Part 1- tha ash
Katniss
I stare down at my shoes and see a thin layer of ash land on the out weared leather. Here did the bed I shared with my sister Prim stand. Over there stood the kitchen table. It was only the pile of burnt bricks that showed me where the house standed. How would I else find in this grey ocean? There is almost nothing left of District 12. Now it's been a month sinse the Capitol's bombing destroyed the poor coal minners in the Seam and the stores in town- even the Justice building.
The only area that was spared was the victors village. Why, I don't know. Maybe for those who go here on a mission from the Capitol will have a good house to live in. Maybe for a group Peacekeepers, searching for returning people. But I wasn't alone of returning here.
And I'm only here on a short visit. The leaders of District 13 didn't want me to return. They said it was pointless since a dozen of invisible hover-crafts are circling above me to protect me. There's no information to get here. But I have to see. It was so inportant for me that I put it on my list of conditions to be a part in their plans. In the end did Plutarch Heavensbee give up. He was the head-gamemaker and the one who organized the rebels in the Capitol.
"Let her go." He said throwing his arms up. "It's better waisting a day than another hole month. Maybe a little tour to twelve is what she nedd to convince her that we are on the same side."
Same side. It comes a stab of pain from the side of my head and I press my hand against it. Exactly there did Johanna Mason hit me with the coil. What concidences have led to me standing in the ruins of my hometown? Memories whirl around when I try to sort whats real and whats not real. Aftereffects from the concussion Johanna gave me haven't given up and my thought easily tangle up in another, so it's not an easy task. And somtimes I hallucinate thanks to the medecine I get to the pain and depression.
I think. I am still not completly convinced it was a hallucination that night in the hospital when a carpet transformed into snakes. I use a tecnic like the doctors suggested. I start with the obviouss things I know is true and work up to the harder things. The list start to tick in my head...
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. I come from District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me. Peeta is captured. He is thought being dead. He is most likely dead. It's possibly the best if he is dead...
"Katniss, do you want me to come down?" My best friend Gale's voice reach me trough the headset the rebels forced me to wear. He is in a hover-craft where he is watching me carefully. The hover-craft can land quickly if something happens. I notice that I stand with my elbows on my thights and me head between my hands. It has to look like I'm on the edge of some kind of breakdown. I can't behave like that, not now when I finally have started get used to the medecines.
I stand straight and decline the offer. "No, I am okey." To make it clear about this I start walking from my old home and into town. Gale asked to be let down in twelve togheter with me but I directly I declined and said no to company. He understand that I don't want anybody with me today. Not even him. Some walks you have to take alone.
The summer was burning warm and warm as a desert. It has have almost not come any rain to spread the ash piles after the attack. When I walk by some ash fall here and there, but no wind spread it. I keep my eyes on what I remember was the road. When I just had landed in the meadow I was uncareful and hit a stone, but it was no stone, it was someones skull. It rolled around before it stopped with the face up.
I stod long not being able to stop stairing from the teeth and wondred who's it could be. I think my teeth would probably look the same in similar circumstances. It's an old habbit I keep to te road, but it was a bad choice, because it's full of strangers that tried to escape. Some got cremated, when other succeeded to escape the flames and died of the smoke. Now they all lay and stinck in diffrent stages of dicomposing. Food for scavengers, completly covered in flys. I killed you I think when I walk past a pile. And you. And you.
Because like that it was. It was my arrow, pointed at the flaw in the force-field around the arena, that made this firestorm to recompense. And throwed Panem out in chaos. Inside me I hear president Snow's words he said to me the morning I were going for the victory tour. "Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, you have showed that you are some glowing coal that uncontrolled can grow into a wildfire that destroys Panem." It turns out he didn't overdid or try to scare me. He maybe actully tried to get help from me. But the powers I already then had put in moving was to powerfull to stop.
The wildfire catched with and is still burning, I think like I'm numb. The fire in the coalmines let out black smoke in the horizon, but there is no one left to care about it. More than ninthy precent of the Districts people died. The about eight-hundred living people is in District 13-wich is as far as I am concerned the same as being homeless forever. I know I shouldn't be thinking like that. I should be happy for how we get taken-care of. Sick, wounded, staving and emptyhanded.
