#primniss

It is chaos. Chaos and flames.

The remnants of the fire are scorched against the buildings. Tiny silhouettes, so small, so fragile, are forever tattooed onto the pavement, on the bricks. I can see bodes burnt to a crisp. The smell of rotting and fire-stained flesh overwhelms my senses.

I can't breathe. I can't think.

Peeta. Katniss. Prim.

They are the priority right now. No one else.

I push through people, hardly stopping to answer the questions that are tossed my way, trying to gently traipse through the sobbing women crowded around unrecognizable bodies. I can't see anything but the aftermath, the destruction; it's everywhere. Everything is blackened. 

What's that old saying? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

It was like hell, only worse.

It was almost ironic, really, if you had a crude sense of humor. The Girl on Fire, burned alive by her own rebellion's bombs. The bombs made by a boy who loved her. I had to stifle back the laugh that was restraining a sob. 

I finally get to the steps, and Paylor has it quarantined off; she's barking orders left and right, consoling the mothers with trembling hands, the father with dirt-stained cheeks and scarred faces. She sees me and a flash of - what was that? pity? - crosses her face. Then she beckons me foreward.

I rush towards her, the fear and worry and desperation for answers gnawing at my gut and making my hands shake. "Where are they?" 

Paylor pauses. "Paylor," I press. "Where the hell are they?"

She sighs; points to the left. 

I sprint, moving through the even more crowded hallways. I can barely hear my footsteps echoing along the marble floors, the screams of agony and the shouts of doctors overriding everything else. 

Peeta. Katniss. Prim. 

I skid to a halt. 

Peeta is laying on a stretcher, a nurse tending to his IV. He's wrapped in bandages, his arms, his legs. But his eyes - those are his eyes. Not the hijacked Peeta. The real one. 

I run forward, my legs unsteady. "Are you alright? Where's Katniss? IS everyone alright?" I beg, my eyes wild and my heart pounding.

Peeta lets a tear slide down his cheek; it rips a hole through my bruised heart, seeing the old him - the real him - back. 

"They took her, Haymitch. They..."

"What happened?"

A choked sob. "The bombs. The bombs killed Prim. And Katniss..."

"Be careful," he had murmured, his forehead touching mine, our hands intertwined. 

"I will," I had promised, smiling, planting a kiss on his cheek. 

But the bombs exploded. And there were children - Posy's age, younger, older. And he would have understood, I know he would have; but it didn't matter, right then. All I could see was the flames and the fire. The smell of burning flesh invaded my senses and almost knocked me over. Screaming children ,crying children, dying children, everywhere we looked.

I heard my name in the distance; a scream, a strangled cry. I whipped my head around, and I saw Katniss. Her eyes were wild and terrified, and I didn't understand - couldn't she see? Couldn't she understand? I was helping.

But then I saw Peeta, in the background, an understanding and frightened expression glued to his face. And then Gale - oh, Gale. Wide eyes, afraid eyes. Those eyes met mine, seconds before it happened, and they screamed at me: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please forgive me. 

I thought of Rory. Of my mother.

"Be careful." 

"I will."

It's so quiet. Too quiet. There is not enough sound to drown out the raspiness of my own breathing, to drown out the screams that echo through the halls at night. Too much empty space, not enough distraction.

Personal hygiene seems like such a waste. Life is so short, isn't it? That's what I've learned, at least. Prim barely lived into her teenage years. Finnick died before he saw his son take his first breath. And countless others, too; everyone in all of the arenas, taken from life too soon. 

I wander the halls, now. Sleep is also a waste of time. It takes up precious hours of waking, the hours that I covet in the early moments of morning when I think of Prim and Finnick and all those I've lost. I let myself wallow in self pity during those times; walking the empty, echoing halls, their voices piercing my skull and making my heart ache.

There is one room in the house where I always end up. I don't know how it happens, or why, but every day as the night bleeds into early morning and the sun yawns over the horizon, I fall asleep for a few restless minutes in one bed. I haven't slept in a single other room.

I hear voices in that room.

It's his voice, the voice that I don't want to hear, because it hurts too damn much.

His voice murmuring my name, like he used to; his caress riding on the breezes and brushing my skin; his laughter, tucking into the folds of my tired eyes. It reminds me of him, this room. 

There is a vase of fresh primroses on the table. I don't even question how or why they are there.

Every night I fall asleep with the murmurs of him pressed into the sheets, and I bury my face in the pillow, as if I'm still trying to catch the remnants of his scent. 

It takes me months to realize what room that is. It's after I allow him back into my house, then my arms, and finally, my bed. It's after I officially allow him into my heart; after I murmur that fateful little word. Real. And it is. Oh, it is.

It was his room. The room Prim had made for him, in case he wanted to stay with us. It was always Prim. 

Her flowers. Her knowing smile. Her selfless desire for me to find love.

We're so close yet so far, it's tearing me apart

What I would do to be there with you

So close yet so far, it's tearing me apart