Everything is wrong.

 I remember being stood outside the surgery, waiting for news on Zach. He’d been in there for a long time, long enough that several surgeons had to swap over, wracked with exhaustion. Mrs Everdeen, the Mockingjay’s mother, was one of the surgeons working on him, and she saw me waiting outside the practise room, and came over to see me.

 “We’re doing everything we can, but he’s weak,” she told me “He lost a lot of blood.”

 I nod weakly, trying to remain optimistic, but fully prepared for the worst. I grew used to being ready for the worst outcomes during that year. After all I’d been through, it seemed the natural response. Mrs Everdeen peeled her gloves off and washed her hands at a sink, before patting me on the shoulder.

 “You’re very brave. I hear you led part of the team on the rescue mission.”

 And I lost nearly half of them there. The actual death toll had been relatively low whilst we were there, but on the flight back to 13, the amount of casualties that turned to deaths was overwhelming. There weren’t enough medical staff on board to treat everyone. I tried my best to help, but I watched soldier after soldier slump quietly against the wall, fight leaving their bodies as they slipped into a sleep they wouldn’t wake up from. Some of them couldn’t take the pain. They took their nightlock pills to stop their suffering. When I returned, I was so distraught, covered in blood and exhausted, that I was offered a pill to help me calm down and sleep, but I wanted to be around for when Mellark woke up. After all, it was him that my men had risked their life for. I wanted to know that they died for a good reason.

 “I did. I led the team.”

 “And you brought him back? Peeta?”

 “Yes, ma’am.”

 Mrs Everdeen’s face broke into a smile “That’s fantastic!”

 I stared at her “You…you haven’t heard?”

 She frowned “Heard? Heard what? He’s back, you said he was!”

 “Yes, ma’am. But…there’s something wrong.”

 I remember waiting beside Gale by the window to Peeta’s hospital room. Only Katniss, Haymitch Abernathy and a few others had been allowed in, because Peeta was still recovering and needed rest, but Gale and I had been allowed to watch from outside. I wish now that I’d never witnessed what happened.

 I quickly told Mrs Everdeen what happened. How Peeta’s fingers had locked around Katniss’ neck. How they fought and how Peeta pressed harder and harder on Katniss’ windpipe. Immediately, I had rushed for the door to the room, but it had been locked, and I screamed while Gale pounded on it, trying to get through. It was Boggs who rescued the Mockingjay, knocking Peeta out with a single blow. I stood perfectly still, frozen, as they took Katniss away to be tended to. I watched as Peeta was put back in bed. They restrained his arms. Like he was still a prisoner.

 Something was wrong. I tried to ask the doctors why, but they didn’t seem to know either. Peeta Mellark, the sweet boy who’d been thrown twice into the Games, was gone. Replaced by something cruel in his body. I watched until I was forced away by Plutarch Heavensbee and a team of doctors.

 The moment I finished my grim tale, Mrs Everdeen thanked me and rushed to check on her daughter. I sat outside the surgery, waiting, hands restlessly wringing together. I picked at dry skin on my chapped lips and on my raw fingers, trying desperately not to think of anything. At some point, I must have drifted into a dreamless sleep, because the next thing I remember is the surgeons exiting the room with a trolley. On it, a body, covered with a sheet.

 I screamed.

 The surgeons turned in shock, as though they’d only just realised I was there. I was sobbing, my knees buckling as I tried to stand and slamming to the ground. One of them left the trolley to come and console me, but I was sobbing too hard, and I didn’t fight as someone stuck a needle in my arm and sent me into a deep sleep.

 When I woke next, there was no relief. There was no disorientation, no waking up to a moment of respite before the pain hit again. It was permanently present, digging a hole in my stomach, in my heart, in my head. The tears started like clockwork, and when a doctor asked if I wanted more medication, I said yes. I wanted to sleep again.

 When I woke again, it was eerily quiet. The white curtains that had been surrounding my bed had been pulled open, revealing empty beds, white sheets pulled taut over the mattresses, white pillows well plumped. I sat up, a rasp of breath escaping my mouth and echoing in the empty room. I turned my head, and there was Zach. Smiling. Alive. Beat up, worn looking, but alive. I choked out a sob, crawling to his bed side.

 “I thought you were dead.”

 “You don’t get rid of me that easily,” Zach grinned. I started crying again, face screwed up, face hot. Zach touched my arm.

 “Hey, hey. Come on. I’m OK. You need to pull yourself together.”

 “I know, I know.”

 “You’re a mess, Soldier. We made it. We succeeded. What’s the problem?”

 I shook my head “A waste. All of it. We brought Mellark back, but for what? He’s sick. Sick in the head. Maybe incurable. And what makes 13 any better than the Capitol? Coin is manipulative, cruel. My family is broken. Everything is broken…and Finch I…I need Finch, and you, I thought you were dea-”

 And suddenly, I looked at Zach and it was like he was melting away. I closed my eyes, confused, and when they opened again, I was lying on the cold hospital floor, but Zach wasn’t there, and a nurse was trying to help me back into bed.

