Mockingjay: The New Story

Chapter Six

Katniss's POV

“My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. I am from District Twelve. There is no more District Twelve. I am in Thirteen. I am pregnant. Peeta is the father. Peeta is in the Capitol. Johanna is in the Capitol. Finnick is in the Capitol. They are probably dead. It would be better if they were dead.”

I whisper this over and over to myself. I can’t seem to stop doing the exercise the doctor from Thirteen told me to do as a sort of therapy when things got too fuzzy. I got out of the hospital yesterday. I have been in Thirteen for almost three weeks now. I continue on and on about what is real for a while. I begin what I know isn’t.

“The nightmares are not real. They don’t stop, but they aren’t real. My baby is not dead. I was positive it was dead. I didn’t kill it. Gale is not dead. Prim is not dead. Annie is not dead. They are all in Thirteen with me-“

“Katniss? Please!”

“Five more minutes! Just five more minutes.”

It was then Annie had found me hidden in the vent, dark with little bits of orange light shining through the pipes. My hands laid on my stomach, rubbing and trying to calm myself. I felt her small hand reach my shoulder, squeezing as to indicate that she was here now, she would help. I don’t jump this time. I hear other footsteps approach from behind. They have always found me like this ever since I was able to walk around the hospital area, hidden away in a closet or vent somewhere in the depths of Thirteen, trying to keep myself sane.

“I can’t do this Annie.” I blink large tears away, they only fall on my cheeks. “I can’t have this baby. Not without him.”

“Yes you can,” says Annie. She was just trying to reassure me, help me out of my distress. I have not one clue how she can be this calm.

“No, I can’t.” I take a shaky breathe. “I’ll kill myself.”

“Katniss, you’re needed in Command,” says Gale still behind Annie.

“No,” I answer.

“Come on, Katniss. Lighten up.” Brutus. He is the one who saved me in the arena when the Peacekeepers were on our tail. He pretended to choke me, holding a knife to my throat, to help me get out of that situation, away from the Peacekeepers trying to kidnap us for information leading to the rebels. Brutus tried his hardest on his promise, but the Capitol already had us. It was too late.

“I just want to go to my compartment and sleep,” I say, pleading.

“Just come. You don’t have to say anything, just listen. I promise,” says Gale.

Although I know this is a lie, I let him and Brutus help me up because I was becoming claustrophobic in the dust smelling vent and I can barely move from a sitting position without bursting into tears at the struggle and pain.

By the time I manage to get my head as together as I possibly could, repeating what is real in my head this time, we were already in Command. I winced sitting down, my back was still healing. So were the burnt patches of skin on my arm, leg and cheek. The doctors said to let them heal themselves. Plutarch said it would be good show to see some scars. I disagree.

Annie reaches over from where she was sitting next to me and grabs my hand, never letting go. She has been one of the only holds that has not let me fall since I got to Thirteen. I rub my thumb over her wounded knuckled, she told me when I first did this that Finnick used to do the same thing constantly to calm her. Annie has always asked me for my hand when she needed something of her own to hold onto.

The president of Thirteen begins talking, but I ignore most of Coin’s speech, or whatever topic she is talking about that supposedly I needed to hear. She knows I would be out of it, I wouldn’t listen for the world.