☞︎ℍ𝕦𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣 𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 ~ 𝔸𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕪𝕤𝕥'𝕤 𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪 ☜︎

~The farm~

I stay with Twyla and Luis for a few days. They provide me with food, I tell them what it's like to be in the Hunger games. 

How terrifying it is to think every moment about how you're going to die. How much it hurts not to be able to do anything about a huge wound in your shoulder. 

How it kills you inside to murder innocent children. To watch your friends be murdered, and to not be able to get revenge. 

Twyla pretends to understand, which is nice of her. But of course, she'd never fully understand. She was never in the games. 

Luis doesn't even pretend to understand. He grunts his agreement when Twyla asks him something, and then continues to sew or stir his soup. 

Once it's been a few days, I decide it's time to continue with my journey. Twyla gifts me a week's worth of food, and Luis gives me a shawl so that I 'fit in with the others'. It looks like the kind I saw people wearing the first day, with patches from other outfits sewn together like a quilt. 

I thank him for it, and give him my old cloak. He proceeds to cut it up into small pieces, to make who-knows-what with. 

And then I'm off again. I sneak through the fence and start in the direction I was going when I first started my journey. 

The woods is peaceful here. Red and orange leaves crunch under my feet. Fall started not long ago, which makes the forest even more beautiful. 

I now wish I came here more often. It would be kind of nice to have a spot like this, where I could retreat to on days when normal life is just too much.

The sunlight shines through the branches above me. Shadows are splayed on the ground, looking like some sort of majestic glowing tapestry. 

A bird chirps overhead, and I recognize it as a bluejay. A mockingjay near it copies the soft melody, and I listen to it for a few moments. 

It reminds me of home. Of being in the forest all day, on days when we didn't have school, or staring out the window of my classroom at the flowers that would sprout in the grassy field during the springtime. 

I wonder if I even think of it as home anymore. I left. I never felt welcome there. Was it ever my home?

I'm not sure, and now that I'll never see it again I guess I'll never know.

I wonder again what will happen when the capitol discovers one of their victors has gone missing, if they haven't already. I've been gone for a few days. 

Will anyone notice? What if they just cover it up, pretend that I'm just staying home for the moment?

No, they wouldn't do that. I have to be on the victory tour in five months. They couldn't say I got sick or something while it's happening. 

Or, wait, yes they could. 

It disturbs me how easily they could cover up my existence. Because if they could do that when I escaped, they could do that if I died. 

They could kill me off, easy as pie, and no one would ever know. I'd have a 'disease' that kept me sick in bed, and it would be highly contagious. 

They'd kill my mother, too, or maybe make her an avox, so there'd be no witnesses. 

I shove the thought out of my brain. No thinking about that, that's not allowed. 

But she's probably dead already, what with me running away... 

I focus my mind on each step I take, imagining that every five steps someone I've killed or let die forgives me. 

All it does is make the memories of those who died in the Hunger Games swirl around in my mind. 

Adair. Victor. Dahlia. Etta. Lee. Lea. Rylie. Aegis. Byte. Oceania. 

That's much too many people for one girl to kill in the span of a few days. 

I hear a loud thwack in front of me, and my mind goes to the worst possible situations as my head snaps up. 

The young woman in front of me is hitting something with some sort of blade, though I can't see what she's hitting. She has long black hair that's pulled into a ponytail, though I see a few strands escaping. Her skin is a rich brown, like the dark chocolate we'd sometimes find in the candy store back home, and I would say the color of her eyes but I can't see from this far away. 

She hits it again, and I move closer. There's some sort of structure in-between us, which looks like a small shed not unlike the ones I saw in District Eight. 

There's also an odd sound, like some sort of animal, but I can't see those, either. 

I wonder if she'd hit me with her weapon, if I got too close. Probably. 

Maybe I'll approach from far away, yelling to her from a distance where she couldn't possibly hit me. 

I make my way around the small house, and looking through the windows I can see a mattress made of hay covered with a threadbare blanket. Clothes are hung up on a bar that is propped up on the wall, but even they look poor, with mud and grass stains covering the ancient fabric. 

I make sure I'm a good twenty feet away before I call out to her. 

"Hey! What're you doing?" I say, trying not to sound like I live on this land. 

She looks up at me, her weapon raised. I recognize the glint in her eyes, though I don't know where from. 

She throws her weapon, and as I freeze, knowing I'm going to get hit, I remember where I recognize that expression from:

I saw it on myself, when I was watching the replay of the games. I looked exactly like that when I was poised to kill Rylie.