposed to take the place of whoever was Reaped, the day I was so determined to convince myself this was what I wanted, this was my destiny, doubts battling fiercely against the part of me that knew I was a Career. And then, finally, as the moment came to shout out that I was this year's volunteer, they won, convincing me this was not who I was. Thus I let twelve years of training, waiting for that one final moment, all be for nothing, and allowed the poor twelve-year-old Clarence Plattner, whose name and expression of shock as he walked up to the stage will never leave me, perish in the 137th Hunger Games. My father, outraged, angry beyond anything I had ever seen him like before, sending me off to be a Peacekeeper against my wishes. Begging to stay, stay with Andjay because she was all I ever wanted. Suffering through training, learning to fight and always being the underdog because everyone knew Wesley Dedd, the Career who chickened out on volunteering, who was so stupid he gave up riches and fame and was a disgrace to the Dedd name. Thinking about Andjay still at home, exchanging letters with her from the camp, more at first but then less and less replies from her and then coming home four years later to find she had moved on with Leo Manning, who had once been my best friend, was previously my enemy, and was now my nemesis. The jealousy and the hate that followed and how I put that into my fighting and how after that the ranks just slid by until I was honored with protecting the Hunger Games tributes for District 2. Coming to get the tributes every year for the past four Games, including the Quell- watching many die and almost none surviving. Spotting Andjay in the crowd during the Reaping as everyone must attend, holding hands with Leo. Last year there was a small child accompanying them. I knew then that we really were a thing of the past. The Westjay/Andley ship had permanently sunk, much to my disappointment. Attempting to get over her but knowing deep in my heart I never will and after a few months just giving up altogether.

I will not even get to see that child grow up.

The door bolts open and there is Oscar, staring in surprise at the morbid scene before him. He calls out, "Mildred, what the hell are you do-"

But by then, by then it's too late.