Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins owns all characters & original plot details from The Hunger Games. I only own this story. Enjoy. :)

Ups and Downs

"Nightmares"

Gale and I are in a hovercraft. We don't speak. I stare down through a tiny window at the Capitol below us, where ant-sized people run through the winding streets. I hear screams. Suddenly, I realize my hands are tied.

"Gale?" I say. He doesn't answer me. He is driving the craft. "Gale!" I shriek. No answer. "GALE!"

"We're ready," Gale says. I think, for what? But he is not talking to me. He is talking to someone through the microphone on his headset.

The screams from below grow louder, more high-pitched. I can hear children screaming above all others.

"Five..." Gale says.

Suddenly, I am falling out of the hovercraft. Gale's voice still rings loudly in my ears.

"Four... three..."

I am falling so fast that I catch on fire.

"Two..."

I hit the ground and am trampled by people running in the streets.

"ONE."

I watch the bombs drop from Gale's hovercraft above us, but I cannot move.

"Katniss! Katniss!" Prim. I have to get to Prim. I cannot even move a finger. "KATNISS! Help me! Please, help me!"

I cannot move. I can only scream as the bombs hit. I watch as a bomb hits Prim and she explodes, shatters like a glass bottle hitting the floor.

All sounds fade. The only things I can hear are Gale's laughter and my own screams.

"Katniss."

The sound of Gale's laughter stops suddenly, but my screams continue. I am thrashing around in my bed.

"Katniss, it's okay. It's just a nightmare." Peeta. I stop screaming and my eyes race around the dark room. I can't see anything.

"Peeta?" I say frantically, sitting up, which doesn't help my vision at all.

I feel his arms snake around my body. "I'm here, don't worry. I'm here." I bury my face in his chest and curl up into a ball in his lap. He strokes my hair. His even breathing soothes me, but there is no way that I am going to fall back asleep tonight. "It's okay."

o.o.o.o.o.o

I walk outside of my house wearing my father's hunting jacket and a sheath of arrows, my bow in hand. I run to the electric fence and pass under it. My foot catches on one of the wires, though, and I trip and fall flat on my face. When I look up, I do not see the normal woods surrounding District 12.

I am in the arena. The Cornucopia is right in front of me, and I see a bloodbath ensuing there. One of the tributes spots me and I make a run for it. I scramble up a tree, the tribute bringing up my rear, and reach back for an arrow, but the arrows turn to ash in my hand. The tribute is slowly climbing the tree. I am running out of time when I hear a soft voice from above me.

"Sing, Katniss." I look up. Rue.

"Rue!" I exclaim.

"Sing, Katniss!" she says louder, with urgency.

I do not see how this will help me or her, but I begin the first verse of The Hanging Tree. But I forget the words and my voice is off-key.

"Katniss! SING! PLEASE!" Rue cries.

The tribute hurls a knife at Rue, and she falls from the tree, dead. "NO!" I scream. The tribute smiles wickedly at me, and I finally recognize her. It is Coin. I kick her in the face and she loses her grip on the tree. She tumbles to the ground, and upon her impact with the dirt, she lights on fire and the fire licks up the trunk of the tree. The smoke smells like roses. As my hair ignites, my screams fill the smoky, orange air.

o.o.o.o.o.o

When I returned to District 12 after assassinating Coin, Greasy Sae tried to nurse me back to health and get me to get my life back on track. After a while, she left that job in Peeta's hands. Peeta's company was generally more welcome, but I don't think anyone will ever be able to do anything to make me truly happy again. Not for a long time, at least.

For now, everything is so hard. Eating. Hunting. Talking to people. But even those things are not bad compared with the nightmares. The nightmares are worse than anything else I have to deal with now. During the day, I can at least try to distract myself. But at night, I rarely sleep without having terrible dreams invade my mind. I dread nighttime, and I cherish the daylight while it lasts.

o.o.o.o.o.o

I am in a meadow. Finnick approaches me. I laugh as he shows me the sugar cubes in his hand. Then he kisses me full on the mouth. I pull away.

"Stop, Finnick," I say.

"I can't," he replies, trying to kiss me again.

"Why not?"

Finnick points at something behind me. I turn and see President Snow, standing with a pair of shears, casually clipping away at a rose bush. He looks at us and snaps his fingers. A pack of the white reptilian mutts jump out from behind the bush and attack Finnick. I try to fight them off, but there are too many. I look around frantically for help. Snow is gone, and Cinna stands in his place. Then Jackson appears, then Boggs, and Messalla and Mitchell and Pollux. They come to my aid, but the mutts keep appearing, killing us off one by one. Finally, I am alone, but my mother appears from behind the bush.

"Mother," I say, exhausted and breathless. "Please help me."

"I can't do this, Katniss," she says. "You're on your own." She leaps into the pack of mutts and I begin to scream.

o.o.o.o.o.o

Peeta makes the nightmares a little bit better. When we first started living in 12 again, he would stay at his house most nights. But sometimes, we would fall asleep together on the couch or in my room and he would climb into my bed when I started screaming. I liked those nights because I had someone who would hold me and tell me it would be all right, and I could believe him if only for a few minutes. After a while, Peeta just started sleeping at my house and going home in the morning. And now, he usually just sleeps in my bed so that I don't have to wait at all to be in his arms.

One night, a while ago, after a particularly rough dream, I looked up at him and kissed him. "Thank you," I said.

"For what?" he asked.

"For everything." I didn't say anything else, but I know he understood how much I appreciate him. When I wake up in his arms, everything is okay for a little while.

He does what he can to make me feel better, but we both know he cannot ever make the nightmares go away. Nothing can. I have to live with them.

o.o.o.o.o.o

I am in the arena from the Quarter Quell. The rebels' hovercraft comes down once I shoot the forcefield. I tell them to wait so I can find Peeta first. I run off into the jungle, ignoring Haymitch and Plutarch calling for me.

I finally spot Peeta. I grab his hand and try to pull him away, but a giant silver claw pulls me up. It is the Capitol's, not Plutarch's, hovercraft.

In the hovercraft, faceless doctors chain me to a table and try to inject something into my arm. Tracker jacker venom, I know that's what it is. I scream and try to kick the doctors, but they clamp my legs down. Another doctor comes in. The face resembles Coin's, but the voice sounds like Snow's. She grabs a syringe and stabs my arm. I scream louder at the pain.

Everything fades to black. When the lights come back on, Haymitch and Peeta stand over me. I sit up and close my hands around Peeta's neck. He falls limp and I scream.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. This is my first Hunger Games fic, and I'm really excited about it. If you liked it, stay tuned, because I'll be adding more chapters soon! The next one will be happier than this one, I promise.

Please review! I would love to know what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you want to see in future chapters. Thanks a million! :)