One-Shots (The Hunger Games)

One Shot 4

| Cornucopia spinning scene |

Johanna

Katniss runs after Enobaria and Brutus, and as much as Peeta tries to follow her, Finnick holds him back. I, on the other hand, rush after her.

When Brutus and Enobaria have just left the island, it starts spinning and Katniss and I are both swept off our feet.

A jolt of pain shoots from my ribs and hip when I fall down. I have barely gotten a grip on the rock when Katniss slides past me, her fingers desperately trying to hold on. Luckily she holds on to a rock before she is too close to the water.

I silently pray that Finnick is okay, him being the only friend I have left after Blight hit the forcefield. Not that he was anything special, but he was from home.

My fingers start to burn and Katniss must feel it too, because she grunts as much as I do. But the ledge she is holding onto is much smaller, leading to her fingers slipping.

Both of us let out something like a high pitched grunt and I instinctively reach out to her, almost like I'm reaching out to freedom. She is the Mockingjay after all, even if she doesn't know it.

Our hands clasp together, but I can already feel her slipping from my grip with the water having found its way to out hands.

I swing my arm with as much power that this position will give me and jab my axe into the rock, wishing that Plutarch would stop the spinning already.

Katniss' hand slips even more until only out finger tips are holding on to each other.

"No!" I shout.

But it's too late. Her nail-bitten fingers slip from mine and with a shout, she falls in the whitewater. I try not to think of what just happened and keeping myself alive, but thinking of the whole plan being ruined by the Games, by Plutarch who took it too far, makes me feel more nauseous than I already am.

"No!" I scream once more.

Only seconds later the island loses its speed and has come to a still. I almost literally fly to my feet and search the area for any sign of Katniss. But there is none. Despair starts to flood my veins when Peeta, Finnick, and Beetee run to me with the same kind of hope I had when I thought she could have been with them. But she's not.

Bread Boy still tries asking if I know where she is, which I decline a little more timidly than I'd like to sound.

"Do you know where she fell off?" Finnick asks, twirling the trident in his hand.

"Yeah, sorta. But she could have been pushed further." I explain.

I lead them to the wedge where I think to have lost her.

Finnick dives into the water and I feel anxiety start to rise in me. I don't like her, not at all. But she was going to be the face of the revolution once we got out of this bloody Arena. I don't want to have someone else have to experience a Victory Tour or have to be waxed from toe to neck or have to talk to that stupid Caesar Salad guy.

A small gasp escapes Peeta's lips when Finnick pops up for air with nothing in his arms. I hate to admit that I am scared too. It's a terrifying feeling and it only gets stronger every time comes back up empty-handed.

The feeling of unease is almost unbearable. Seconds tick by and Peeta seems to be breather harder and faster by the second. I want her to have run off on her own like she wanted in the beginning of the Games according to Haymitch. I want her to stab us in the back and lead this revolution. I want her to set this country free of misery.

But I guess that is not meant to be.

My stomach drops when Finnick comes back up, this time with her lithe, yet motionless body in his arms. As he swims closer, I notice a gash in her temple where blood is basically pouring out. She must have been very deep because there wasn't a sign of blood in the water before she got dragged to the top.

I have a hard time functioning when Finnick asks me to help him get her on land. Peeta scrambles to her and pulls her up without any problems, other than his loud sobs. At least I can keep it together.

All possibility of her surviving is gone when I realize the wound on her head isn't the only one. There is an ever bigger cut in her upper thigh and the suit that isn't already ripped and broken is purple instead of blue.

"Do something!" Peeta cries with anguish. I wish I could tell him that we just needed to wrap the wound in bandages, but an injury like that is far from our capabilities.

"There's nothing we can do. She's bleeding out. Say goodbye while her pulse is still beating. Even if it barely is." Only now I allow myself to be just a little bit sorry for the boy. He didn't deserve this.

As he mumbles and sobs pretty words to her, I catch him say something I didn't think to hear.

"Look, Katniss. The sunset. Isn't it beautiful? That orange there is my favorite color," He points at a streak of soft orange in the sky. "It's almost as beautiful as you."

Maybe I did expect the last part, but that he's discussing his favorite color to her while he is on the verge of dying seem a bit ridiculous to me.

Then the realization hits me. I was the last one to look in those gay eyes of hers. He won't see them anymore, unless he pries her eyelids apart, but that seems to be a bit too cruel. I was the last to hear her, even though her forlorn cries and grunts aren't really what you'd want your last words to be.

Plutarch had gone too far. Much too far. Maybe Peeta could be the Mockingjay, but it seems unlikely he'd agree to anything Plutarch is a part of after what he has to his lover.

My distaste for Katniss has always been very strong, but I still never stopped admiring her. How she volunteered for her sister, even if she was just a scrawny, little girl. How she cared for that young girl in the Games, knowing she was going to have to let her go.

So there was not that much to hate about her, other than her tacky romance act. But it's not an act. It may have been in her first games, but not in these. She loved him.

I don't hate her, I envy her. I'm jealous that she has someone to love and that someone loves her.

Boom, goes the canon.