Anyway will I never forget that District 13 was behind District 12 being smoothed to the ground. It dosen't make me the responsible-it could be many to blame on. But if it wasn't for District 13 I would never become a bigger part in the plan of taking down the Capitol. And I could never had planned it myself. There was no organized resistance movements in District 12. People there had nothing to say about anything, they were affected with the bad luck of having me.
But some of the survivors think they have luck of getting fried from District 12. They don't have to suffer of never ending hunger and the oppression; the dangerous mines and our last head-peacekeeper Romulus Thread's whip. That we actully got a new home seems to be a miracle, since we didn't even know District 13 exist until not so long ago.
It was Gale who got the whole honour for the survivers succeeded to flee, even if he didn't want the honour. As soon as the Quarter Quell was over- as soon I were lifted out of the arena- did the electicy break in District 12, the televisions went off and it got so quit in the Seam the people could hear eachother heartbeats. No one did anything to protest or celebrate what happened in the arena. Even if it were swarming with hover-crafts over the area within 15 minutes and it started raining bombs.
It was Gale that thought about the meadow, one of the only places that weren't full of coaldust-covered treehouses. Everyone he got he dragged there, including my mom and Prim. He collected a gang that thore the fence down -when the electricy was off it was just a chain-fence-and then leaded the people out into the forrest. He took them to the only place he could think of, to the lake my father showed me when I was little. And from there they watched the flames that destroyed everything they knew in the world.
In the dawn was the bomb-planes since long gone and the flaes were starting to die down. The last stragglers gathered together. Mother and Prim had made a camp for all the hurt and tried as hard they could to care on them with herbs and other things they could find in the forrest. Gale had to get food to over eight hunered scared people with 2 bow and arrows, a hunting knife and a fishing net. He got help of them that was fit for work and they had be fine for 3 days, when a hover-craft unexpected showed up to evacuate them to District 13.
There was clean, white apartments, lots of clothes and three meals of food a day. It lasted and got left-overs for everyone. The apartments had the disadvantage of laying under-ground, the clothes were identical and the food was pretty taste-less, but for the refugees it didn't matter. They were in safety and got taken care of, they lived and they were greated with open arms.
The heart-warming welcome were taken as consideration. But the man with the name Dalton, who had arrived by foot as a escaper from District 10 a few years earlier, told me the real reason. "They need you and me, everyone. For a while ago had some kind of epedemic that killed a whole group of people and did even more infertilited. They look at us like some kind of breeding animals."
He got abselutely right, because there is in no way enough kids in District 13. But does it matter? We aren't held in the pen, we get learn to work and the children get's to go in school. Everyone over 14 years gets recruits in the army and gets respectful talked to with 'soldier'. All of the refugees got automatic citizenship in 13.
I hate them anyways. But of course, I hate most people nowdays. Most of all myself.
The ground under my feet hardens and under the ash layer I feel the stonepavement on the square. Around the square is a low field of ashes and broken house parts where all the stores were. A pile of black gravel have replaced the building of justice. Instead I go to the place where Peeta's familys bakery should have lied. There is not much left other than the melted oven. Neither Peeta's parents or 2 brothers made it to District 13. So Peeta would have nothing to come home to. Except me... My heart clenshes when I think of the moments I shared with Peeta.
I back away from the bakery before I cry and bump into something, lose my balance and find myself sitting on a clump of sun-warm metall. I wonder what it could be and then remember Threads last new laws on the square. Pilorys, whipping poles and this, left overs of the gallow. Not good. This is not good. I am hit of the same pictures that always tortures me, both when I am awake and when I sleep. The Capitol torture Peeta for information about the rebellion that he dosen't even know-he gets beated and electrified, assault him, drowns, burns, whipped.
I shut my eyes thightly and try to reach him hundrd miles away, try to send him my thoughts, to make him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can't help him.
