they won't ask you why (they'll just watch you die) ➴ homeplot

[burnwithus]

I taste ash on my lips, heavy and choking. It's in the air, along with the smell of coal fires that only remind me of District 12.

District 12.

My eyes snap open, face pressed against the fallen ash. Trying not to breathe it in. There was a disease that all the miners got after too many years of working, a cough that no amount of salve could take away. Black Lung Disease, my mother used to call it. I already feel the burning begin in my lungs as I pick myself up from the floor. This was District 12, and it didn't feel like a nightmare. After a year and a half of fighting them repeatedly, I knew all of my nightmares.

This was something else. This was...focus. I press a hand against the scar on my temple, the one I automatically associate with confusion in hopes that it will help me think. It doesn't. After a minute I give up on trying to figure out why and focus more on figuring out where I am. In the distance, the red flames of the slag heap are still visible. With all that residual coal dust, it might be burning forever. Still burning, I think numbly, reaching automatically for the quiver at my shoulder, except it isn't there. Just the knife I sleep with underneath my pillow.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something beginning to move. Someone. Multiple people whose faces I can't quite make out. How is this even possible? There was no one left alive after the firebombing, except those that Gale managed to get out.

Maybe it's the dead. It sounds ridiculous, but if this is a dream, if it's my dream...it's entirely possible.

Comments

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

There's nothing familiar about the vista that he opens his eyes in. There's nothing but the taste of ash, the smell of burning. Every breath too shallow in a way that reminds him of being down the minds; an awareness that every breath could be your last. He lifts his head, wiping his face, ash already smeared on his cheek.

"Katniss?"
There are other people here. Her's is just the first name on his lips.

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Gale. Even through the haze of it all, I would know his voice anywhere. What is he doing here? And almost more importantly, which version of Gale is it? I slide down to a crouch, head held in my hands, breathing slowly. District 12. Gale. Already I can feel the crunch of bone underneath my feet, because the skulls of the dead are everywhere.

I killed you. And you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm- it's not enough, though. It's never going to be enough.

"Gale," I'm sure he'll be able to hear me. Everything seems louder in the complete stillness of 12. There used to be other sounds; the chatter of people trading in the Hob. Most people kept their heads down on the ordinary streets, but every once in a while there were strains of conversations. The clang of machinery from down in the mines. Shopkeepers selling their wares. There was always something.

Now there's nothing but the occasional whistle of the wind.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

She speaks and he finds her in the murk. His head turns towards her. He pushes to his hands and knees and then up, to his feet. The ash is thick around the toes of his boots. The first step he takes, he stumbles but he doesn't fall.

"...Fuck, Katniss," he mumbles. "This is it, isn't it?"

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

It's a while before I can answer him, because it feels like I've been in this exact position before, with Gale's voice here. Except this time, it's even harder to keep everything together. I take deep breaths, tugging at my braid in hopes that the pain will orient everything like it often does. "This is it," I tell him, breathing in ash. "This is District 12. What's left of it."

There is no District 12. It doesn't exist anymore.

I can't stand up. My knee hits the floor but there's no moisture left in the earth anymore. Just flakes of ash that flutter upwards now that they've been disturbed. I take care not to breathe them in as well.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

Walking towards her, he instinctively knows not to breathe deeply. There's nothing left; there's nobody left. There are bones littered all around them. He holds his hand out to her.

"C'mon," he says, quietly. "I'll help you."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

The bones are the worst. District 12 was not a big place, compared to all of the other Districts and the Capitol itself. I see a face on every skull on the ground, wondering how many of them I knew. How many of them I would pass every day on the way to school or the Hob in the evenings.

Gale's hands are calloused in the same places as mine. I pull myself to my feet, eyes stinging. First the music from the jukebox, and now this. It can't be a coincidence.

"I did this," he might as well know the truth.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

When he nudges a skull with the toe of his boot by accident, it goes skittering away from them and Gale has to swallow down hard on the urge to vomit. He closes his eyes and tries to breath. He keeps her hands in his.

"You didn't do this," he says, voice low and tight. "Snow did this."

[burnwithus.livejournal.com]

Yes. Snow did this, I know that without a doubt. But I can't exactly absolve myself either. District 12 was guilty of nothing except having the misfortune to have me. Objectively, I know that there were few choices and I did what I thought was right at the time, but it doesn't matter because they're still dead. Finnick. Cinna. Boggs. Prim. It's becoming a list, a number that I can't count on my fingers.

But Gale doesn't understand. He doesn't even know about the Quell.

"Snow's dead," I breathe through my hands, trying not to inhale more ash than necessary. "I saw him die," but it's hard to feel satisfaction, even surrounded by the remains of 12, because his death didn't change Prim's fate.

[worldisburning.livejournal.com]

"Good."

It's all that he can say to that. It's not happiness, not exactly; it feels more like relief. His eyes go to the fence and he reaches out, taking her by the hand.

"Come on," he says. "There's no buzzing. We're going outside the fence. You can stay there and I'll..."

He just needs to go home...just...for a bit.