Sea green eyes

24 - Confessions drop like bombs

The room errupts into chaos, people talking and screaming over eachother. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Sara. Sara. Thomas.

"Shut up!" Haymitch yells, and the room goes silent. "It's not rocket science. He's warning us. That was a warning!" I nod, staring to Coin. She frowns, typing something in her computer.

"It's been a while since we had an air raid drill," she says simply, and secounds later, sirens start to blare through the District. Loud, ear piercing sirens that wail through my head like a banshee. Finnick and Katniss both stand, leading me out the door and to a wide stairway. People come in crowds, heading down the stairs in a steady stream. The sirens flash, and everyone is doing well, unaware, of course, that this isn't a drill. My palms are sweating. I know first hand how the bombs will hit. How they will sound. How they blow bodies apart like nothing.

I look to the sky in the scorching sun, shading my eyes. Something dark is flying towards the arena, and it's my instincts that have me throwing myself to the ground to sheild myself. The boy from six isn't so lucky. The black thing hits him and he stares at it for a secound before it blows up, peices of his body spraying like water. Blood and something heavier sticks onto my face and I scream, especially as a cloud of the black things fill the sky. Bombs. They're bombs. Turning to the sky, I scream again, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Blinking out of my memories, I shake my head, scanning the people when I realize I can no longer see Finnick or Katniss. They're gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. I feel a scream workingn it's way up through my throat but don't let it out, my shaking body flowing the flow of people.

We're halfway down the stairwell when the first bomb hits. And then the carefully planned order that District Thirteen has tried to sustain turns into chaos in the blink of an eye. The lights shut off and the sprinklers spray, meaning no one can see shit as the whole room shakes. Then somebody screams and it's all over. The crowd of citazens run down the stairs, screaming, an pushing past each other like stalks of wheat. Someone shoves me and I hit the handrail, leaning over the edge of the drop. Oh gods I'm going to be sick. Then another bomb hits and I'm snapped to my senses. I need to get out of here.

I run down the stairs after everyone else, breathing hard but somehow not taking in oxygen. I can't breathe, I can't- I'm about to step over somebody lying on the stairs when I realize who it is.

"Katniss!" I choke out. "Katniss get up!" I grab her arm, pulling her up to run down the stairs.

"Doors closing in ten minutes," a robotic voice hums through the chamber. Katniss is running well though, and we make it through the doors before they close. Black spots are swimming in my vision and it feels like someone is reaching into my body and slowly crushing my organs, but we made it. Katniss runs away immediately, looking for her sister I bet, but I can't move. And so I simply collapse on my knees, trying to breath. I can't. I can't. I can't. Holding my stomach, I curl in on myself before a strong pair of hands grab me.

"Kasia," Finnick sounds strangely calm for someone who's hiding from bombs. "Kasia look at me." I grimace, flicking my eyes up to his. "Kas, just try to match my breathing alright. Deep breath in, then out OK?" I nod, trying my best to copy his breathing. "The bombs won't get us down here," he says, rubbing my shoulders. "You'll never have to experience that again, alright? Just keep breathing calmly, in, out. In, out."

Little by little, I do actually feel the pain in my chest easing, and the shaking is stopping. Soon, I can breathe again, and I just sit there for a couple of minutes with my eyes closed, just breathing.

"Thank you," I whisper to Finnick, who's sitting next to me on the floor now. He smiles.

"I get panic attacks all the time. It was nice to finally help someone with one instead of experience it."