The Hunger Games - Primrose Everdeen

Chapter Twenty Four

Death. A word to be feared. An action in which to be avoided. Blood, cries, screams, agony, suffering. Shedding of tears feels helpful, but it isn't. All it does is make it worse. Tear stained cheeks, red puffy eyes, and dribbly noses. Pained expressions, broken lives. Widows, orphans, parents burrying their child. Brothers and sisters ready to kill themselves, surrender to the evilness that is life, that is the Capitol.

This is how I feel, as sobs and shrieks of pure terror rain down on me in my sleep. Rue dying, then me, Katniss commiting suicide and my mother weaping as she burries her two children, yet more of her loved ones gone. 

As I sit, gazzing up at the stars while I wait for Rue to come back from taking a bathroom break from walking, I have yet another renewed hope, thinking that this may be how Katniss will react in my death. There's something awfully wrong in a world where children are forced to murder each other, not a single parent or guardian refusing to surrender their own flesh and blood. A world where friends sit in front of their televisions watching their friend get carelessly slaughtered. And who's to blame? Not the kinds just trying to survive by stealing another young life, but the people truly behind the masacure is the Capitol. The cruelest people in the world. 

"Let's go." I'm startled as Rue's voice rings over to me. There's something new in her face. Has she only just realized what she had said earlier? About the Games?

I decide to ask, because maybe if she regrets what she says the Gamemakers will not kill us, or at least not as painfully. "What's wrong?"

"I've just been thinking about my siblings. How will they survive without me?" Asks Rue needingly. For the first time in a while, I'm speechless and don't know what in the world to say. I stare at her, her brown eyes are beginning to cloud with tears and she appears to be trembling. 

In response, I hug her right as the tears cut loose. This is such a difficult thing to handle and maybe she has just realized what she said and is now taking notice on the affect it may have on her five other siblings. Lashings, beatings, maybe even a gun shot through their tinny little skulls. All because of a couple of words a twelve-year-old girl fighting for her life said. All because of a ruthless killing game.

Rue's knees unbuckle and she slides to the ground, her head holded up by her hands. "They'll be okay. Maybe Thresh will win. Then they'll be all set for a whole year. With vegtables and fruits, heck even candy." I pat her back gently and we just sit there on our knees, watching the moon move across the night sky. In the distance a bird chatters, a night creature howls. Somewhere tributes are waiting to kill or be killed. We're just another one of them. No different.

"I guess... but have you seen the boy from District Two? He's huge, almost as big as Thresh." She says shakingly.

What do I say? Never have I felt so much pressure on me, so many eyes peering at me, so many ears waiting to hear a good and reasonable answer. "Not nearly as gigantic. Thresh is definetely more powerful than Cato." My throat chokes up as I take notice of just what I am saying. It's like saying that I'd rather have Thresh win than Peeta, who if he wasn't such a softy he could win, but I bet Peeta could work up the courage to kill, to drive a knife through someones heart, a spear stuck in someones gut, an arrow through their throat. 

A slight breeze brushed by, bringing up joyful relief from the extreme heat. I take in the dense forest around us, apreciating the heat bugs and birds singing sweetly, oblivious to the deathly game surrounding them. Water rushes in the nearby stream like the wind does in the air, just breathing calmly.  Even though I am here, I take the time to smile at the beautiful world. Now I am wishing that I had spent more time with Katniss in the forest so I could have learned to climb trees and hunt. Maybe then I would have the guts to kill.

A branch cracks far to my left and I look over to find a plump rabbit chewing on a patch of grass. I feel the hollowness in my stomach and pull out my kinfe. Rue stops in her tracks as she sees the knife gripped in my fingers. As I creep up on the innocent creature my heart beats rapidly and then bam! The knife zooms out of my hand and sticks right into the rabbits side, opening a lethal gash. It falls dead and I run over to it. Full of pride, I clean the blood off of the knife on my jacket and grab the  fat rabbit, planning on gutting it and cleansing it later. 

As we continue walking, I just pray that the cameras were aimed at us, and that we just might now have a sponsor or two.

SO SHORT I KNOW! I really am sorry! But I am going to be uploading a lot more. Promise!