Peeta is never coming back. He will always be tormented somehow by the nightmares. Most happen in the day. Just the sight of my face makes him tense. I have to swallow hard, because there's something preventing me from doing so. I will avoid him from now on. I've decided I never want to see him again when I'm walking away. I begin to run. Return back to my compartment. It's late, because I can see through the little window, and the moons high in the dark sky. A deep, disgusted meow ruptures at my feet, and I almost jump. My heart seems to be pounding. As I realize this my cheeks flush, and I can feel they're warm.
"Buttercup," I say. Indifferent.
I lie in bed and don't bother putting the covers over me. Instead, I curl up, eyes wide open. With a million things I should be worrying about; only one thing is on my mind. An hour later, it's pointless to lie there. So, I get up and begin playing Crazy Cat with Buttercup. As much as I dislike him, he's all I have at the moment to keep my mind off of the dangerous ideas lurking in my mind. I play with him until my body has sunk all the way down and before I know it, I'm asleep.
In my dream, I'm wandering around helplessly through the never ending halls of District 13. When I get to one door I'm sure is the exit to fresh air and sunlight, I realize I'm gravely mistaken. I've just opened the door to hundreds—thousands of Tracker Jackers. But before I can even close the door, I feel the pain as one, two, three sting me. After that, I've suddenly been thrown back into the arena. The first one. I'm up in a tree and I've been here before, so it only takes seconds for me to assess that Rue, is in the tree next to me, and I know the all too familiar scene that is about to unfold in the forest below me. I wait for Peeta and his group of Careers to show up.
But when I blink, I'm no longer in the tree. I'm on the Cornucopia, and the mutts are biting just below my feet. I remember quicker this time, that Peeta is still on the ground. I look below and spot him, my stomach does a flip, and I scream. That's when I begin to hear the voices of my mother and Prim calling for me.
"Katniss!" I hear Prim's voice, but it takes me a while to reach it.
When I open my eyes I'm still sprawled out on the floor. My mother is looking at me with worry in her eyes. So, I sit up quickly.
I rub my head, "Sorry, I feel asleep playing with Buttercup."
"I bet he liked that!" Prim says as she rubs my back.
We hear a somewhat pleased meow from under the couch, and we begin to laugh. Prim gets up and tells me they have to get back to the hospital, but that they came here to bring Buttercup his food. Once they leave out the door, I remember the dream. My heart is pounding at a probably unhealthy rate, but I see it happen in my head before I can distract myself.
They weren't just killing Peeta. They were turning him into a Mutt. Some kind of foreshadowing intertwined with the events of the first Hunger Games I participated in.
This is when I truly accept it. Just like the Mutts, created to weaken the players during the games, Peeta has been created—or rather transformed the same way.
To weaken me.