The Hunger Games- What If's: Book Two

Chapter Nine

   I stumble along beside the rest of them the best I can with as little help from Gale as possible. I know that I should just be gracious and accept his support, but I am painfully aware of the fact that I have too much pride. Especially when others try to help me. 

   I guess that's just how I've been forced into living. I have been the one taking care of Prim and my mother, and I learned the hardest way possible that there are very few people who will help you, especially if you don't get things done for yourself. Not to mention the fact that we were living in the poorest district in Panem. 

   My thoughts swirl around in my head and I try to calm them, attempting the real world to keep from spinning just for a little while. However, it's all in vain. My head is still pounding and with every footstep it intensifies, along with my own heartbeat. Never before have I been so painfully aware of my existence. Not just the pain, but of me. I am here, running alongside these men, being assisted by my best friend in the woods where I learned to live. It's all very poetic, but in a bloodthirsty way. Here I am, trying to learn how to live again. But when was I ever dead?

   Is there another way to not be living, but still be alive? I think I muddled through what that must have been like in the Games, but even then I was more human than not. I had a goal, my Prim. She kept me stable and less like an animal than the others. Even Peeta was an animal, like an injured puppy. He always longed to have someone to follow and care for, but he just kept getting kicked. Over and over again. 

   I'm not sure where we are at this point. Sometimes I think I recognize a certain tree or cliff side, but I'm never quite certain. There's always something that throws my recognition out of whack. We must be rather far into the woods, farther than I've ever really had to go hunt before. 

   "We're nearly there. About a mile more or so, I'd say," Haymitch calls out to us. 

   We keep a steady pace, much faster than what I'd prefer, but I quickly become accustomed to how shallow my breaths are.

   "You okay?" Gale asks several times, and I merely nod in response. I'm okay as long as I'm not keeling over.

   By telling myself I'm okay, at least I can pretend like I am. I suppose that I am better off than all of the dead and dying, at any rate. Really, though, playing pretend has never been my forte. 

   Pretty soon, the surroundings become those to which I'm accustomed to seeing. The crooked tree cluster by a trickle of a stream, the blackberry buses that are almost always infested with bees, the patch of clover filled with grasshoppers galore. As we draw nearer to where I know to be the district, I become more restless.

   "Are we going all the way back?" I mutter, really leaning on Gale now.

   "No." That's all Gale said. 

   Before too long, we find ourselves by the pond. where I used to swim with my father. We slow down when we reach it, and I am led to the cabin nestled beneath the foliage across from the pond.

  "Here's home sweet home for now," Haymitch mutters as he unbolts the door. 

   The bolted lock must have been put on by him or another of the men, because it certainly wasn't there before I left for the Games. It looks incredibly new, and I'm impressed Haymitch could even find one in this district. 

   Appearantly Haymitch must have expected this because he says, "Bribing Peacekeepers has never been so easy."

   "You should probably knick it up a bit, so it at least looks old if anyone comes looking for it," Gale tells him. That's exactly what I'm thinking. Unfortunately, I don't have enough breath to say it.