The boy looks like he's about seven years old, maybe a little more or less. My fingers, checking the flow of his morphine drip, are shaking slightly. Another life torn apart by the rebellion, another tiny world shattered by the pain of a world in turmoil. I adjust his pillow carefully, smiling at the one eye watching my action's suspiciously.

"You… you're the Mockingjay's sister, aren't you?" he whispers.

I nod, the smile fading slightly. "Yes."

"Will you tell her…" he starts, his breathing thin. "Will you tell her that my brother and I, we were fighting for her?"

"Of course."

The mockingjay. That's the nickname that the capitol gave to my sister, Katniss, and it's the symbol of the rebellion. The mockingjay, stamped across rebel planes, aired across capitol television screens, and most importantly, pinned defiantly to my sister's chest.

My sister, who was somewhere out there, fighting tirelessly for my freedom. Her freedom. And me, cowering in a well heated, well lit capitol hospital that the rebels seized last week.

I'm turning away from the boy, longing to go find someone who wouldn't recognize me and my cowardice, when I hear the shouts coming from the front door of the hospital. I look to see that they are carrying someone into the hospital, someone shouting and tearing and trying their best to turn around.

It's Gale.

I feel that little flush of emotion that I get every time that I see him- something like jealousy, mixed with hatred, mixed with respect. A bloody cut runs up the entire length of his left leg, and the side of his face is brushed with a red burn.

I sprint towards him, and he catches my gaze.

"Gale!" I shout. "What are you doing? Where's Katniss?"

His face is so awash with horror I take an automatic step back, but he briefs me anyway. "The capitol soldiers seized me, and Katniss refused to shoot. I was being held in a capitol cell when the rebels broke in, freeing everyone in side. Katniss is… Katniss is still out there, in the courtyard where they're keeping the kids."

"Gale… what's the matter?" I ask tentatively, sensing the way that's he's avoiding meeting my gaze.

"They're bombing that area. In less than a few minutes."

I can't speak.

Katniss is going to die in less than a few minutes.

I take off, ignoring Gale's pleas and shouting, my sister's face the only image in my head. My feat pound against the hospital floor, each sound reminding me of what she's done for me and what I could never do for her.

That first day, when she came home triumphantly bearing a rabbit, our father's bow slung across her shoulder.

The day of the reaping, me turning to see the sunlight streaking across her face, her lips already forming the plea that they take her instead of me.

That moment at the end of the hunger games, that fateful moment where she held the shining berries to her lips.

The look on her face, watching as they beat Peeta on live television, the way that her body shifted infinitesimally to cover mine, to try to hide me from the horror of the world that we are both thrust into.

That look of complete, total isolation. Of sorrow that only my sister, who's fire and bravery couldn't stop them from destroying what's most important to her, feel.

I have to warn her.

Faces blur past mine as I streak out the door and across the street, the imposing mansion of the governor rising up from the ground like a streak of smoke against the sky. Blood stains the tiles across the street, blood of men, women and children; it's all I can do not to stop and try to help the mangled bodies scattered all around me. A woman bumps into my side as the crowd thickens. Her hair is the unnatural gold of a capitol citizen, and her face has been painted with makeup until it looks like her eyes are as large as my fists; huge, blue eyes that catch mine and don't let go until I stumble away.

I examine the building carefully, wishing desperately for some of Katniss' battle reflexes. More than once, shivering in the main square as my sister dashed across the enormous T.V. screen, I had watched the Katniss make spur of the moment decisions that would leave anyone else baffled. She had this assurance in her air that made everyone around her rally to her side. Katniss was a born leader, a born warrior, a born survivor.

There's a stone barricade to the front of the mansion, several feet high. Even from my limited sight line, I can tell that it's packed brimming with refugees, all of them squirming and wailing, some sitting, some standing. I'm puzzled for a moment, before stumbling upon the realization that all of them are children. Every age from babies to girls that look like me and boys that resemble Gale last summer.

