The Hunger Games: Uprising!

Chapter 5

I wake to the sunlight coming through the window. Last nights dream is a distant memory and I find it easier to detach myself from them for some reason. I reach over to Peeta only to find he's not there but I can smell the faint aroma of baking bread and I can hear him clattering around in the kitchen.

I snuggle down into the covers and smile to myself, for the first time I'm truly happy. The loss of Prim will be a wound that will never heal but to get on with my life I need to put her memory somewhere safe, to be revisited from time to time.

I get up, take a shower and dress in a casual pair of trousers, t-shirt and go downstairs, I look round to see Buttercup following me.

"Hey, I say as I cross the kitchen and embrace Peeta from behind.

"Hi, did you sleep okay in the end, I didn't wake you did I?"

"Only with the smell of baking bread" I say as I go up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

I make us some tea and we sit at the table to enjoy our breakfast, Buttercup jumps onto Peeta's lap.

All of a sudden there's a knock on the door, Peeta rises from the table to answer it.

"Locking the door now are we" I hear Haymitch say.

"Got to keep the drunks out on the street!" I shout from the kitchen.

Haymitch takes a seat at the table and I pour him some tea, remembering not to fill his mug, he'll top it off with some liquor no doubt.

"What's up" I ask

He looks at me and Peeta questioningly as if we should already know.

"Obviously you didn't see the mandatory viewing on the TV last night then"

"I didn't know there was any"

"Neither did I, but the TV switched itself on anyway, it was late though"

Alarm bells start ringing in my ears, mandatory viewing hasn't happened since the end of the war, what's brought this on.

Haymitch continues...

"Paylor came on trying to put people's minds at rest, it appears that dissent among the Districts is spreading"

"People are impatient for change, it's been two years since the end of the war and still people are living in poverty"

"But at least they can live freely, without the risk of death and the spectre of the Hunger Games" Peeta says.

"There is that, but even in the seam people are still living in the same wooden huts that were salvaged from the bombings. Apart from the medicine factory not much has changed" I say

Our attention is drawn to a loud rumbling sound coming from outside, Buttercup jumps off Peeta's lap and runs for cover. I get up and look out the window to see a hovercraft landing on victors green.
It's smaller than the ones I saw during the war, and as it touches down a large ramp decends from under its nose and a squad of soldiers file out and take positions around the hovercraft. Peeta opens the front door just as Beetee and Gale walk down the ramp. I join Peeta and Haymitch at the top of the steps outside our front door.

I don't know what to say to either of these two, in my eyes they both had a hand in my sisters death.

"Hi Catnip" says Gale

I only nod in return.

I can feel my body tense with anger at Gale's attitude, as if everything's fine between us. Peeta's places his arm around my waist and I immediately start to relax.