Firecracker: The 99th Games Book One

District 13, Part 2

...What happened...?

The past few hours were a blur of color, motion, and sound. Slowly recovering his wits, Piero blinked his eyes open, squinting against the harsh white light above his head. He took a minute to sort through the fog in his head.

...Where am I?

He remembered...fire. Smoke. A signal to the other tributes, their final moments in the arena...his murder of Adel Beck.

Fuyuko...

He had stayed behind with the last three tributes to tend to Marco, but they made it in time. They ran to the end of the tunnel, the gate started to close, Marco was dragged away screaming by the District 8 boy...

Marco.

Alert, Piero shot up, frantically searching for his brother. "Marco?!"

"I'm right here!"

Piero's head whipped to the side. Just across the train car, Marco was laying on another cot, alive and well and with a bandage wrapped around his arm. Desperate to hold his brother's hand again, Piero swiveled in his cot and hopped off the side.

Marco's eyes went wide. He propped himself up on an elbow, frantically waving his free hand. "Pierre, wait, stop!"

Piero went to take a step with his left leg and went crashing to the floor instead. Dazed, he took a moment to figure out what happened, glancing back at his leg in shock.

As soon as he saw the stump, covered in bandages, it all came back to him.

That's right...Hinata chopped off my leg. He had to, to...to get me out of there...

Everything was drifting back in waves. The memories, the agony, the terror...

Someone rushed into the room, a slender man with neat, dark brown hair. "I heard a crash, what--oh! I was worried this might happen...hold on to me, let me help you up..."

Only half-aware, Piero took the man's arm as it was offered, using his help and Marco's cot to pull himself back to a stand. Once again, on the way back, he tried to step with his missing leg and nearly fell, catching himself on the man's arm.

"There you go, back to your cot," the man murmured. "I'm sorry, I know this is a massive shock. We were able to save some of the limb below your knee, so that will be helpful when you're learning how to walk again. I'm sorry we can't get a prosthesis yet...I'll contact the Districts and see if any of them have hospitals with the proper materials. For now, just try to rest and recover from the shock."

Piero nodded, listless as the man helped him back onto his cot. He lay back down, a foam pillow propped under his missing leg. For a while after the man left, all he could do was stare at his leg.

...It's really gone.

Face falling into an expression of despair, Piero's breathing slowly grew faster, the panic rising from where he had desperately buried it before.

OH, GOD. MY LEG IS ACTUALLY GONE.

"Piero," Marco's voice called pleadingly. "P-Pierre...I-I'm right here, you're okay..."

Piero glanced over to the side. Marco was stretching a hand out to him, trying to reach all the way across the aisle. Forlorn, Piero reached out to take his hand, gripping it in his own.

...Marco's okay.

The panic of losing a limb was quickly overshadowed by the sheer relief of confirming his precious little brother's safety. Piero squeezed Marco's hand as tightly as he could, sniffling.