I'm frozen for a moment, realizing that they so resemble the children lined up for the reaping that I'm too scared to move towards them. Instead, I skirt towards the side entrances, plucking a gun from the side of a fallen peace keeper. I stare at it nervously, again wishing that I could be more like Katniss. That I could understand how to help her and help myself. I find a scrap of metal that looks like a trigger, and a spray of gunshots in the opposite direction confirms that. Hiking the gun across my shoulder, I jog towards the door.

This is it, I think with a shock of horror. I'm actually going to have to kill somebody. There are two peacekeepers by the door, their guns trained on some unseen target in the crowd.

I fire once, dotting the door with bullets, but missing both of them by several feet. It try again, and the first man is turning towards me by the time that the bullet slices through his body. Another round of shots and the second guy falls.

I sprint in, shooting the lock of the door to let myself in. It's earily quiet in the mansion, with the distant sounds of voices calmer and more familiar than I remember the square being. Curious, I run towards the sound.

It's a hospital, I realize in surprise. Wounded are stretched out onto clean capitol sheets, and the people tending to them wear the uniforms of rebels. One of the doctors turns around, catching sight of my gun, and starts shouting, but I let the weapon drop before he continues.

"Where's the president? What's going on, why are you here?" I demand of him.

The doctor frowns. "Snow left hours ago, we were commanded to move our base into here until they issue the official surrender."

Euphoria floods through my bloodstream. The war is over. Katniss is safe. I'm here for nothing. The doctor turns back to the boy he was bent over.

"I'm… I'm trained in medicine." I tell him, and he lifts an eyebrow.

"Great," he shrugs, pointing towards a stack of bandages. "Help me out."

I'm almost there when I hear the explosion. "They've bombed the children!" A far-off nurse shouts, and most run towards the exit, medical supplies in hand.

The bombs. Katniss. The horror sinks into my heart before my brain, and it's a moment before I'm able to force my legs to run with them.

My sister on fire. Possibly dead, almost definitely injured.

My mockingjay. My occasional savior. The girl that burns on through the fury, the girl who's insides have been attacked so many times, she needs to borrow joy just to feel whole again. The girl that brought me the bread, the girl that kisses my forehead when my mother is too far gone to put us to sleep.

The mockingjay that lit the world on fire, not understanding that her own wings would eventually have to join in the blaze.

The medics burst through the mansion door, and I'm instantly surrounded by crying children.

She's here, I can feel it. I stumble blindly into the crowd, her name on my lips.

A tiny hand catches my ankle, and I look down into the face. A little girl with jet black hair and pale pink lips, her left arm covered in blisters that glow with the heat of fresh burns.

"Where's my mother, I want my mother," she wails.

"Shh, shh," I try to console her, grabbing a patch of snow off the ground and pressing it to her burn. "It's all right, we're all going to be all right."

The call is so distant, it almost blends in with my thoughts, and it's maybe only on the third repetition that I'm aware.

"Prim!" I turn, and catch sight of her. Hair windswept, face dotted with burns and shirt sprinkled with blood. Her boy is tossed across her shoulder and tears stain her face.

I try to call for her, the joy flooding my body too real and intense to fit in that horrific world.

And that's when the bombs go off.

Death.

The word is so dark, but in a dark world, does it fit? I'm I dying? Is it really done?

Death is more peaceful than I ever could of imagined. Katniss is safe. She can survive. Her fire is stronger that any kind of fire the capitol can throw at her.

Is death really the end of life, or just the final right of passage? You can never really live until you die, can you? Death is life at its most potent. The true test of what you can live through is if you can live through dying.

I give into the flames. They suck me in, brushing a kiss across my forehead as sweet and tender as Katniss', as gentle as the touch of butterfly wings. Because In a world of fire, is death by fire really letting go of life, or giving into to fully?

Someday, when she comes again, I suppose that I'll have to ask Katniss.