Safe and Sound || Hunger Games

Chapter Twenty Nine - Short Lived Perfection

NOTE: I'm just letting you know that it's back to Harper's Point of View, just in case that you didn't read the author's note on the last chapter :) Please enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Nine - Short Lived Perfection

As soon as my eyes opened, I started coughing. I felt the familiar, warm liquid trickle down my chin as the pain tugged at my chest. My head was spinning and I didn't quite know what was going on. All I knew was that the air smelt and tasted clean again and that, when I wasn't coughing, I could actually breathe again. I gasped and gagged, until I was too tired to cough anymore. I had coughed my lot. I put my head back down on the forest floor again, clutching it as it span. It was early evening, meaning that tomorrow was going to be the eighteenth day spent in the Games. As I looked at the moon, I suddenly remembered: Grayson.

I looked over my shoulder, hoping to see Grayson sitting beside me. But he wasn't. He was lying beside me, his eyes closed and his mouth and chin stained with his own, dried blood. I gasped and sat up. I reached over to him and gabbed his shoulder. I was about to shake him to see if he was asleep or dead, when I felt his hand clamp down on mine, stopping me from doing anything.

"Please don't. That hurts. I'm alive, okay?" Grayson mumbled, his voice raspy and quiet, causing me to let out a laugh while starting to cry. I fell down onto his stomach and sobbed into his stomach, glad that we had both made it out. Grayson let his hand flop down so it rested on my back, his thumb rubbing small circles in between my shoulder blades. But...how had we both made it out? I sat up and reached out, gently stroking back Grayson's hair. It was still somewhat damp from the blood, but I didn't stop. Most of the blood had dried, anyway.

"Grayson?" I asked. He opened his eyes and looked at up me. The pain shone in them more than ever before. He raised his eyebrows slightly, a sign that he was interested, "How did we manage to get out of the clearing and away from the blood?"

Grayson sighed and looked up at the sky, before he explained how he had managed to get up and get us both out of there, while coughing up blood and more. I listened to him intently, not wanting to miss a single detail.

"I really owe you now. More than ever. I owe you lots." I said once he had finished. He could have died rescuing me, but he shrugged it off. I continued to stroke back his hair.

"You don't owe me anything, you would have done the same for me. I'm not sure if you're aware, but we're allies remember? Each other's mockingjay. Surely you of all people wouldn't have forgotten that." He said, causing me to laugh slightly. It hurt my chest terribly, but things could have been much worse, so I didn't say anything. Grayson then closed his eyes and allowed me to continue with stroking and fiddling with his thick mess of hair, which now had dried blood in it. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but I thought I would never do this again, what with the jackets and the blood in the air, but Grayson had proved me wrong like he did on many occasions. He had ignored the pain, pushed past the trauma and got the two of us out of there as fast as he could, nearly dying on the way.

And that was what made this moment more special than any other we had experienced so far in the Games. No, we weren't dancing to a chorus from the mockingjays under a blue moon. We were covered in dried blood, cuts, bruises and scars. We had just seen each other break from emotional pain and trauma. We had just seen each other snap and start to crumble, desperation filling our broken cries. But now, even after all of that and more, we were with each other after escaping death one more time, like we had done a few more times before. We were just being thankful for each other's presence. It was a silent, non-verbal thanking, but it was as loud as any nonetheless. Perhaps even more so.