Run. Away from this place and to the only place the fire haven't destroyed. I pass the ruins of the mayors house, where my friend Madge lived. We don't know about her and her family. Was they evacuated to the Capitol for her fathers position or were they left to the flames? The ash fly around me and I lift the shirt arm to my mouth. It's not what I breath, it's who, that threats to shoke me.
The grass is black-burnt and grey snow have falled even here, but the twelve nice houses in the Victors Village are in one piece. I dart into the house where I have lived the past year, close the door with a bang and lean against it. The place looks un touched. Clean. Awfully quit. Why did I come back to the District? How can this visit help me escape the question I can't escape from?
"What am I going to do?" I whisper to the walls. I don't have a clue.
People talk to me the whole time, talks, talks and talks. Plutarch Heavensbee. His assistant Fulvia Cardew. A sea of inportant people and military servicemens. Everyone except Alma Coin, the Districts president, who only watches. She is about fifthy years old and has grey hair that falls straight and diciplined to her shoulders. That hair fascinate me, it's so perfect and irreproachable, without any curls or even split tips. Her eyes are grey, not like the people of the Seam, but pale, almost as if all colour have been sucked out of them-the same colour as snow-slush you want to melt.
What they want is that I should fully take on the role they have created for me: the revolutionsymbol, the Mockingjay. The things I did earlier- threatened the Capitol in the Hunger Games and been a brave person- isn't enough. Now I have to be the real leader, the face and voice, the revolution in one.
The most Districts is in war against the Capitol and I will be a beacon on the way to victory. I don't need to do it alone. They have a whole team of people that can re-make me, dress me, write speaches for me, score my appearances-wich sounds awfully familiar-and the only thing I have to do is play my role. Sometimes I listen and sometimes I just view Coin's perfect hair and try to determine if the hair is a wig.
Eventually I have to leave the room because my head start to ache or because it's dinnertime or because I will start screaming if I don't get to go out to get fresh air. I never say anything. I just rise and leave. Yesterday afternoon, when the door was about to close behind me, I heard Coin say: "I told you we should have rescued the boy first." She ment Peeta. I think just like her. He would be a perfect speaker.
And who did they pick up from the arena instead? Me, who isn't cooperative. Beetee, a old inventour from District 3 that I don't get to meet very often because he were dragged away to weponary apartment in the same time he could sit up-straight. Seriously. They drove away his hospitalbed to some sort of secret place and now he only show up time to time when it's dinner. He is very smart and very coooperative to deal with the fight, but he dosen't really have a choice.
Then we have Finnick Odair, the sexsymbol from the fishing District that kept Peeta alive in the arena when I couldn't. They also want to make Finnick a revolution leader, but first he have to be awake more than five minutes straight. Even if he is awake you have to say everything over three times for it to reach him. The doctors says it's because of the electric shock he got in the arena, but I know it's much more complicated than that.
I know that Finnick can't concentrate on anything in District 13 because all his energy goes to trying to understand whats happening to Annie in the Capitol-the crazy girl from his District that is the only human in the world he loves.
Against serious doubts I had to forgive Finnick for his role in the conspiracy against me. He has at least a little guess in what I am going trough. And it takes to much power to continue to be angry at someone who crys so much.
I sneak trough the bottomfloor huntingly to not be heard. I pick up a few memory things: a picture of my parents from their wedding day, a blue ribbon for Prim and the familybook with medical herbs and eatable plants. The book open by it self on a page with yellow flowers and I quickly close it because it wash Peeta's brush that painted them.
What am I gonna do?
Is it even a point to do anything really? Mother, Prim and Gale's family is finally in safety. The district other population is probably dead, wich is recoverable, or in safety in the neighbor District. Then the rebels in the other Districts. Of coarse I hate the Capitol, but I have very hard to belive that they who tries to overthrow it gets help if I play the Mockingjay. How can I help the Districts when all I do is leading them to either suffer or die?
The old man in District 11 got shot because he whistled, twelve were caused harder after I stopped the whipping of Gale, my stylist Cinna got beated bloody and got dragged away unconscious from the launching room just before the Games were about to begin. Plutarch's sources think he was murdered after the interrogation. The brilliant, puzzling and handsome Cinna is dead because of me. I push the thought away because it's too painful to think about it that I risk loosing my grasp on sanity.
