Mockingjay: The New Story

Chapter Thirteen

Katniss’s POV

I didn’t know what I was seeing. A green drop sheet stood behind me, smoke filled my sight. A red light flashed on a camera, my makeup was dark and a bit smeared like I had been in battle. My hair in its normal braid, strands sticking out, and the wound Johanna gave me with the wire was make-upped to seem not as grousing as it is but a bit too glamour-ed. My Mockingjay suit had to have been fixed dozens of times to fit my growing stomach. Plutarch decided that he wanted everyone to know I was still pregnant, that though everything I managed to still be a full mother. My bow glowed in the fake lamp lights, the arrows sitting tight across my back. Just props.

“Action!” someone yelled. My eyes were wide, all of this happened too fast.

I had one line I had practiced over and over while my prep team got me ready. Oh, my poor prep team. Octavia was so afraid of me, they fixed my makeup at least four times. Flavius fell into my embrace the first time I cried. He couldn’t stay angry at me for something I did not do. He fixed up my hair and unfixed it to perfection. Venia took Octavia out of my room twice to speak to her, the leader taking control once again. When they finished, I had to convince her I was trustworthy, I still loved her, I would never hurt her.

“Think of yourself, remember when you told me about your twins, your children? Yes? Well, would you ever hurt your child? No? Right. I would never hurt my child either, I would never hurt someone I loved so much. I love you three like you were family, you technically are. Some crazy aunt’s and uncle who love dressing my up like a doll.” I got her to laugh, her smile was beautiful. “Please, don’t be afraid of me Octavia, I am nothing to be afraid of. I am the one to look to, okay?”

She nodded then, sobbing and holding me close like I was one of her children. I heard from Venia earlier how her twins and husband were here in Thirteen. I let her go to be with her family then. Venia and Flavius could take care of everything else.

One line Katniss, it’s just one line.

I couldn’t remember it, I have been standing here for such a long time. Plutarch said into my ear piece to take my time just not all day. Look strong, stand tall, and put some anger in my voice. I could still hear Annie in the back of my mind, sounding so much like Finnick’s humor.

“They’ll either want to kill you, kiss you or be you.” Her breathe tickled the back of my neck, she sat with the others in the glass windowed booth.

I finally just say it with all my might and force.

“People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!”

This line must have been put to work for years. It sounds too much, stiff. I would never say it real life, it seems too fake. Like this scene, myself, everyone now.

Dead silence, it stretches out so far. Until there comes clapping.

I turn back to see who made the room echo, who’s rough laughter fills with it too.

I am surprised, but run off the palate I have been standing on for hours and to him. Between those moments he says, “And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.”

-

Hearing and seeing Haymitch after so long is a relief. I didn’t even realize Effie stood behind him until she spoke up. She was wearing the same gray uniform as all of us, except her hair was put up into a pink blanket of sorts. Her pink shoes dazzled in the emptiness-of-color room. She holds me at arm’s length for a while, seeing how much I have changed, how big my belly grew, how beautiful I look.

Everyone sits around a huge table in Command. Some people who have not much reason to sit here are sitting, a group of Twelve residents, Dalton from Ten who made it to Thirteen on foot. They eye me with questions, but I have no answer. My makeup makes my eyes itch, my empty stomach begins to cramp up. I await for Haymitch to finish his speech of why I cannot deliver my duties as Mockingjay with a planned out plan.