Chapter 24 Chapter 24 The Torment of the Chirping Bird

where is sheWhat have they done to her? "Prim!" I yelled, "Prim!" I was answered by another cry of pain.How did she get here?How did she end up in the Hunger Games? "Prim!" The vines cut my face and arms, and the undergrowth tripped me up, but I was getting closer, closer, closer now.Beads of sweat slid down my face, stinging the newly scabbed skin.I gasped, trying to get a little oxygen from the suffocating heat and humidity.Prim screamed again—what a lost, helpless cry—and I couldn't imagine what they were doing to her to make her scream like that. "Prim!" I walked through a thick layer of dense forest to a small clearing, and the voice kept coming from above my head.top of my head?I look up, they got her up a tree?I searched desperately among the branches, but couldn't see it. "Prim?" I said in a pleading voice.I can hear her voice but not see her.She uttered another cry, clear as a bell, and yes, it came from the tree, from the mouth of a little piebald finch, which alighted on a branch ten feet above my head.Only then did I understand.

It's a chirping bird. I had never seen this bird before and thought they didn't exist anymore.I leaned against the tree, endured the breathlessness caused by sprinting, and observed the bird carefully.This is a variety, the ancestor or parent of the present bird.I pictured the mockingjay in my head, putting it together with the chirping bird, and they mated and gave birth to the mockingjay.The Chirping Bird was not at all recognizable as a genetically modified bird, just like a normal bird, except for the terrifying and realistic Prim's cry that came out of its mouth.I shot it in the throat and it ended.The bird fell to the ground, I removed the arrow, and just to be on the safe side, I wrung its neck again.Then throw the nasty guy into the bushes.I really want to eat it. I never wanted to eat it when I was the hungriest before.

This is not true.I said to myself, just as last year's wild dogs were not dead "tributes", this is just a way for the extreme race organizers to torture us. Finnick rushed over and saw me rubbing moss on the arrowhead. "Katniss?" "It's okay, I'm fine." I said.In fact, I feel very uncomfortable. "I thought I heard my sister shout, but—" A scream cut me off.It was another voice, not Prim's, maybe a young woman's.I didn't hear who it was.But Finnick could hear it, and he immediately turned pale, and I could even see his pupils dilated in fear. "Finnick, wait!" I said, trying to explain everything to him, but he shot away like an arrow.He's going to find that voice, just as I've been madly searching for Prim. "Finnick!" I yelled.But I knew he wouldn't stop and listen to my explanation.I can only run wildly behind him.

Even though he was running so fast, it was not difficult to keep up with him, for he left a clear trail behind him, a mark in the grass.But the birdsong was at least a quarter of a mile away, and up the hills.I was out of breath when I caught up with him.He circled a large tree, which was four feet in diameter and whose lowest branch was twenty feet from the ground.The woman's scream came from within the leaves, but no chirping bird could be seen.Finnick was yelling too, over and over again, "Annie! Annie!" He was so panicked that he couldn't explain it to him.So I just climbed up a nearby tree, found the chirping bird, and shot it dead with an arrow.The bird landed straight on the ground, right at Finnick's feet.He picked up the bird and gradually understood.He looked even more desperate than before when I came down from the tree.

"It's okay, Finnick, it's just a chirping bird, they're playing tricks on us. It's not real, it's not your...Annie!" I said. "No, it's not Annie. But it's hers. The chirping birds imitate what they hear, so where did they hear it, Katniss?" he said. I understood what he meant, and my face suddenly turned pale. "Oh, Finnick, you don't think they..." "Yeah, I think so. That's what I think," he said. Immediately I pictured Prim in a small white room with a mask on her face, strapped to a table, and some men in uniform forcing her to scream.Somewhere, they were torturing her, or had tormented her in the past, to make her make those cries.My legs suddenly seemed to be filled with lead, and I collapsed to the ground.Finnick tried to say something to me, but I couldn't hear him.I ended up hearing another bird screaming to my left, this time Gale's voice.

I was about to run when Finnick grabbed my arm and said, "No, it's not him." He picked me up and ran down the hill, toward the beach. "Let's get out of here!" But Gail's voice was so painful that I couldn't help but find him. "It's not him, Katniss! It's a bastard bird!" Finnick yelled at me, "Hurry up!" .He was right, it was just the sound of another chirping bird.I couldn't help Gale by chasing the voice.However, this is indeed Gail's voice. Somewhere, at a certain time, someone forced him to make such a cry. I no longer struggled, but like the night when the fog appeared, I ran desperately, escaping from a dangerous situation that I could not resist but could be hurt by.The difference is that this time it was my heart that was devastated instead of my body.This must be another weapon of the big clock, I thought.When the pointer hits four, the monkey disappears and the twittering bird comes out.Finnick was right, getting out of here is the only thing we can do.No medicine that Haymitch parachutes down will heal the wounds in our hearts.

