ghosts that we knew: A mockingjay fanfiction

31

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 31

Madge pov

•••••••••••FLASHBACK••••••••••••••

Tonight is the night of the Tribute Parade, the event that marks the start of the Opening Ceremonies for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games.

Tonight, I will watch as the closest thing I have to a best friend and the boy who I share childhood memories of picking flowers in the meadow with be corralled through a sea of jeering Capitolites. They will be put on display, their lives being weighed heavily-and essentially devalued, given that their lineage lies in District Twelve and our costumes in the Parade are usually less than appealing. They will be, quite literally, handed over to the power of President Snow. They will begin the march to their possible deaths.

Only one can come out of this alive. And it has to be Katniss Everdeen or Peeta Mellark.

There's a chance that neither of them will emerge as Victor, but the part of me that has been sick to my stomach since leaving the Justice Building yesterday afternoon forbids me to think of that as an option.

Katniss is strong, brave, and if she gets her hands on a bow and arrow, she could be lethal. There are already murmured speculations in Town that she could go all the way.

While stopping at the Mellarks' bakery with Father to offer our condolences, a morose tradition that grows harder and harder to uphold as I continue to mature and personally know the Tributes, Mrs. Mellark states that she thinks District Twelve will finally have its long-awaited winner.

She isn't talking about her son. The son who has worn her welts and lumps for years, covering it up with a rehearsed smile and a discreet tug at his sleeve. The son who has taken her beatings like any strong, capable Victor would. The fact that she is willing to write Peeta off before the Games have even started makes my blood boil, and my father steers me out of the bakery before I can chew the cross old woman out.

I know that his chances at winning are less likely than Katniss', in terms of the nature of the Games. It is a killing spree, and even the most docile of Tributes have have to adapt to the 'kill or be killed' mantra that fuels the system in order to even have a shot at surviving.

Katniss will kill, if it means surviving another day to keep her family afloat.

But Peeta isn't like the Tributes of the past. As far as I remember, the boy barely had the stomach to squash a spider when we were young. His heart's too golden, too compassionate to harbor any malice.

Perhaps the trait that everyone expects to hinder the baker's son will be what helps him most. With a silver-tongue and acute ability to read people, it's likely that he could defy everyone's doubts and soar silently to the top without laying a finger on anyone. Instances like those are rare, but they have happened before.

I think of my Aunt Maysilee's mockingjay pin, fastened securely to Katniss' collar just before I placed a kiss on her cheek and insisted that she wear the pin as her District token. Will it remind her that there is a home to return to? A District of people who have saluted her to fight for? Or will the odds be stacked against her in the arena?

I think of the look on Peeta Mellark's face when the District's escort, Effie Trinket, forced him to shake hands with the girl he has been watching walk home every day since the age of eleven. Will Peeta play to his strengths and prove his nay-saying mother wrong? Or will he lay his life on the line to help Katniss Everdeen achieve Victory?

One of them has to come home. That way, I can stop playing this horrible, questioning mind game with myself and finally get some closure.

The bell atop the Justice Building rings out. Eight deadly chimes that signal the mandatory viewing hours of the Hunger Games have begun.