This is not how it is supposed to happen.
She sits curled up on the floor, nestled into the corner of the room. The fireplace roars on the far end of the room but all it does is twist the shadows until they are flickering wolves with human eyes and the fire's crackle is their laughter, rough and coarse, as they advance on the golden cornucopia and she is not fast enough and Peeta, oh Peeta – she whimpers.
Her eyes close. She can almost feel the chill of that night return, feel her lungs scream for more breath, her heart lust for more beats and she takes them, takes them all, because she won. The bow is sure in her hands and her aim is true… but Cato falls and falls and falls.
Rip. Tear. Bite.
The laughter is almost as loud as the screams now. Not the screams of the dying but of agony, sheer impossible agony. It warps inside her memory, searing itself on her brain as a chorus of pain, destruction and horror.
And then he looks up, through the blurs of the wolves and their bloodied teeth, and meets her gaze. He is only a child torn from his warrior costume. She is only a child too – they all are so so young – and what are they doing?
Her hands are like iron clamps around her legs; she rocks slightly, eyes closed and so alone.
But her bow is sure in her hands, as it always has been, and her aim is true. Their gaze is still locked but his is glazed, baby blues wiped of life and pain. The arrow sticks grotesquely out of his forehead. Blood wells around the head of it, slowly dripping from the wound down his face.
Yet the wolves still tear at him, chunks of flesh hanging from their vicious mouths. Their laughter is only muffled by their actions and all the louder from the lack of screaming accompaniment. If only the people behind the wolves could see –
"Katniss!"
Someone is shaking her. Her eyes snap open. Prim stares back, hands clenching her arms tight. She blinks. The fire has been put out. Only the echoes deep within her mind whisper in her ears.
She leans back into the wall. It is cold. It is not the walls of her home but of her new house. It is no better than a prison in the Capitol, given under the banner of victory and all the more clinical for it. The décor is luxurious, of course, befitting of a champion – but how can she be victorious when it feels like each breath is stolen and each heartbeat is stolen and each second is stolen?
It has almost been a year and Katniss cannot forget.
This is not how it is supposed to happen at all.