never let me go

[eveningprimrose]

[ mockingjay spoilers, as always! ]

nightmare

It starts out small, almost like a normal dream, which is funny, considering how few normal or good dreams she really has these days. Soon, though, the sight of Prim tending the sick and injured turned awful, as everything in Panem does.

Prim looks up, as though she just heard something and wants to find out what it was. She thinks she did, thought she heard someone call her name. Primrose. Primrose.

"Who's there?" she calls, as though the air around her will answer. Nothing happens, so she turns her attention to the little girl she was tending. Instead of a child, she finds a bloody and mangled body, burn marks clear to see. Her heart stops for a second.

"What...?"

What is happening? She's too focused on her former patient to notice that anyone else might be around and watching.

The nightmare winds around the events of that day, combining it with the Games, though this time Prim is one of the tributes. She hides. It's all she can do. Hide, while everyone else dies around her. Screams fill the air. The smell of charred flesh permeates the air, too. Everything is wrong. So wrong.

Prim squeezes her eyes shut to block it out.

It ends with a parachute. A small, silver parachute floating through the air. Katniss calling to her. Prim turns, hand outstretched towards the parachute.

And then, just as it reaches Prim's hand, the parachute explodes.

afterwards

It would almost be funny how normal that nightmare was for a resident of Panem if it wasn't so horrific. Prim doesn't leave the apartment for a few days, a week, two weeks. When she finally does, she sticks to what she knows. The last thing she needs is to find out that it was all real instead. That she really is dead. Or worse, that the Games have infected Itinere, too.

Comments

[stillplaying]

"Prim!"

She's certain that she's already screamed herself hoarse with the nightmares that have been plaguing her the past few weeks. But Katniss had been wrong. All she can do when she sees the parachute float towards Prim's hand is scream. Scream like she had when she had witnessed the event back in Panem. Scream like the dream Katniss, once again unable to get to her sister in time. Once again forced to watch as her sister's body becomes a pyre.

"Prim," she screams again, running towards her sister despite the flames? What more can they do to her? They've already taken Prim away. They've already scarred her body. "Prim!"

[eveningprimrose]

Despite Katniss' best cries, the parachute goes off again, just as it had in reality. Prim screams, her voice echoing as though they have suddenly been thrust into a resonant room. Maybe they have. The area looks like a cave now. Prim rolls around on the ground, putting out the last of the fire burning her skin. She can feel it, the crackling and prickling and searing pain. Even after the fire is gone, she can still feel it.

"Get it off," she sobs, her voice cracking with pain and fear. The Capitol must be going crazy. Prim knows she is, so they must love it, love the show.

The more pain she's in, the happier they are.

[stillplaying]

Though Katniss knows on some level that this is just another dream, it seems more painful than any of the others she's experienced. More real than anything she remembers from previous nights. She feels the fire lick at her skin again and the tears start to flow. Despite the pain, she keeps moving forward. She keeps moving until she's wrapping her body around her sister's. The smell of burnt flesh stings her nostrils and it makes her gag but that's not enough to get her to move away.

"It's over," she whispers, her voice lost in a sob. "It's over, Prim. I promise. I promise it's over."

[eveningprimrose]

Prim shakes and shivers, rolling a little in Katniss' arms. "No, no," she moans. "I can't... can't see. Katniss..." She can feel her sister's arms around her, but whatever is happening is out of her sight. Nothing makes sense and she can't wake, isn't aware that this is a dream again. A terrible, horrible nightmare filled with her memories and fears--

She wakes in her sister's arms, hands pressed over her ears. She's dressed in the uniform of the 74th Hunger Games, the one she should have been a tribute for. Something hurts, but she brushes it off, pushing herself to her feet. The woods are silent, as though even the mockingjays know something is coming.

And come it does, exploding a nearby tree into fire and brimstone.

"Run!" Prim screams, grabbing Katniss' hand and tugging her sister forward.