Willow Weeps: The 32nd Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 20: A Dream or a Nightmare

Chapter 20: A Dream or a Nightmare

Amber Blackburne District 6 Female

It feels like I've been spinning for eternity. My side cramps and I just want to sleep, close my eyes, and stop whatever this is. Willow has left. I don't know where she's gone to, what she's doing, or if she'll ever come back. That's when the cannons start to fire.

One after the other, again and again. I'm losing count of the number of tributes dead. Dark eyes peer through the trees, knocking arrows and readying blades.

"I'm next," I say to myself.

At that moment all of the weapons hone in on me, ready to hit me right between my eyes. I see the first arrow fly and brace myself for impact.

In the moments before it hits I'm transported somewhere else, and my feet feel the soft grass of a meadow. 

"I must be dreaming," I tell myself. "I must be,". As I stand all alone in the vast clearing, I wonder how long it will be until I wake.

My dreams always used to terrify me when I was little, for so many reasons. I try closing my eyes and blinking and thinking things like, "Wake up, Amber, Wake up,"

Nothing works. Something was latching me to the plane of dreams. Something was keeping me here, anchoring me to this eerie meadow. I don't know why I'm here, but strangely, I find myself not wanting to leave. There's something oddly peaceful and tranquil about this place. Maybe I could look around and lay here for a while. Take a break from the horrors of the Hunger Games. I can find a place where I can lay my head in a bed of flowers, maybe lie my back against a tree. Rest my eyes. I run into a field of daisies that appears the moment I fantasize about flowers.

The sun shines where I lay. "The sunny place where I lay now is where I want to leave," I say before I can stop myself. 

No Amber. Not now, not here. 

I just- I can't help myself. I think about the poem every day, constantly. Why did my mother have to be such a riddle? Why couldn't she just be here to tell me? Help me get through these wretched games? I want to go home, hug my father, hold my Gran's hand. I wish I could, but we all know I can't. My funeral has already been planned. Father will read the poem, and Gran will stumble through a speech.

Gran lost her eyesight before I was born, but she could see for part of her life. Father described me to her once when I was visiting. I think I was around seven... 

And suddenly, the scene shifts.

"Describe her to me, Graham. She's gorgeous isn't she?" Gran croaks. 

My father stares at me, and says, "She's a spitting image of her mother, mom. She looks like a young version of Destiny," I beam.

I look up at the ceiling of my Gran's house and watch as it morphs back into the meadow's sky. Seeing my Dad and Gram filled me with so much joy, I had felt so alone. But I'm not alone.

Somebody else is sitting next to me.

I stand up and stare down at the woman in white stargazing in the meadow with me. My mouth gapes open as I stare at the figure smiling at me. She's so pretty, so simple. She was pale, yet she glowed like the sun. She was full of contradictions, but everything about her seemed so certain. Her arched eyebrows seemed to show her emotions, her sadness, her hope, her everlasting love. Her frame was thin, and she wasn't built. She wore a simple silver locket around her neck, a long white dress that came to her ankles, and was barefoot. Her auburn brown hair was worn down in messy waves. 

Oh, and her smile was so warm and welcoming you couldn't look at her without feeling joy yourself. It was dazzling white, but not quite perfect. Just like her.

Then came her eyes. Her beautiful hazel eyes. You could get lost in her eyes, all the emotions swirling and speaking to you through the mix of colors abiding there. They sit below her beautifully arched eyebrows. They are a window to her kind soul, and they glow with the depths of universal understanding. It seems as though she captured the beauty of the universe in her eyes. Hickory brown swirled in with pistachio, shamrock, and olive. Each color spoke to me, each color restored me, each color comforted me. I didn't need an explanation, I didn't need words. I needed her. I wrapped my arms around her in sweet embrace. Like I was a child, I was happy to be in my mother's arms.

I never wanted to let go, I never wanted to leave. I wanted to be anchored here in the world of dreams for eternity. I can't remember being held in my Mother's arms. I was a little girl who grew up with nobody to hold her when she was hurt, nobody to braid her hair, nobody to read to her at night. Now, I have her. How could I leave her? I cried into her shoulder, mumbling indistinct words. She rubbed her petite hand on my back and patted my shoulder. I don't know how long we stayed locked together, but I wish it would've been longer. As we pulled apart, her eyes told me a thousand things. 

"It'll be okay, I love you, I'm always here, you are so beautiful," she said a thousand things without speaking.

I wanted to tell her so many things, but I felt myself being whisked away from her.

"I have to go," I said. She frowned.

"Before I go, I need to ask you something. What do they mean, your words?" I felt myself being swept away from her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she stopped herself and shook her head.

"Mom? What do they mean?"She hung her head. 

Then I woke up.


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