I see Peeta and Johanna standing at the edge of the woods, relieved and angry.Why didn't Peeta come to help?Why is no one coming to help us?Even now, he stands at a distance, with his hands raised, palms facing us, his mouth is moving, but there is no sound.Why? A very transparent wall stood in front of us, and Finnick and I crashed into it and were bounced back to the jungle floor.I was lucky enough to hit it with my shoulder, but Finnick's face hit first, and his nose was bleeding profusely.That's why Peeta, Johanna, and even Bit standing behind them don't come to help.This is not an electromagnetic force field, but a hard, smooth wall that can be touched.Neither Peeta's knife nor Johanna's ax could make a mark on the wall.I checked within a few feet of the wall and knew that the entire four to five o'clock area was sealed off.We were stuck inside like rats until the hour passed.

Peeta puts his hand on the wall, and I reach out and place it in the same position, as if I can feel his warmth through the wall.I saw his mouth move, but I couldn't hear his voice, nor any sound from outside.I tried to figure out what he said, but I couldn't concentrate, so I just stared at his face, trying to stay awake and sane. At this time, many birds appeared, one after another, and landed on the surrounding branches.From their mouths came many horribly orchestrated sounds.Immediately, Finnick couldn't hold on any longer. He curled up on the ground, covering his ears with his hands, as if he wanted to crush his own skull.I held on for a while, and shot the hideous birds with my arrows, until my quiver ran out of arrows.But every time one is shot dead, the other one immediately makes up for it.In the end, I gave up too, and huddled next to Finnick, trying my best to block out the painful voices: Prim, Gale, March, Rory, and even Posy, poor little Posy...

When Peeta puts his hands on me, I know it's over.I felt myself being picked up and out of the jungle.But I still squinted, covered my ears, and tensed my muscles.Peeta puts me on his lap, says comforting words, and rocks me a little.A long time passed before my rock-stiff body gradually relaxed.But then, it started trembling again. "It's okay, Katniss," he said softly. "You didn't hear me." I replied. "I heard Prim's voice, right at the beginning. But it wasn't her, it was Chirp," he said. "That's her. Somewhere else the chirping bird imitated her voice," I said.

"No, that's what they're trying to make you think. Last year I thought the dog's eye was Grimmer's eye, but it wasn't Grimmer's eye. And again, it wasn't Prim's voice you heard. Or Even if it is, they get recordings from interviews or other places, and then distort the sound to make it, and they make it whatever they want the bird to say." "No, they're torturing her, she must be dead," I replied. "Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We've made it this far, and it's time to decide the final eight contestants. What will happen when the final eight contestants are drawn?" He lifted my chin and made me look at him, looking straight into his eyes, "What happened? The last eight?"

