Ever After ~ Mockingjay Sequel

Chapter 1

        The wind blows through my hair. The breeze feels nice in the heat and the humid air. The forest has got to be 90 degrees, maybe more, even though it's the middle of the night. Sweat runs down my face as I lean down by a nearby tree and stick the spile in. Water comes rushing out and I gulp it hungrily. 

        I hear a limb crack behind me and turn around quickly. Finnick stands, waiting, fresh seafood on the teeth of his trident. When I back away from the tree, he squats down and helps himself to some of the water. 

        "You should get some sleep," he suggested. "I'll keep watch."

        I don't know what makes me trust him, but I do. I walk to where the others are and lay down next to them. My eyes shut and I'm drifting to sleep when the screams begin. 

        I hear Prim, my precious sister, screaming in agony. Just the sound of it brings me to tears. I shriek her name and chase the sound. I discover that it's coming from the throat of a bird, and stand confused. Finnick runs after me, and tells me that it's a jabberjay. Nothing to be afraid of. Prim is alright. 

        But she's not. Now I'm standing in the Capitol, calling her name once again. Her head turns, her blonde braid swinging, and she sees me. A smile spreads across her face. She begins to call my name, but the word never escapes her lips. She is blown to bits right before my very eyes.

        "Prim!" I shout, sobbing. "Prim!" But she's not here, and I'm not in the Capitol. This scares me further. I continue to shriek her name, not understanding. She was right there! Where did she go? "Prim!" I cry, "Prim!" A pair of strong arms wrap around me, and I scream. I don't know who it is, but I don't care. I kick the person where I know it will hurt and they release their hold on me. I jump up, still not knowing where I am. What is going on? Where is my sister?

        "Katniss," a voice, belonging to my captor, says softly, "it's alright. It's not real. You're here. With me."  I stand in silence, still confused, but when the person wraps his strong arms around me again, I don't object. "You're in District 12, remember? The war is over." I let him lead me back to my bed as I slowly come back to reality. It was a dream. I'm not in the Capitol. I'm in my house in Victor's Village, and this isn't my captor, this is Peeta. I cling to his arms, trying to keep myself from drifting off again, and sob.

        He runs his fingers through my hair comfortingly. I take a few deep breaths and get a hold of myself. Peeta walks down to the kitchen to grab me a glass of water and my anxiety medicine. This isn't an unusual occurance; this happens to one of us at least once a week. But who can blame us? Spending time in two Hunger Games and fighting on the front line of the revolution? It's enough to drive anyone mad. 

        Peeta comes back with my medicine and I take it without resisting. He crawls back next to me and wraps his arms around me once again. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks. I shake my head. It was only a dream, what I saw, but it doesn't make what happened in the dream any less true. Prim is dead, so is Finnick, and so are countless others. I glance the clock. It's five o'clock in the morning. I'm afraid to go back to sleep, and I'm not sure if it's worth it to risk more nightmares for a measly two extra hours of shut-eye. I feel safe in Peeta's arms, but what happens in my dreams is beyond even his control. I get out of bed, grab a new set of clothes, and head to the bathroom to take a shower. 

        Peeta and I don't exactly live together, but lately he's been spending more time over at my house than at his own. We haven't left each other alone during the nights for months now; waking up from the nightmares alone is too much to bear. We need each other. That much is clear. 

        The war ended about a year and a half ago and Paylor has been in charge ever since. She's been doing a good job, as far as I know. Running a whole country is a lot to handle and I know that she wasn't expecting all of that responsibility, but I stand firm in my belief that she's a far better successor to Snow than Coin would have been. 

        Peeta and I live a rather quiet life. We keep to ourselves mostly, with the exception of Plutarch coming around once every few months to give us a full update on everything that has been going on. The last time that he came over was about a month ago, when he informed Peeta, Haymitch and I that they were starting up a new form of communication that they found in an old history book called a "newspaper". Apparently, people write articles about whatever is going on in the country and publish it onto one big paper, which is distributed to everyone in the country that wants one, keeping everybody up to date. It seems like a relatively good idea. I don't want to be kept completely out of the loop. 

        Haymitch has gone back to drinking, to no one's surprise. However, Peeta and I have started recruiting his help to start rebuilding some of Twelve. People are starting to come back by the hundreds, and fixing this place up is no easy job. We build houses and schools and stores...anything that we can do to make it livable again. It's not my first choice of leisure activities, but it keeps me busy, and it keeps my mind off of other things. 

        I let the warm water drench me and wash away my dream and all of the terrors that I felt with it. I scrub my hair with shampoo and try to relax. Today is a big day. Well, as big as the days around here get. At 9:00, Peeta, Haymitch and I are to take a train to District Four to visit Annie and celebrate baby Finnick's second birthday. I'll be seeing people there that I haven't seen in a while. There will probably be press there, which i'm not particularly looking forward to. Plutarch likes to keep up appearances, you see. He's agreed to leave us alone most of the time in exchange for getting to go all out on special occasions. He milks them for all that they're worth, too. He claims that the citizens of Panem still care about what we're up to, even though I'm pretty sure they're pretty sick of us all by now. Either way, I'll have to put on my politest face and try to act like I'm not falling apart today. After that dream, which I'm still shaking from, it's not going to be too easy to do. 

        Stepping out of the shower, I wrap myself in a towel and dry off. I dress myself and head back to my room, where Peeta lays on my bed, sound asleep. I grin slightly at the soft snores he makes. He looks so peaceful. I glance at the clock. It isn't even six yet. I stroke a piece of his hair lightly and decide to let him sleep on. 

       I sneak out the front door and walk over to Haymitch's house. Chances are, he's passed out drunk and will most likely sleep right through the alarm that he forgot to set. Without bothering to knock, I walk right in and find him passed out on the couch, a bottle of liquor still in his hand. The place reeks. As hard as Peeta and I try to keep him on track, Haymitch will always be Haymitch. No one can control him. Without hesitation, I fill a bucket with water from his sink and dump it on his head. He shouts and stands up with a start, swinging a knife. When he sees that it's me, he throws it to the ground but remains furious.

        "Damn it, Katniss, when are you going to learn to leave me the hell alone?" he snaps.

        I roll my eyes. "Maybe when you learn to stop being hungover for special occasions. The train's going to be here in an hour." This is a lie. We still have about three hours left, but Haymitch needs the motivation. He groans unappreciatively and slumps up the stairs to get ready. Feeling accomplished, I head back to my own house. In the kitchen with breakfast in the oven stands Peeta, grinning. 

        "Morning," he says cheerfully. 

        "Morning," I grin back. I inhale deeply. "Cheese buns?" I speculate. 

        "You bet!" I smile at the boy with the bread and decide that this day is going to go our way, no matter what.