Johanna Mason- 68th Hunger Games (EDITING- ON HOLD)

Epilogue

"Lay down!" I snap to the wriggling person under me. "Stay down!" She stops, and I remove the knife from her shoulder. I stand to my wobbly feet. I have to keep going, despite the struggle Katniss gave to me as I tore the tracker out of her shoulder. I throw the cylinder I've knocked her out with over into the brush. She now lays limp on the grass, and I walk out of the coverage of the forest, leaving her alone. I see two figures running towards me. Enobaria and Brutus. I walk over to them, the bloody knife still in my hands.

    "I've nearly finished her off," I say to them. "She's going to die any moment."

   They flash a glance, then Brutus says to me, "You sure?"

   I nod, thankful they at least trust me a little, by the way I attacked her to get the tracker out. "Yeah, I said. She's going to die, but we better clear here before the lightning strikes." They nod and head off into the dense jungle, away from the lightning tree. I turn back to look once more at the bleeding, dizzy "girl on fire". She's going to stay down, I think to myself.

    I quickly run away off into the jungle, but away from Enobaria and Brutus. I struggle to hop and jump over the trailing vines on the floor, and cutting off any branches in my way with the knife. 

   I hear screams. Familiar screams, but I cannot place them under the thunder and the thickness of the forest. A girl, and two boys, I think. One's behind me, but one's to the side. I have no clue where to go. I choose a random direction with the hill leading downwards. Down must lead to water, right? Hopefully it does.

    I am keeping a good pace of running, until a branch snakes out and grabs my ankle. I fall to the jungle floor and swear to myself. I slowly pick myself back up, my arms and knees covered in mud and filth. I start to run again, although a headache is growing in my brain, and my arms and legs aren't too jolly either. If I want to get out of here alive with the others, I better hurry. They better not leave without me or else I'll-

   My thoughts are interrupted as I hear a faint droning. It's not the bugs, this time. I look up through the wet leaves and branches of these weird trees. I see a black figure flying in the sky; hovercraft.

   My first thought is that somebody died, but then I realize that no cannon fired off. Then my blood runs cold, and my fingers freeze. I run frantically toward the hovercraft, screaming for them to see me in the dense forest. I see them picking up. . . Katniss? And then another figure, which is Finnick. Both bleeding, but they are alive. Another body that I cannot make out.

   "Hey!" I scream, running into the clearing. "HEY!" I scream and curse at them to drop down a beam to pick me up, but it's already floating away. "No! Over here!" I wave my knife, and then I even resort to throwing it at the black metal. It makes a clink and falls to the ground without making a dent.

    Then they're gone.

   The first thought that comes to mind is they've abandoned me. Again. I can only stare up in shock at the gray sky, waiting for them to return, or at least come with another hovercraft. There's a cannon, and I whip around, expecting a person to jump out at me with a knife, thinking how easy it would be to finish off a girl with no weapon in her hands.

   I run blindly in the forest, not caring who or what I run into. All I know is that I'm finished with my pitiful life, and how nobody would care if I'm gone or not.

   There's another hovercraft, and I'm thinking now that they're finally recovered their wits and came back for me. But I stand there, not caring whether it's an enemy or a rebel, like me. I stand in the clearing with my blood now flowing from the wound I've got with the tangled wire, and the struggle with Katniss. I am suddenly frozen, and I can't move a muscle. I feel myself being flown into the air by a hovercraft above me. I appear in a room, and when I'm unfrozen, three Peacekeepers immediately run towards me, and cuff me. I am knocked in the head with a painful blow, and then another that completely knocks me out.

   I remember the water. . .  the shocks that run through my body like it's melting. I am in a huge tub, with my wrists and ankles chained down. I struggle to free myself. Suddenly I hear a faint zinging sound, and then huge, enormous pain wracks my body, causing my hair to stand on it's end. It lasts about a second before it stops. I am in shock, and my body feels frozen.

   I'm in District Thirteen now, or at least what's left of it. I can still feel the lightning surging through my body, even though I'm in my room. I'm not going near those wretched showers in my room, nor the water that they've offered me. I survive on the juiciness of fruit to sooth my thirsty throat. 

   I can't believe that Katniss is actually being kind to me. After what I've done to her. Ignored, hated, and tore the flesh off her arm, she still tolerates me. So I do the same. I figure out, she's not the  little scared girl that I've always seen on camera, nor the girlie one. She's full-out dangerous from time to time, a hunter, and will fight for anybody she loves. It must be nice, for her to have family to actually fight for. A sister, mother, Gale, and even Peeta, even though he's gone mad. I'm the only one that's seen the horror done to him.

   That's why I hated her. She always had somebody to love, and for them to love her back. The only thing I'm fighting for is my own freedom, along with the thought of destroying Snow and the Capitol.

   When we casted those television things, I finally knew that he's going down, Snow is. And there's nothing he can do to stop the rising fire that we are building. No, we are the fire, and the Capitol is the wood.