GONE (The Hunger Games)

The Last One

This chappy is dedicated to a really good friend of mine, AmaraPadilla. Go check out her smosh fanfic if you're into them, it's really good.

I'm really sorry updating after so long! Please forgive me.

My fingers are laced together in my lap, and I clasp them tightly, unfazed by the pain they bring on some of my powder covered bruises. I have a cold expression on as I sit on a chair a little behind a podium on which Snow makes a speech about the rebels and all the destruction they're inflicting upon the country.

I'm feeling restless for some reason. I feel hot and a few beads of perspiration line my upper lip and hairline. My foot taps a slow and steady beat that always reminds me of the sound of the water dripping from the roof of our cave from the first games. It's almost a subconscious thing now, and I've noticed I always do it when I'm feeling particularly anxious about Katniss. In the current situation, I have no idea what this has got to do with her, but all the same, I feel anger at her bloom up inside of my chest, and my brows furrow. I glare at the camera, letting my anger out from just my stare because I can't do anything to release it. Strangle her for instance.

Snow turns to me and gives me a slight nod, indicating I can start talking, after he's finished greeting the country.

I start with how much a cease-fire is needed, following with a few incidents where rebel doings have affected some areas in the districts. As I say all this, I feel oddly detached. Almost like it's not me who's talking, which is crazy, yet I still feel unfocused. My vision feels hazy, although I see everything properly; in some weird state of mind, it's like I see everything, but I'm not processing the information or the details, no matter how hard I stare at a particular thing, screaming in my mind to see it, to register it's appearance, it just doesn't work. My voice feels like I'm talking miles away, despite the fact that I can still feel the echo of my words in my head. And it's a terrifying feeling- like your going to just crumble away from life into death inside of your own body, seeing everything through your own eyes, like a total stranger. I try to shake this feeling off to continue on with the speech, but it's a fail. I inwardly shut my eyes tight, and plunge into the speech head on, which feels freakishly like it's exactly what I'm doing.

"So much destruction! All over the country. See over here," I point to the map behind me of Panem, where the area of District 7 lights up, "a broken damn in 7. The infrastructure of so many districts ruined! And all at the hands of rebel action-" But my speaking is cut of by a huge BAM from the television which is hanging on the wall in a room next to the hall I'm in. This speech is being played live over the country, and from that TV I could see myself being aired, but not now. I find myself looking directly at Katniss, who stands in the rubble of what I'm assuming the burned ruins of District 12. In the few seconds that this clip plays, I recognise a half burnt sign fallen on the heap, and realise it's the entrance sign to our old bakery. A wave of emotions crashes down in my chest. The bakery, the one I had grown up in, where my family had once been whole- all GONE!

I quickly try to gather myself together, and with a deep breath, hastily pick up on from where I had been interrupted as the Capitol tech men get me back on the screen.

"I-uh, over here as you can see, a water purification plant has been bombed. Again by the hands of rebel action-" but again, I'm interrupted by one of the clips from district 13. This time, it's one of Finnick talking about Rue. A feel like a little string inside of my chest just snapped, making me feel weirdly refreshed for a few seconds.

For the few seconds that the clip plays, the Capitol tech masters fall into a frenzy to get me back onto the screen, which they do. However, before I can start again with the speech, trying to keep everything calm and collected, 13 cuts through and plays another clip.

It's all just a battle now, each side trying to get there videos up. I see that the Capitol is at a slight disadvantage though, as the whole break through was unexpected and unprepared for.

Several clips of Katniss, Gale, Finnick and few other people I don't know play. With all of them, I feel that uncomfortable feeling in my chest, like glass walls shattering at each clip. It makes my insides squirm, but all the same, my head starts to clear up, the blotchiness of my vision clearing up.

Once their stream of videos end, the Capitol finally regain control over their broadcast, and the cameras on me turn off. The screen shows the Capitol's seal, and after a while, the cameras turn on to me and Snow again.

Snow walks up to the podium, a dangerous look in his eye, but his face blank.

"It looks like the rebels are now attempting to disrupt the dissemination of information they find incriminating, but both truth and justice will reign. The full broadcast will resume when security has been reinstated. Peeta, would you like to say any parting thoughts to Katniss Everdeen given tonight's demonstration?" Snow says.

And there it is, that little string in my chest, that last glass wall, and it breaks, at Katniss' name. Everything crumbles inside of me, and my face contorts into the pressure of the huge waves of a new mind state crashing into me.

"Katniss," I take a huge shuddering breath to calm my insides that whirl around like a tornado, "how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you... in Thirteen," This is it, I'm going to do it, and all of a sudden I feel my Capitol mind creeping in on me again, the edges of my vision blurring up. I take another huge breath, my whole body shaking in crazy fear, "Dead by morning!"

Thirteen breaks through with new clips, and the Capitol gets me back onto the screen. I don't know what to say, so I stutter something about what the Capitol are doing, but my voice is drowned out by Snow yelling at the camera men to end it. The cameras fall to the floor in their panic that has arisen from my statement, and from behind me, I feel a gun like thing pierce through the side of my neck. I fall to the ground, crying out in pain as blood from my wound splatters onto the floor.

I see Snow's eyes last, promising death.