Chapter Text
The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then it's over.
The odds of surviving the mutts, accompanied by the explosion of the Holo, were not in his favor.
"Katniss." The hissing continued. It swirled through his mind, haunting, threatening, an omen of death and destruction.
"Katniss." Louder this time, a faint ringing muffling the voice. The darkness around him began to fade into blurs of shapes and colors. He remembered the mutts and their seemingly insatiable hunger for human flesh. Drooling mouths desperately sniffing Katniss out, decimating anything in their path to reach her. It didn't matter if you were a Peacekeeper or a rebel. A meal was a meal, an obstacle an obstacle.
"Katniss..." Feeling returned to him. Aches and pains. Excruciating burns, tears, and cuts. He realized it wasn't the mutts hissing the name. He felt his lips part just enough for the name to slip through. A true friend. A true warrior. The name of the rebellion. The last piece of hope he saw before oblivion.
The battle of suffocating darkness and dancing light continued for hours, or maybe days. Sensation slowly crept back into what remained of him. Water. Heat. Rubble. Pain. The smell of blood and roses. When he finally felt grounded enough in reality, he tried sitting up. He was met with the resistance of stone and remnants of muttations.
It took some time, and a lot of blacking out, but eventually he wormed his way out from under the debris and decay. He could recall the ladder. He'd tried to climb up when three of those reptilian monsters tore at him. One pulled his head back. His life flashed before his eyes. For a moment he could see Katniss up above, shining her light on him one last time, before the jaws of death obscured his vision.
In what was meant to be his last moments, he was afraid. Filled with regret. He'd had high hopes for his future with Annie. He knew the risk of joining this war, but part of him thought he would skate by once again, battered and beaten, but still breathing. In that moment, he regretted that he'd never see those peaceful days with the love of his life. The odds were not in his favor. He tensed, and waited for the death bite.
But death never found him.
The Holo dropped. The mutt, catching one last whiff of its main target, hesitated, its teeth barely grazing his neck. It turned to look up and screech her name once more. Maybe that's why his head hadn't been blown off. He could feel chunks of the mutt across his face and neck.
When Finnick tried to push himself up further with his arms, he fell short, then screamed. Agony surged through him, a cruel blessing in disguise. It was enough to sharpen his mind and snapped him fully into the present. One of his eyes felt swollen, and his nose crooked.
He was alive. He was burned. He was missing an arm.