I know he is trying to help me.So I seriously think about it. "The last eight?" I repeated him. "They will interview family and friends in the players' hometowns." "Yeah. They're going to interview your family and friends. How do they interview your family and friends when they're all killed?" Peeta said. "No?" I asked, still not sure. "No, so we know Prim is alive. She's the first person they're going to interview, isn't she?" I really want to believe him, so much, but... those voices... "First Prim, then your mom, then your cousin, Gail. And March. It's their ploy, Katniss. Terrible ploy, and we're the only ones who get hurt because we're in the The game, not them," he continued. "You really believe that?" I said. "Really," Peeta said.I shake my head, knowing that Peeta can convince anyone he wants.I look at Finnick for confirmation, but he's also watching Peeta, listening to what he's saying. "Maybe, I don't know, can they do it, Bit? Take a normal human voice and make it..." he said. "Oh yeah. It's not even hard at all, Finnick. The kids in our district learn a similar technique in school," Beetle said. "Of course, Beetle is right. People all over the country love Katniss' little sister. If they kill her like this, there will be riots soon." Johanna said flatly. "They don't want that either, do they?" she yelled, throwing her head back. "A whole country rebelling? They don't want that at all!" I opened my mouth in shock.No one, never anyone, said anything like that during the game.Absolutely not.Sure, they cut Johanna out of the telecast.But I have heard what she said, and I will never be able to see her in the same way.She's unlikely to win any awards for her kindness, but she sure is brave.Or crazy.She picked up some shells and walked towards the jungle. "I'm going to get some water," she said. As she passed me, I couldn't help but take her hand, "Don't go. Those birds—" I remembered that the birds were gone, but I still didn't want anyone to go by.Even her. "They can't do anything to me, I'm not like you, I have no one to love." Johanna said, pulling away my hand impatiently.When she brought me water out of shells, I nodded silently in thanks, but I knew how much she despised my sympathy. While Johanna brought me water and retrieved all the arrows, Beet had been tinkering with his wire.I need a wash too, but I'm too shaken to walk in Peeta's arms. "Who are they threatening Finnick with?" he said. "Someone named Anne," I said. "It must be Anne Kress," he said. "Who?" I asked. "Anne Kleiss, she's the girl Mags volunteered to replace, she won the contest about five years ago," Peeta said. "It must have been the summer of my daddy's death, the year I started raising a family. I was so busy fighting hunger. I don't remember much about the games. Was it the year of the earthquake?" I said . "Yes, Anne went mad after her companion had his head cut off. She ran away and hid herself. But the earthquake knocked the dam down and flooded the arena. She won because she swam the fastest Okay," Peeta said. "Did she get better after that? I mean, was she in the right mind?" I asked. "I don't know, in the game, I don't remember seeing her again, but in the draw this year, she seemed shaky," Peeta said. It turns out that she is the one Finnick loves, not his string of lovers in the Capitol, but a poor crazy girl back home.I wonder. A cannon shot us all onto the beach.A helicopter appeared at about six or seven o'clock.We saw the helicopter's mechanical claws grab five times before it finished picking up the remains of the corpse.It's hard to say who died.Whatever happened to the six o'clock area, I never want to know. Peeta drew a new map on the leaves, marked a JJ as a sign of the chirping bird in the area from four o'clock to five o'clock, and wrote the word "beast" in the area where the remains of the corpse were taken.We now have a better idea of ​​what to expect in the remaining seven hour zone.If there's anything good about Chirping Bird's Raid, it's that it's reclaiming our place on the dial. Finnick wove another water basket and a net for catching fish.I took a quick swim and rubbed some ointment on my body.Then I sat by the water's edge, cleaning up Finnick's catch, and watched the sun set in the west.The bright moon had risen in the sky, casting a strange light over the arena, as if dawn had come.We were about to sit down and eat raw fish when the national anthem played.The faces of dead "tributes" appeared in the sky... Cashmere, Gruz, Willis, Mags, the woman from District 5, the drug addict who died protecting Peeta, Bright, the man from District 10. Eight died, and with the eight that died the first night, two-thirds of us died within the first day and a half.This must have set a new Hunger Games record. "They're wearing us out little by little," Johanna said. "Who's left? Besides the five of us and the two from District Two?" Finnick asked. "Chaff," Peeta says without even thinking.Maybe it was because of Haymitch that he had paid more attention to him. A parachute dropped and brought some square rolls, small enough to eat one in one bite. "It's from your district, isn't it, Pete?" Peeta asks. "Yes, from the third district. How many in total?" He said. Finnick counted, picked up each one, turned them in his palm, and then arranged them neatly.I don't know what Finnick knows about rolls, but he seems to be obsessed with manipulating rolls. "Twenty-four," he said. "Twenty-four, and then?" Bit asked. "Exactly twenty-four, how do we divide them?" Finnick asked. "We'll have three each, and those who'll be alive at breakfast tomorrow can vote on what to do with the rest," Johanna said.I don't know why I felt like laughing when I heard this, I thought, maybe it's because it's true.I smiled, and Johanna gave me an approving look, no, not approving, maybe a little happy. We waited until the big waves in the ten to eleven o'clock area passed before going to the beach to camp.In theory, we have twelve hours of safe time.At this moment, from the eleven o'clock to twelve o'clock area came an annoying rattling noise, probably made by some kind of vicious insect.But whatever the sound was, it stayed within the confines of the jungle.We