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Real or not real? I am on fire The balls of flame that erupted froh the snowy air, and landed in the crowd I was just turning ahen one caught ue up the back ofnew A creature as unquenchable as the sun
A fire ht, no sound, no feeling except the unrelenting burning of flesh Perhaps there are periods of unconsciousness, but what can it e in the frantically to escape sorow fros only fans the blaze I consuin to falter, I lose height, and gravity pulls me into a foamy sea the color of Finnick&039;s eyes I float on ony quiets to pain When I aate, that&039;s when they come The dead
The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky aboveto me to join them I want so badly to follow the it impossible to lift them The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear ging ed in pink dives down, buries her claws in my chest, and tries to keep o!"
But the ones I hated are winning, and if she clings to o!" And finally she does
Deep in the water, I&039;, the enormous effort it takes to draw the water in, push it out of s I want to stop, I try to hold ainstwhatever holds me here There&039;s no response
Trapped for days, years, centuries ood as dead So alone that anyone, anything no matter how loathsome would be welcome But when I finally have a visitor, it&039;s sweet Morphling Coursing throughain on the foa on foa parts of my naked body There&039;slike reality The sandpaper of my throat The smell of burn medicine from the first arena The sound of hten me, and I try to return to the deep toback Gradually, I&039;s With no fire And no sister
In the dazzling white Capitol hospital, the doctors work theirthe cells into thinking they arethe liain how lucky I as are responding to treatood as new
When h to withstand the pressure of sheets,opens the door to the dead and alive alike Hay dress Delly, prattling on about the niceness of people My father sings all four stanzas of "The Hanging Tree" and reminds me that my mother - who sleeps in a chair between shifts - isn&039;t to know about it
One day I awake to expectations and knoill not be allowed to live in my dreamland I must take food by mouth Move my own muscles Make my way to the bathroom A brief appearance by President Coin clinches it
"Don&039;t worry," she says "I&039;ve saved hirows over why I&039;m unable to speak Many tests are done, and while there&039;s dae to my vocal cords, it doesn&039;t account for it Finally, Dr Aurelius, a head doctor, comes up with the theory that I&039;ve become a mental, rather than physical, Avox That h he&039;s presented with a hundred proposed remedies, he tells them to leave , but people bring me a steady stream of information On the war: The Capitol fell the day the parachutes went off, President Coin leads Panem now, and troops have been sent out to put down the s pockets of Capitol resistance On President Snow: He&039;s being held prisoner, awaiting trial and most certain execution On my assassination team: Cressida and Pollux have been sent out into the districts to cover the wreckage of the war Gale, who took two bullets in an escape atte up Peacekeepers in 2 Peeta&039;s still in the burn unit He made it to the City Circle after all On rief in her work
Having no work, grief buriesis Coin&039;s pro will be left
Eventually, I&039;iven a room in the president&039;s mansion to share withherat work It falls to Hay my medicines It&039;s not an easy job I take to h the mansion Into bedrooe little hiding spaces A closet of furs A cabinet in the library A long-forgotten bathtub in a room of discarded furniture My places are dim and quiet and impossible to find I curl up, make myself smaller, try to disappear entirely Wrapped in silence, I slide my bracelet that reads mentally disoriented around and around my wrist
My name is Katniss Everdeen I am seventeen years old My hojay I brought down the Capitol President Snow hates me He killed er Games will be over
Periodically, I find myself back inor if Haymitch ferreted me out I eat the food, take the medicine, and am required to bathe It&039;s not the water I mind, but the rafts still retain a newborn-baby pinkness The skin deeeable looks red, hot, and leam white and pale I&039;m like a bizarre patchwork quilt of skin Parts of ed off coths Katniss Everdeen, the girl as on fire I wouldn&039;t s back the memory of the pain And why I was in pain And what happened just before the pain started And hoatchedhter in the darkness
Dr Aurelius shows up sos like how I&039;m totally safe, or that he knows I can&039;t see it but I&039;ll be happy again one day, or even that things will be better in Pane, and when I don&039;t answer, he falls asleep in his chair In fact, I think his visits are largely ement works for both of us
The tiive you exact hours and uilty, sentenced to execution Hayuards in the hallways My Mockingjay suit arrives inno worse for wear, but no sheath of arrows Either because they were daed or uely wonder if I should be preparing for the event in so co period in a cushionedseat behind a painted screen, I eht I find e part of the s Unlike the area where I&039;m quartered, there seeh Wish I&039;d found it sooner It&039;s so quiet, with the thick carpets and heavy tapestries soaking up the sound Softly lit Muted colors Peaceful Until I s too hard to run, while I await theSo, what do I sarden where the evil things grow?
As I creep down the hall, the odor beco as the actual e and explosives I turn a corner and find uards Not Peacekeepers, of course There are no ray-uniformed soldiers from 13 either These two, a ether clothes of actual rebels Still bandaged and gaunt, they are now keeping watch over the doorway to the roses When I uns foro in, miss," says the man
"Soldier," the woo in, Soldier Everdeen President&039;s orders"