 “Zach?” I asked. I felt someone tucking the sheets around my body, smoothing my sweat slick hair off my face.

 “Please, you need to rest,” the nurse said. It was the young girl I recognised as Katniss’ sister, Primrose. I wrinkled my forehead. I had a headache, which I assumed was from the drugs wearing off.

 “Where’s Zach?” I asked her. She swallowed, shaking her head.

 “Do you remember what you saw? Back at the surgery?”

 “But…but I saw him, just a moment ago-”

 Primrose looked startled, and another nurse rushed to her aid, letting her go. The man tried to get me to drink some water, but I was looking around frantically.

 “Was he discharged? I swear I saw him, just one minu-”

 “Soldier,” the nurse said firmly, but not unkindly “I’m sorry. Zachary’s injuries were very serious. He passed away yesterday, before we sedated you. Miss Verona-Grey, do you remember now?”

 I didn’t reply to him. I merely turned away from him, on my side. The pillow was warm and soft, but it offered little comfort. I stared ahead at the white wall, and didn’t speak again for the rest of the day. Or the next. Or the day after that.

 My family visited me. Father read to me, stories that I used to like as a child. I’m not a child anymore. Uncle Drew came to me with news of the rebellion, but I wasn’t interested anymore. Some of the soldiers came to visit me, including Ronan, who said everyone was hoping I’d recover quickly and get back to work. Without Zach?

 Mother didn’t try to cheer me up; she knew a lost case when she saw one. She knew because she was one too. She stroked my hair, made me drink water, checked my medication. They’d given me antidepressants, but they weren’t working.

 Finch didn’t visit.

 On the fifth day, Gale Hawthorne came to visit me. He entered the room briskly, all business. He sat down next to my bed, staring at me. I didn’t bother breaking the gaze, it would mean moving. Instead I glared back, waiting for him to give up and leave. He didn’t.

 “I need you back on the team. Your squad is falling to pieces without you. We can’t afford to have them untrained and unprepared.”

 I felt a shoot of anger, and maybe that’s what prompted me to speak. I hadn’t spoken in five days, and my voice was scratchy but I felt it was worth it “Is that all you care about? If you people cared about that, you wouldn’t have sent them on that mission in the first place. So many died. So many.”

 “I’m on your side, Karissa. I want to help. You just don’t want to help yourself.”

 I gritted my teeth. How dare he? He didn’t understand. If he did, he would know that moving wasn’t an option. Doing things wasn’t an option. I was broken, a black pit formed inside me. I couldn’t think of a single happy thing in my life, a single thing to hold onto. The war was raging around me, inside me, consuming me. I closed my eyes to shut him out, and questioned myself once more; what is the point? Why bother?

 “Zach would want you up and running.”

 “What do you know? You didn’t know him,” I whispered.

 “Because he was your friend. And he would hate to see you this way.” I heard Gale rustle about and his breath near my face “Finch has been asking about you.”

 I felt something stir in me. I opened my eyes and Gale gave me a curt nod as he was leaving “Try and come back to us, Soldier. We need you.”

 I stayed in bed for another three days. And the pain never numbed, but I got used to it, to the point where it was almost comforting to wake up after a long sleep and feel so much of it. At least I was feeling, I convinced myself. At least I wasn’t empty.

 On the eighth day, I got up and walked around the hospital wing for a while. When my Father visited, I was stood up, flexing my legs. He smiled and hugged me. He told me he was proud of me, and I asked what for.

 “For being brave,” he told me. Confused, he sat me down for a minute, his hand rested on my shoulder. He sighed sadly “Don’t you think I recognise depression when I see it by now? Your mother has suffered with it for as long as I can remember. With good reason, of course. And now I’m watching you suffer through the same, and it’s horrible, because I know that, really, I can’t help you. I can’t bring Zach back. Or Elliott. I can’t give you Finch. But I can give you love. And I can tell you that you’re doing so well. You’re brave. And I admire you for that.”

 I hugged him then, and all the tears I’d held in for days spilt, cascading down my face, onto Father’s shirt. He cupped the back of my head, supporting it like a new born baby. At some point, Uncle Drew and Mother arrived and joined us on the bed, and I knew as the tears fell that when they stopped, I’d be ready to get up and go. Not happy, not recovered, but ready to fight a little longer.

A.N: As usual, I'm sorry that updates haven't been very frequent. I'm struggling to find time to update stories on Wattpad now because I have so much work for my uni course. However, after seeing Mockingjay yesterday, I was inspired to write some more, so this has been my break from work! I hope you like it, even though its not very cheerful, and I hope you all like/liked the film as much as I did! (Have you all been to see it yet? :) ) Also, I realise some parts of the previous chapter are very different from the film, but I did write it before I saw it, and I'm glad I did so that I could have my own take on the events there. Have a good weekend everyone, may the odds be EVER in your favour! xxx