THE MAN IN THE HANGING TREE | Gale Hawthorne

THIRTY NINE - Another Near Death Experience

YOUR POINT OF VIEW

With radio in hand, that I had just borrowed from Boggs, I leave the building that we're all camping in to get some privacy. Some privacy for a call I should have made hours ago, but I had a way of contact until now.

"Hello." I speak through the radio, after finding a spot outside with some cover from hovercraft. "This is squad 451, this is urgent."

Okay, that's a lie, this technically could wait but I need to tell him I'm alive, he deserves that much. Gale told me he wasn't doing to well after the news, but he hadn't given up hope.

"Who is this?" A male voice, probably some communications person, says on the other line.

"This is squad 451, this is an emergency." I repeat, pacing where I stand.

There sounds like there is talking between two people on the other end, before a stern female voice speaks at last, halting my pacing. "Who is this?" She asks, demands. "This is President Coin, state your name."

Ah, the infamous Coin I've only heard about.

"I need to speak to Haymitch Abernathy." My words are quick and urgent, I need to speak to him myself. "Now, please."

There's a long pause, and a small scuff and exchange of words on the other end, before I get an answer back in a voice I haven't heard for months. "Hello?" His gruff voice speaks through the radio, he sounds like he hasn't slept in days.

I almost cry. "Dad!"

"(Y/n)?" My dad's voice turns into a whisper, in shock, relief, and grief all at once. "You're alive."

Every emotion flows into his voice, all my emotions flow down my cheeks.

I laugh, a slight hysterical laugh. "You told me to stay alive, didn't you?"

He laughs too, I can tell he is crying as well. "We all thought you were dead, for two months." He's trying to stay strong, so he doesn't worry me.

"Well, I'm told I'm as stubborn as you." I smile, wiping my eyes, taking a seat on a surprisingly intact bench. "I wasn't going to go down without a fight."

"That's my daughter." Haymitch chuckles, and even though I can't see him I can tell he is smiling all those miles away. "That's my kid."

We don't say anything else for a minute or two, I think perhaps he still processing the fact this is real. To be honest, I'm still processing it myself, it seems too good to be true. So we sit, in silent excitement, and horror-- for I know what he is going to confirm before he is going to even speak it. 

"Hey, Kiddo." My dad says with a sigh. "You have to know, your mom and Jack, well they didn't--" He struggles to find the right way to tell me this, but I already know.

"Make it." I cut him off, wiping my eyes again. Images of my mom, and the man I believed for a while to be my father, swirl around in my head. And that night, the night Twelve was destroyed. "I know, I saw our house fall in the bombings."

I can smell the ghostly sent of smoke and burning flesh, I can hear the screams of the dead, feel the heat of the licking flames. 

Even though it was months ago, and even though I am so far away, it feels like it was only yesterday I was eating dinner with them, singing to Gale in the meadow, going to the bakery and shoe store. 

Waves of hot orange, bursts of angry red, and sparks of deadly yellow had eaten all those places away now along with the people I love. Destroyed them until now, where they exist only in my mind. If I dwell on it too long, I am brought back there, and with nostalgia comes the waves of grief.