Mockingjay Chapter 25 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Katniss can't tell if things are real or not. She feels like her whole body is on fire; one of the explosions caught her and really might consume her with fire.
  • She feels like a falling bird, a mutt – something other than herself. Dead people appear to visit her after she enters a pool of water. The dead want to take her with them, and she wants to go, but something painful is holding her back.
  • Then she's alone. Time seems to stand still until the drugs come. 
  • Then she finally returns to a painful Earth. She's really injured, and Prim has died. Katniss will recover; Prim cannot.
  • Both the dead and the living come to visit her in her drugged state.
  • She comes back to reality with a bang during a visit from Coin. Coin reiterates her promise that Katniss can have Snow.
  • Katniss loses her voice.
  • She finds out what else happened: Coin is in charge and Snow is in custody; the remaining team members are alive, including Gale and Peeta.
  • Katniss is sent home to her mother. They're staying in Snow's old house, which is kind of weird. No one pays too much attention to Katniss, so she can go where she likes.
  • She can't bear to look at herself or think about what happened – especially about how Prim died.
  • She has a shrink who doesn't do much.
  • Soon it will be time to kill Snow.
  • One day, Katniss is wandering about and ends up in a part of the palace that's full of roses. Ack.
  • She realizes that's where Snow is being held. She wants to go see him but the guards won't let her. Then commander Paylor intercedes on her behalf.
  • Katniss is about to pick a rose for Snow to wear when she kills him, when she hears his voice.
  • He apologizes about Prim and tells her that the side that killed the children and medics was not his, but the rebels'. With horror, Katniss realizes that the weaponry Gale helped design is what ended up killing her sister.
  • Snow says it was Coin's plan all along; she's a manipulator who played both him and Katniss, so she could rise to power.
  • Katniss doesn't want it to be real, but Snow says it is.