try to stay as far away from that jungle as possible, so as not to accidentally startle them, they will come out in full force. I don't understand why Johanna can stay awake.She's only slept about an hour since the race started.Peeta and I volunteered to do the sentry first.On the one hand, we are more rested; on the other hand, we need time alone.So everyone else fell asleep quickly, and Finnick's sleep was very restless, and he could be heard calling Anne's name from time to time. Peeta and I sat on the wet sand, facing opposite directions, my right shoulder touching his left.I was responsible for observing the direction of the water, and he was responsible for observing the direction of the jungle.This is good for me, for even now the sound of the insects in the woods cannot drive away the sound of chirping birds that rings in my ears even now.After a while, I rested my head on his shoulder and felt his hands stroking my hair. "It's no use pretending we don't know what the other is doing, Katniss," he said softly. Yes, I think so, and it's not interesting to discuss it.Anyway, for both of us it was.But the Capitol viewers stare at the TV, not to miss every sad word we have to say. "Whatever deal you think you've made with Haymitch, he's made me promise it, too," Peeta said. Of course, I know this too.He told Peeta the two of them would try to keep me alive so Peeta wouldn't have to be suspicious. "So, I guess we can assume Haymitch lied to one of us." This sentence caught my attention.Two-sided agreement, two-sided commitment.Only Haymitch knows which is true.I looked up and looked into Peeta's eyes. "Why are you saying this now?" I said. "Because I don't want you to forget how different our circumstances are. If you're dead and I'm alive, I won't even be able to go back to District 12. You're my whole life. Then I'll never be There is no way to be happy," he said.I was about to retort when he put his finger on my lips. "But you are different. I'm not saying it's easy for you, but you have other people who can make your life meaningful." Peeta took off the necklace with the metal disc around his neck.He held the disk up in the moonlight, and I could see the mockingjay clearly above.Then he flipped a little catch with his thumb that I hadn't noticed before, and the disc's lid snapped open.It's not solid, but a locket with pictures in it.On the right is Mom and Prim, smiling, and on the left is Gale, smiling too. Seeing the faces of these people broke my heart in an instant, at this moment, nothing in the world can have such power, especially after I heard that terrible voice this afternoon... Cappy What a wonderful weapon Te has. "Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta said. My family, my mom, my sister, and my fake cousin Gail.But Peeta's intentions are clear.Gail is also my family, or, if I live, will be my family someday.I will marry him.So, Peeta is giving his life, for me, and for Gale.He wants me to understand that it will never be in doubt.Peeta wants me to take everything away from him. I waited for him to bring up the kids, to perform for the TV audience, but he didn't.That's when I realized that everything he said was not about the Hunger Games, he was telling me how I really felt inside. "No one really needs me," he said, without a hint of self-pity in his voice.Yes, his family didn't need him, and they would mourn him with some friends, but their lives would go on; even Haymitch, with the help of alcohol, would hold on.I realized that if Peeta died, there would only be one person whose heart would forever be broken for him, and that would be me. "I need you. I need you," I said. He looked disturbed and took a deep breath, as if he was about to talk me out of it.But it's no use, no use at all.Because he's talking about Prim and Mom and everything again, and it just confuses me even more.Before he could speak, I kissed him and gagged his mouth. I got that feeling again, the only time I've ever felt it before, and that was last year in the cave when I wanted to kiss Haymitch when he brought us food.I've kissed Peeta a thousand times during and after the game, and that's the only time I've kissed and longed for it.But then the wound on my head started to bleed and he laid me down. This time, no one will bother us.Peeta still wants to talk, but after a few tries to no avail, he doesn't insist anymore.This wonderful feeling flowed in my heart, warmed my heart, and spread throughout my body.Instead of satisfying me, this feeling drives me to crave more.I think I've become an expert on hunger, but it's a whole different kind of hunger, a whole different kind of craving. It is the crackle of the first lightning, and the sound of hitting the trees in the middle of the night, that pulls us back into the real world.It woke up Finnick too.He sat up and screamed.I saw his fingers dug into the sand, as if reminding myself that no nightmare, no matter how horrible, was real. "I can't sleep. You two should take turns sleeping," he said.At this moment, maybe he noticed our expressions and saw us hugging each other. "Either you both go to bed. I can keep watch alone." Peeta disagrees. "That's too dangerous, I'm not tired, you lie down, Katniss," he said. I have no objection.To protect Peeta, I have to sleep.He put the necklace around my neck and put his hand where the baby was in my belly and said, "You're going to be a good mom, you know." He gave me one last kiss and went to Finnick's . He pointed to my belly, meaning our time away from the Hunger Games was over.He knew the audience would wonder why he didn't try to convince me in the strongest possible terms that the patron must be rigged. But as I lay on the beach, I also wondered, what other possibilities are there?He's going to remind me that one day Gail and I will have kids?Oh, even if he meant it, it would be a mistake.First, it wasn't in my plan.Second, if one of Peeta and I becomes a parent, everyone will be able to tell that this person is Peeta. When I was about to fall asleep, I dreamed of a future world in my heart, where there would be no Hunger Games, no Capitol, a world in the song I sang when Lulu was about to die, There, Peeta's baby is safe.