Chapter Text
Katniss' POV
The winter of my twelfth year in this life was definitely the hardest I ever had so far.
The mine hadn't collapsed only on my father and the other miners that were down there on that fateful day. It had collapsed on my family. On my mother, unresponsive and numb to the world, closed in her bedroom, looking at all and at nothing. On my sweet little sister Prim, protruding ribs and bony limbs, crying because of her empty stomach. On me, on my happiness, on my smiles and songs, on my confidence about my ability to do something for the people I love, on my future.
And most definitely, on my hope.
But I do remember someone, something, a little thing that was actually the biggest, the most important, the greatest thing that was able to give me back hope.
I can't remember if it was dark, or middle day, or if the sun was coming up, or down.
The rain was cold, colder than winter itself. The streets were muddy, and Prim's old baby clothes were muddy, and I was muddy and cold.
After the umpteenth door slammed in my face, I didn't know what I was doing anymore. I just kept wandering through the Town, clutching those muddy baby clothes with all the strength I had left. It wasn't really much, since I fell. The clothes, even more muddier than before, stayed where they had slipped, while I could only stand up on wobbly legs and keep wandering.
I'm not certain what I was looking for in the garbage bins behind the bakery. Maybe I was fishing for a friend, or for food, or for a shard of life to take home to Prim.
But nothing was left there for me, not when the baker's wife screamed at me and I couldn't do nothing but run – no, crawl away, and fall under an apple tree.
I wasn't ashamed of my complete failure, even though I was devastated at the idea of letting Prim down, of being the cause of her death. But there was nothing I could do. I was dying myself.
I was numb. Numb as my mother in her bedroom. Numb as the Town people rejecting me for being a starving Seam brat. Numb as bears in their caves. And they were like numb bears at home.
And I could never get there, my home, not again. I was dying under an apple tree and I could never get there.
There was nothing left.
Nothing but a pair of worried blue eyes, peering at me from behind the baker's wife. And a commotion inside the bakery. And screams and noises of smashing things. And a red welt on that milk-white cheek. And the warm, still steamy, barely burnt loaves of nuts and raisin bread. And the slight burning sensation of the bread against my cold, numb skin.
I don't know where I found the strength. Maybe it was actually that bread that gave it to me.
But the next thing I know, I was running full speed home. Not caring if I was breaking little twigs with my feet – I would have started caring about it just a couple of days later – or that that from Town to the Seam was a road that's so steep I could have fall and break a leg, or my neck for all I knew.
The only thing I was caring about was that bread under my soaked shirt, and Prim who would have had something to eat after so many days of chewing on mint leaves, and the fact that, while those Town people, while those numb bears at home were thinking and probably hoping that I could never get there, never get home, I was already there.
I remember the curious but not demanding glance of a black eye the next day.
And I remember the little, yellow dandelion, the friend, food, shard of life I could take home to Prim, together with that newfound, warm hope.
And I remember Peeta Mellark.