And you'll ask yourself, where is my mind | closed to asaraindrop

[accidentalrebellion]

[When the lights power down, a film replays in her mind. Over and over again, stuck in a horrifying loop she's helpless to stop.

It begins with an image behind a wall of glass. A Peeta who isn't Peeta. Even from a distance, she knows everything is wrong. Though similar in appearance, nothing remains the same. His eyes are dark, completely devoid of anything she associates with them. His face contorted into something wholly foreign. It's enough to make breath catch in her lungs, a lead weight to drop to her stomach, a chill to run down her spine.

But the words are the worst, the words that aren't his own. That can't be his own, for the sake of any kind of fractured grip on reality she makes one last desperate attempt to cling to. A grip that slips even further from her the more his voice, his but not his, echoes in her thoughts.

"A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!"

By her request, they're sending her to Two tomorrow, but that knowledge isn't enough to bring her any kind of relief tonight. This tiny compartment has never felt more stifling and claustrophobic.

Yet she has nowhere to go.

She knows she shouldn't; if Prim is asleep, she doesn't want to disturb her. But she just can't spend another minute alone with her thoughts. Another minute, and they might very well consume her.

So she chances a whisper into the darkness.]

Prim?

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[accidentalrebellion]

[She doesn't respond to that. She can't. There's hope in Prim's words, a hope she wants to believe in so badly, but knows is ultimately futile. Because what she saw in that room had no underlying hope behind it. An ally is now a stranger, and doesn't even think she's human. The gravity of that hits her once more, more strongly than it did earlier, and elicits a series of unwanted physiological responses. The formation of a lump in her throat that blocks the passage of air and makes breathing difficult. A set of tears stinging in her eyes, tears she's fighting her absolute hardest to blink back, even in the darkness of this room.

Hope can't take root in this unnatural maze of lead and concrete. There's only one truth that exists, she knows this now. The boy with the bread is lost to her. Forever.

And the faster she forces herself to accept that truth, the easier it'll be. The better she'll be able to focus on the only objective that matters, the one she specified with shaking hands when she agreed to be the Mockingjay.

I KILL SNOW.

It matters now almost more than it ever has.

Silence persists between them, one she allows to extend just long enough to avoid this topic of conversation. She simply keeps her sister as close as she can, as if to shield her from the horrors of this day. From unknown potential horrors that could still emerge. There are no limits to what could be taken from her, Snow has more than made that abundantly clear, but maybe if she holds on tightly enough....--

When she finally speaks, still maintaining the quiet whisper from before, she hates how unsteady it still sounds.]

I'm leaving for Two. [A beat.] Tomorrow.

[asaraindrop]

What?

[ Prim replies quickly, pulling away from Katniss to look at her, or at least face her with how dark it was ]

No, Katniss, you can't.

[ Not just because of how short notice it was but because she couldn't. Sure, they needed her, needed her to be their Mockingjay but Prim needed her too, and even if Peeta was ill from what the Capitol had done he needed her too - he needed her to help him remember everything.

But she was going instead. Running. Doing what she always did when things were hard, especially after the Games. Their lives had never been easy, and it had been harder on Katniss because she'd had to do everything for them - Prim had seen, and realised that more the older she'd gotten, especially after Katniss had left for the Games and her mother had returned, had done things that Katniss had done before (or even- especially when there'd been no one, and Prim had had to do it herself).

Prim wants to stop her, to whisper that she needs her but even though that's true, and even if Katniss wants to stay because of that, Prim doubts that that will stop her and make her stay this time, not when there's more important things at risk than just family.

They got Peeta back for Katniss, and now Katniss has to do this. Prim knows that, but it doesn't mean she has to like it ]