Living Lies ✜ Hunger Games x Reader

Rue

"It's worse than we thought."

Mrs. Everdeen is finally aware of the world around her again, despite her husband being gone and her daughters feeling alone and starved. Things would never be quite the same for the trio of women. You knew better than anyone the struggles Katniss faced. You weren't as affected by the coal accident—until now.

"Mrs. (Y/l/n), I'm afraid it's something out of my capabilities of healing," Mrs. Everdeen explained gently to your mother, "medicine from the Capitol, yes—maybe—but, the things I have here, it just won't work. It's a terribly vicious disease—few healers know of it in other districts because it's not so common there. It mainly springs up among the men that work in the coal mines." You could hear Mrs. Everdeen's voice falter slightly at the last sentence from your hiding position by the door of Katniss' house. It was still hard for her, understandably. Only a few months had passed since the accident that took caring Mr. Everdeen's life.

Your mother muttered something low and hard to hear, despite the straining of your ears. But it sounded like she was crying, that you could tell.

"Every young man works in the coal mines around here after his name exits the Reaping Ball, it could have been growing for years," Mrs. Everdeen confesses with a shaky voice. "Without knowing when it first started, it's impossible to know how long he has left. A few months, a few years." You peek around the corner of the partially cracked door to see the two sitting women, Mrs. Everdeen with her hand on your mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry, (Y/m/n), I know it's a lot to take in all at once, but you should tell (Y/n) now—who knows how much longer her father will be around for her."

Your (e/c) eyes fly open, wide with terror and emotion and memory. You're drenched in cold sweat from your (h/c) hair plastered to your forehead to your toes, awoken into a violent scramble for security that sends you jolting from your rested position in an awkward and stiff manner, fearful to the point of being paralyzed.

Horror. That's the first thing you feel when you wake up.

Emerging from a vivid nightmare is like splashing ice water onto your face desperately hoping the nightmare isn't real. The worst kinds, well, they are, in a way. And when they are, you find your subconscious dragging your mind out of the abyss of murk and into reality, and remembering that what you saw was reality—it's in the past but not yet quite distant from you.

It's even worse when you wake up into a nightmare you can't escape, such as the Hunger Games.

But when the pain comes it's merely emotional. The loss of your father's health was unexpected and terrorizing. He was the rock, the keystone of your small family. You had no sister, no brother, only friends and the still same dim hope that your mother clung to—and still is clinging to—that you're father would receive a miracle and be healed—and live long enough to see you get through the Reaping and survive the Hunger Games. Katniss has Prim, Gale has his family, but you had little. Have little. In a way, your mother is removed, so intent upon her husband she nearly forgets she has a child. Before his illness you were supposed to be Katniss' rock when her father was gone—but now all you have is another thing in common with one of the only friends you've known.

Which understandably explains why Peeta is the first person that comes to your mind after regaining your bearings.

Did he move you into the safety you are now awakening from? Did he shove the arrows and bow into your arms and turn you in the other direction? Where is he now? Is he okay?

And more importantly, what the hell are these leaf wraps on your neck, hand and arms?

You glance down at the wraps, hoping they aren't laced with poison or something, and wish you would have spent more time memorizing the useful herbs Prim showed you and Katniss that she always sent for when the two of you were in the woods. Suspicious, you questioningly load and arrow and raise the bow, wondering what good it would do anyway if you were poisoned and pining for a good throwing knife.