THE MAN IN THE HANGING TREE | Gale Hawthorne

FORTY - Future Husband & Wife

GALE'S POINT OF VIEW

We had watched the apartment we just left the Leeg sisters from another building down the block, peacekeepers had come when we sought cover and bombed the place to the ground. Another building down, a small price to pay for the lives presumed taken inside it.

And now we sit and watch, as Snow's announces our deaths. He thinks he really go us, he thinks he won. He seems almost giddy, until screening is interrupted by Coin, who only blasts our faces through the frequency in mourning.

Pictures of all of us flash trough, with our name and district underneath. It feels odd seeing my own on screen, especially as it says I belong to a district that doesn't exist anymore.

Coin is crying, but she never really cared for any of us, only her rebellion, only her own ultimate power. At this point, our deaths boost more morale for her then our lives. Our deaths benefit her more, and so she believes it to be true just like Snow.

"Remember the Mockingjay." Coin cries one last time, and the screens all freeze on Katniss' face, complete with the mockingjay whistle in the background.

The girl mentioned sits coolly on the other side of the room. "I didn't know I meant so much to her." She says sarcastically.

(Y/n) shuffles beside me, leaning in closer to my side. I was scared of losing her for her stupid bravery only minutes before, now I'm scared of losing her to the darkest parts of her mind. "What are we going to do now that we're dead?" She asks, eyes still frozen on the screen.

They had shown a picture of her too, announced (y/n) Abernathy dead. I suppose this was the second time now that she 'died'. I wonder silently what that must feel like, what Haymitch must be feeling right now.

He must be devastated. Just when he tough he had her back, she left just as soon.

"We have to get to the center of the city." Katniss says, no questions asked.

"We can't be spotted now that we're supposedly dead." Jackson chimes in, loading her gun once more. "How do you think we're going to get there without getting caught?"

The twin camera men, Castor and Pollux share a look, then the eldest speaks what the youngest can't. "Pollux may know a way."

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So here we are, sneaking down a maintenance shaft to the underbelly of the city. We had trudged along the underground train tunnels for a while, but there were still cameras there and passing peacekeepers. 

We need to hide well.

So Pollux, who used to work in the underground workings of the city reluctantly leads us down to the pits under hell. He was made an Avox a long time ago and forced down here, he thought he would never see sunlight again and now we are sending him back down.

But it is all for the greater good, we will see the sun again.

We walk for what seems like forever, sometimes crouching or crawling, sometimes practically swimming. There are a few times when we have to go single file through the deep water, holding our weapons above our head. 

There is one passage where I have to take (y/n)'s sniper rifle for her, because she can't even touch the ground below to walk. So, she treads water in front of me as I carry both of our weapons to the other side, where we finally decide to take a break.

So here we are, trying to sleep in an off shoot of a maintenance tunnel.

(Y/n) and I volunteer to take first watch, and soon enough everyone is asleep except the two of us. We take post in a separate part from the sleeping soldiers, with a clear view of the tunnel we had come from.