Chapter Text
The world burns. I'm in it, but I don't care. Snow must die. It is this thought that carries me forward as I surge through the crowd, evading Peacekeepers left and right
The battle is chao. Smoke pervades the streets, bodies are scattering like broken and discarded dolls, and there's fire (so much fire) raining from the sky. I run through the rubble, coughing blood, the stench of burning flesh clawing at my throat. Is it my flesh? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care.
Somewhere ahead, Snow’s mansion looms, white and untouched, a stark contrast to the ruin.
And then the bombs fall.
Children scream.
Prim turns, her face pale, her healer’s bag still clutched in her hands.
She isn't thinking about the danger. Instead, she's focused on the job she has to do, determination etched in her beautiful face, so much more grown up than I remember.
For a heartbeat, the world stills.
Her eyes find mine and then she is gone in the light.
The explosion tears through me, heat and sound splitting my body apart.
I reach for her, all sense of self-preservation gone. My lungs are full of ash, and my skin is melting away.
I know I won't survive, but I don't care. Prim. It's all I can think.
I die with her name in my mouth.
Panic surges through me. I didn't save her. I know it with every fiber of my feeling. Dread and horror consume me.
But then my eyes open. Panic surges through me. The scream lodges in my throat as I bolt upright in bed.
My sheets are twisted around my legs, the air still and quiet.
My lungs heave, dragging in clean, smoke-free air.
My skin is whole.
My hair clings damp to my temples with sweat.
No.
This isn’t possible.
I press my trembling hands to my face, expecting bandages, scars, or pain. To my surprise, there are none.
My palms are unburned.
My body is whole, unbroken.
It's like I remember my body before the Games.
“Katniss?” The voice makes me freeze.
Prim’s voice. High, sweet, alive.
I whip my head toward her. She's more childlike than I remember before war and work caused her to grow up fast. Too fast, I think.
“Are you okay?”
I don't answer. It's like the world tilted on its axis. “Prim,” I blurt.
My voice cracks, harsh and broken, and before I know it, I’m out of bed and crushing her against me, arms wrapped so tight she squeaks.
I bury my face in her hair, shaking.
She smells of soap and herbs, so different from the smell of 13.
“Katniss! What’s wrong with you?” She giggles nervously, wriggling. “You’re acting weird.”
I can’t let go. My hands tremble against her small frame, my throat tight with words I refuse to speak.
She’s alive. Alive.
But that’s impossible.
I saw her die.
I died with her.
“Katniss?”
I force myself to ease back, blinking fast.
“Sorry. Bad dream.” She tilts her head, suspicious but unconcerned.
She shakes her head as if in understanding.
“Me too. After all, It’s Reaping Day.”
The words slam into me like another bomb.
Reaping Day..
I stumble backward, and now Prim is really looking at me as if I've lost it. I never stumble.
My reflection stares back at me in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall: sixteen, pale, unscarred.
I'm not the broken girl who survived two Games, one rebellion, and more nightmares than I could possibly count.
“No,” I whisper.
“No, this isn’t real.”
But outside the window, the Seam is alive in the pale morning light.
After all, the two kids heading to the Capitol today are most definitely from here. Not Town.
Things were exactly as they were that morning.
I’m back?
I move through the day in a daze.
Hunting with Gale. The same stilted conversation we had that day.
My mother fusses over my braid, her hands calm, not hollow and empty like they were after my father died.
Prim smooths her dress nervously, asking me if she looks alright. After all, this is her very first Reaping.
Buttercup hisses from his corner, the vitriol apparent.
Every detail is the same.
Every word, every gesture.
But I am not the same.
I remember the fire.
The blood.
Rue’s song.
Finnick’s screams.
Prim’s ashes.
And Peeta.
Peeta, in the arena.
Peeta, with the bread.
Peeta, hijacked and broken, then attempting to put the pieces back together, always reaching for me even when I pushed him away.
But he won’t remember any of it.
My stomach twists as I follow Prim into the square.
The air is thick with dust and fear, hundreds of bodies pressed together.
The stage is set.
Effie Trinket stands there in her pink wig, smiling brightly.
Haymitch stumbles in late, drunk. As a Victor, I know now why he had to get so drunk to endure these Reapings.
And in the boys’ section, Peeta Mellark shifts uncomfortably, blond hair glinting in the sun.
He's young. Plus, he's untouched by the Games, by the war.
The sight of him steals by breath.
My chest aches with all the things he hasn’t lived through yet. I know what’s coming.
Effie steps forward, voice chirping, “Ladies first!”
Her hand dips into the glass bowl. She pulls the slip.
“Primrose Everdeen!”
The square erupts in gasps.
Prim’s cry is a knife to my gut.
Again.
I don’t even hesitate.
My voice tears from my throat, ragged but certain.
“I volunteer!”
The words are the same. The pain is the same. But this time, I know exactly what’s waiting.
On the stage, I stand with Prim still sobbing behind me, Effie’s chirping words buzzing faintly in my ears.
My pulse pounds as she reaches for the boys’ bowl. I know what's going to happen before it does, but even so, I find myself wishing. Please, Effie. Reach for a different slip. Any other slip. Just not that one. It's inevitable though.
She draws the slip.
Reads the name.
“Peeta Mellark!”
My eyes snap to him.
And there he is. Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread. The boy who loved me despite the fact that I've been well, me. But now his eyes are blank, startled, innocent.
He doesn’t remember.
He’s only sixteen here. Untouched by the arena, by the Capitol, by war. He doesn’t carry the weight of blood and betrayal in his eyes. He doesn’t even know me, not really.
And yet I know him. I know every scar he will earn, every word he will say, every sacrifice he will make.
My chest aches, sharp and suffocating.
Because if this is real if then I am standing at the start of everything I already lived through once.
The Games. The blood. The rebellion. Prim.
Peeta’s gaze flicks across the square, settling on me for a fleeting moment, startled and uncertain. He doesn’t remember. He can’t.
But I do.
And I don’t understand why.