What should I do?
To be the Mockingjay... is there anything I can carry out that would counterbalance all damage? Who can I confide that question to and get an answer? Obviously not that gang in District 13. I promise with all my heart that now when my family and Gale is in safety I could run away. But one problem remains... Peeta. If I knew for sure that he was dead, would I simply take of into the wild without looking back. And until I know how he is, I am stuck.
I turn my heel when I hear a hising sound. By the kitchen door stands the worlds ugliest male cat with his back in a bow and the ears back drawn. "Hello , Buttercup", I say. Thousands of people have died, but he have survived and even looks healthy. What have he lived of? He can come and leave as he want trough the window in the pantry that we always let be open. He must have eated wild-mices. The option I don't want to think about.
I bend down and stretch out my arm. "Come here, boy." Of cousre not. He is angry that he got abandoned. And I don't offer food and my ability to give him slaughter leftovers have always been my only reconciliation move in his eyes. For a while we used to meet in our old house since we both disliked the new one, and then it seemed like we were getting on each others good sides. But that time is apparently over now.
He blinks with his unpleasant yellow eyes. "Do you want to meet Prim?" The name catches his attention. Besides his own name is that word the only thing that means something to him. He miaow hoarsly and come closer. I pick him up, pet him and then walk to the closet where I digg out my hunting bag and stuff him inside without any other word. That is the only way to get him onto the hover-craft and he means so much for my younger sister.
Sadly haven't her goat Lady showed up, a animal that actully had a valuable. In the headset I hear Gale say that we have to return. But the hunting bag may have reminded me about another thing I want. I hang the bag in it's strap over the back of a chair and rush up the stairs to my bedroom. Inside the closet hangs my fathers hunting jacket. I brought it here from the old house before the Quell, because I thought it would bring my mother and Prim comfort when I was gone. Thank God for that, or it would be ash right now.
The soft leather feels comforting and for a short moment I become calm of memories of the hours when I were wrapped in it. Then my palms becomes unexcplainable sweaty. A weird feeling crawls up in the back of my neck. I spin around but the room is empty. Well cleaned, all things on their places. It was no sound that disturbed me. What was it then? It jerks in my nose. The smell. Stifling and artificial. A white spot looks up from a wase of dried flowers on my desk. I go there with carefull steps. Almost hidden behind it's concentrated cousins stands a white fresh rose.
Perfect in all thorns and the silky flower pedistals. And at once I realise who sended it to me.
President Snow.
When I start feeling nauseous by the smell I back away and evaporate. How long have the rose been there? A day? An hour? The rebels made a safety control in the Victors Village before I were allowed to come here, they were searching for explosives, microphones and other things that weren't as usual. They maybe thought that it wasn't anything to care about. But I do.
Downstairs I take the hunting bag from the chair and drag it careless over the floor until I remember that it is someone in it. On the lawn I wave frenetic to the hover-craft while Buttercup toss around like crazy. I smack him with my elbow but then he become furious. A hover-craft shows up and a ladder lowers down. I climb up and attach to the ladder with electrictiy until I get on-board.
Gale helps me from the ladder. "How is it?"
"Okay", I answer and dry the sweat from my face with my sleeve.
He left a rose for me! I want to yell, but isn't sure I should tell that in the precence of for excample Plutarch. Because for the first I will appear as crazy. Either have I imagined, wich would be inpossible, or I am over reacting, wich means a re-visit in the drug created world I try so badly to get away from. And no one will fully understand-that it isn't just a flower, not just President Snow's flower, but a promise of revenge. That's why he and I were alone in the office when he threated me before the victory tour.
Placed on my desk is that snow white rose a personally message to me. It is about something that isn't finished. The rose whispers: I can find you, I can reach you. Maybe I am watching you in this second.
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Sorry for everything I spelled wrong and for everything that sounds weird. I come from Sweden and I am translating the Swedish text to English. And I know it's just like the book, but I am going to change some things.