𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒 ❦ The Hunger Games Third Book

T h i r t e e n

CHAPTER sixty|WE STAND FOR THOSE THAT CAN'T

Ruelle~ I get to love you
❝Whatever may come, your heart, I will choose, forever I'm yours, forever I do.❞

➳➳

NATURE WASN'T SOMETHING that I took for granted anymore. It was true that I couldn't deny the love that gripped my heart when I felt the wind blow my long hair away from my red hot face, or the content smell of oak instead of the hot humid air in the compound when I finally got to the surface, but that didn't mean that the sight of the top of Thirteen was entirely pleasant.

Yes, I looked at each lead on the trees or each particle of light that managed to make it's way thought the wall of bark and greenery with a rejuvenated wonder, but that didn't stop me from also seeing the horror underneath, or the death that somehow fermented in the time I had been underground- or amongst the Capitol walls. I expected the feeling of fresh life, and the reminder of what I had left behind.

What I didn't expect, was the chaos that littered the mud and trees around the compound when I finally saw the top.

It was early enough in the morning for the sun to have barely rose over the horizon, early enough for the sky to be the most perfect shade of orange and blue that I could ever remember seeing in the whole of Panem. It was magnificent- my breath that had been slowed to almost complacency became open with the fresh taste of actual sky and grass. Even as the rock spilled into the ground and the end of the trees leaned over the concrete it felt realer than anything else I had seen, it finally felt like something that couldn't be destroyed by Snow.

The reminder was short lived however when I noticed the wooden sticks that were planted into the nearby trees, surrounded by lily flowers and wooden figures. I was all alone in the morning light; nobody was awake enough to hear me sneak to the surface after the celebration that occured the day before, and the grey blanket that covered Finnick's large button up shirt was just enough to keep the cold chill from my shoulders. That however, didn't stop the chill that went down my spine as I saw the cross and the two mounds of dirt beside it.

As I got closer, the tears seaped into my eyes more and more.

Beside the smaller mound, the cross was filled with candles that had long blown out and lilies that would of grown just meters away from the young grave. There was a mockingjay pin beside the grave, and smooth rocks on the mound that wrote out the message that Finnick and Katniss had wanted to put on top of the empty mound of dirt.

Lillian Titan,
forever in our hearts.

It was only the third time visiting, and the first time alone, but the wave of sorrow was still enough to make a single breath hard to managed through the tears that fell. It was silent compared to other days, and the small inconsistent wave of water was less than the usual ocean that pooled from my blue eyes, but the guilt was still the same as I looked at the dirt and the larger grave beside it with a similar cross and mound of flowers.