Always: A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 20

Katniss

Peeta. Memories from earlier drift back into my mind. I need to find him again, to make sure he's alright.

I stand up, and leave my room, not bothering to change into clean clothes. I walk down the hallway. I am beginning to become familiar with a few of the halls in this place.

I reach the hospital again. There is a person dressed in a black uniform standing in front of the door. He looks at me. "Name?" he asks. I can tell he already knows who I am. Most everyone does. 

"Katniss Everdeen," I say. My voice sounds strong and confident, like it did during my first private training session before the games when I was asked to tell the Gamemakers my name. 

The man gives me a sympathetic look. I hate that so much. Everyone feels so bad for me because I watched so many people die, and I never got a wonderful, happy ending.

"I'm sorry, I can't let you in," he says.

"What?" I ask. "You have to let me in! I have to see Peeta."

"I can't let you go through," the man, who I now realize reminds me of Boggs, repeats.

"I have to see Peeta! You don't understand," I am yelling now.

"I'm sorry, Miss Everdeen. I really can't let you pass," he says. This man really did seem sorry, but I don't care. I have to get in. 

"Please. . ." I beg. "Just let me see him."

The man hesitates. His jaw is clenched. He won't look me directly in the eye. "I can't let you. I'm sorry."

"Please!" I yell. The man says nothing. "Peeta!" I try yelling for him. I look through the glass window, but a nurse shuts the blinds so I can't see. I pound on the glass. "Peeta!" 

The guard pulls me away and soon after, more hands reach me to hold me back. "Let's go," mumbles a familiar voice. It's Haymitch.

He pulls me back down the hallway, to my room. "Haymitch please! Please!" I say, when we were halfway down the hall. "Please, just tell me he's ok!"

He doesn't say anything. Haymitch just sighs and looks away. "Haymitch!" I scream, ignoring the wet tears cascading down my face. 

"I can't tell you that, sweetheart," he says. His bloodshot eyes are sad and broken. Probably just the same as mine. I feel numb. I feel as though everything is coming to its end. My life is coming to its end. I can't take this anymore. I'm going to lose the one I love the most. I'm going to lose the only one I love. 

Haymitch leaves silently. I lean against the wall for support. I close my eyes before anymore tears began to fall.

"Katniss?" I look up. Gale is standing just a few feet away.

I look away. I am not ready to be open with Gale again. Not yet, anyway. I don't think our friendship can ever be the same.

"Peeta," I whisper after a while. I don't look at him. I can't.

"I heard about that. I'm sorrry," he says, with obvious guilt in his tone. 

"He's going to die. I left him alone in that tunnel. I should never have done that. I should be the one dying," I say. He doesn't reply. I know Peeta is a very sore subject with Gale.

"Katniss," he says. He still looks brave and strong. like the Gale I used to see in the woods everyday. I look up at him. His eyes, the ones that looked so much like mine are confident. "Don't worry so much. It just makes it worse."

I expect him to say something and drop a total bomb on me. I thought he'd say something like "I'm in love with you." or "I never want to leave you." Something like that. I am so relieved that he didn't. I wouldn't have been able to deal with it if he did. 

I lean my head against the wall and look straight ahead. The hovercraft hums and jolts back and forth. "We're landing soon," Gale says after a while.

"Landing where?" I ask. Gale stands up and brushes the floor dirt off of his thick black pants.

"Back to thirteen. To refill the hovercraft with gas. We're supposed to come up with a new plan to rescue more people in the Capitol," he says.

I stand up beside him. "Are they rebuilding thirteen?" I ask.

"Kind of. It's not really a district, but more of an army base," he says. "No houses or anything."

I nod and look away again. "Imagine if we left. The morning of the reaping. None of this would have happened. We might have even found 13, and we would have been safe from the Hunger Games." I say.

"I guess," he says.

"I wouldn't have known Peeta, I'd have never been in the games, and Prim-" I whisper. I don't want to go on.

I don't look at Gale, but I know he is still standing beside me. "I'll see you later, Katniss," Gale says after a little while. I nod and lean my back against the cream colored wall.

I listen to Gale's footsteps fade out down the hallway. I go back to my room after a little while.

Usually hovercrafts don't have bedrooms. At least not ones like this. This is more of a flying house. I mean, it had a hospital wing and a dining hall. It's like the base in 13, but smaller. And without the ugly grey uniforms and all of those jobs.

I sit on my bed and stare at the textured white ceiling. After sitting there for a while, I doze off.

I'm in the arena. The second one. The clock. I'm tied to a tree. The tree where the lightning strikes.

People begin appearing around me. Wiress, Finnick, Enobaria, Brutus, Cashmere, Gloss, the female morphling. All of the people that have played in these sick games. Then from the previous Hunger Games: Rue, Cato, Clove, Glimmer, Marvel.

They all surrounded me. Prim appears from nowhere, along with Rue, who stands beside her. I really do see the resemblance now. Their skin and their hair is different, but their slim faces and their bright smiles are almost exactly the same. 

Peeta appears next to Finnick. I push myself into the tree, trying to escape from these people. They all have knives, and are inching towards me.

They all started doing different things at once. Wiress is singing that clock song; the one she sang before she was killed. Enobaria is flashing her fang teeth at me.

Peeta's eyes start turning a dark cloudy color, the color they always changed to when he was having a flashback. Rue is whistling the Mockingjay song and Prim is singing the Valley Song lullaby I used to sing to her to get her to sleep. 

They all surround me now, staring into my eyes. All at once they move their arms back, preparing to throw their knives at me.

I shut my eyes, and squirm beneath the ropes that secure me to the tree. A clap of thunder sounds above me, signaling the lightning that was about to strike this tree.

Right before it does and right before they threw their knives, I sit up, screaming.

My hair fell out of its braid while I was sleeping. The front pieces stick to the sweat pouring down my face. I want Peeta here. I need him here. 

But he isn't here. And I am terrified  that he never will be again.

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