The Third Everdeen

Chapter 34

District 8. The textile District. They make the Peacekeeper uniforms. At least they did. Before it was bombed to heck. Now in my personal opinion, District 12 had it worse. 8 was at least still standing, while it looked like shit; they still survived. 12 wasn't as lucky. As we flew over, the buildings looked to be in ruins. Everything looked destroyed, there was rubble and debris at every turn. We landed the aircraft in what looked to be the most abandoned area in the district. 

"It's gotta be fast. In and out." Boggs told us as we bumped into a stop. We all stood up and ran out and knelt, waiting for the aircraft to go and wait until we were ready to be brought back. "Move out!" He yelled over the noise of the aircraft. We jogged to the hospital, weapons in hand and met with the District 8 representative. 

She looked right at me, "You're alive. We didn't believe them at first." She nodded.

"Lily this is Commander Paylor, District 8." Boggs introduced and turned to speak to her, "Lily has been recovering, but she insisted on coming out and seeing some of your wounded." I nodded to his words.

"Well," She turned and started walking back to the hospital, her voice oddly enough sounded light, "We've got plenty of those." she told us as she led the way inside. We got inside and after pulling back the plastic curtain the first thing we see is lines of body bags along the floor. It was difficult to miss, "We have a mass grave a few blocks west; but, I can't spare the manpower to move them yet." she told us and pointed to another curtain a bit ahead of us, "The hospital is past that curtain." she looked at me, "Any hope you can give them. It will be worth it," her voice went cold, "The Capitol's done everything they can to break us."

"Aren't you a little worried about having all your wounded in the same place?" Gale asked.

I couldn't help but look at some of the bodies they didn't seem to cover. Their whole bodies were burned to a crisp, like the Capitol was trying to barbecue them.

"I think it's better than leaving them to die." Paylor answered.

"That's not exactly what he was implying," Katniss told her.

Paylor shrugged, "Well, that's my only other option. If you can come up with another, I'm all ears."

Inside the hospital there were roughly hundreds of people, some injured and some helping out. It was swarming. I could practically feel the color draining in my face. What would I say to them? How in any way could I lift their spirits when I couldn't even do the same to myself? There was no way I would be able to provide any kind of hope to all these people. Cressida was at my side looking around in awe.

It took me a second before I could even speak, "Don't take any shots of me here. I can't help these people." I told her low. I was shaking my head, my hands started shaking.

I looked over at her and she put her hand on my shoulder comfortingly, "Just let them see your face."

Slowly, I nodded and started taking some steps in the room. At first no one noticed me, almost anyone who wasn't hurt was helping someone who was. It wasn't till I was about a quarter of the way in that some people noticed me and their eyes glued to my figure. More and more people noticed my presence and stopped what they were doing. The room slowly got more quiet, the buzz of chatter dying down. Some people looked shocked; like they couldn't believe that I was actually there. The room was completely silent and almost everyone stood up to see me clearly. I kept looking around, not sure what to say. Thankfully someone took me out of my train of thought.

"Lily Everdeen?" The voice came from behind me, it was small. I turned around and it was a girl, maybe around fifteen years old. She had a head rag on and blood spattered on her forehead. "What are you doing here?" Her voice sounded dream-like.