A one shot about Peeta's thoughts when he hit the force field. Inspired by frostingpeetaswounds tumblr post: post/74340488074/after-hitting-the-force-field-and-being-brought
My father always told me that the only way that I would die an honorable man would be by helping someone else in their ultimate time of need. And now I'll never die an honorable man. I'll die a desperate man, a boy, really, trying to do the right thing. And I'll be taken away, tossed into a wooden coffin, and shipped back to my home district where I'll be buried, mourned, and forgotten.
It's inevitable. I just wish it could be different.
Humid, sticky heat weighs me down. It coated my lungs it seemed, making it more difficult to breathe, making my chest wheeze and clench with every inhale or exhale. I've felt tight-chested and anxious ever since she volunteered for her sister. Knowing that this crushing of my lungs is because of the jungle around me is something of a relief.
We advance forward through the undergrowth under Katniss' surveillance. I hack away at the vines and leaves as I walk ahead, clearing a path for the others. The rhythmic swoosh-chop sound of the blade against the plants allows me to set a steady pace and we make good progress.
Good progress, that is, until I swing my arm back and end up hitting the force field.
The last thing I hear is Katniss, screaming for me to stop.
I had never really thought about came after death. I thought about my heartbeat stopping, but I had always hoped it would be of old age having lived a happy, long life, and not in an arena of the Capitol's creation. It was kind of an expected, normal thing for kids aged ten upwards to have death or their minds. I'm sure Seam kids thought of death much earlier on than that.
But what followed in the time - if time existed - after my heart stopped, my head emptied, and my boots outlasted my body was a complete and utter mystery. I expected darkness. I expected nothing. But instead, it was as if I was caught in an in between state for a minute or two. I felt like I was being held underwater by invisible pairs of hands and no matter how much I struggled to break free I couldn't move. I couldn't even blink.
My sense of hearing was gone, replaced with a buzzing sort of ring. Looking back, I can see how it was probably my brain last noticing the electricity coursing through my body until it stopped my heart.
I didn't think of Katniss. I didn't think of anyone at first. I was selfish and just thought about how unfair it was for me to have to go through this and not get anything from it. I was simply another kid to join the thousands of forgotten others that had been reduced to dust by the Capitol's hands. Only one could survive. That was the only rule is this game of lies. I didn't want to go. Not yet. I had things to do, things to say, things to regret. I was never going to laugh again or smell the coal dust in the air or watch Katniss approaching the bakery in the early hours of the morning with her game bag. I was never going to see my father again. I was gone, dead, and everything was over.
Who would survive now? Katniss' sole purpose (in her head) was to protect me. Now that I was gone she had to fight for her own survival. I wondered if she would turn crazy, turning on Johanna and Finnick and everyone else, killing them in an instant, dodging axes and tridents, until the devastation around her meant that she could go home. Or would she end it all herself? Would everyone forget the fragile alliance we have formed and turn on each other? Would it become the most memorable games to ever have existed. Victor against victor, the sea turning red, the sky bursting into flames?
I didn't know which sounded better.
And so, as darkness swept towards me, a cold black sludge that filled my veins and choked me from the inside, I realised that my last seconds were going to be spent inside my own head, wondering.
My wondering continued as the sludge crept up closer. My mind felt like it was being distorted, hijacked, taken apart and put back together in a jumbled mess. What a horrible way to go. What a way to end it all.
Maybe this was why we couldn't come back and tell the living what it was like to die.
I didn't fight against the icy grip of death. It was like a riptide pulling me under. And then I was gone.
Just as soon as I left this world, I felt the push of air flowing through me. It forced away the darkness. It pushed at my chest, purging my body of death itself. I wondered who this was. Was it an angel coming to claim me and take me up to somewhere happier?
I heard her then, sobbing and grasping and gasping at me, her voice a broken whisper, an angry cry, a desperate call, tugging me through the fog. I felt fingers on my neck, checking for a pulse, and then I was alive again. Like water surging up the shore, air filled my lungs and I lurched forward, hurtled back into the real world.
"Peeta!" she whispered, her hands gentle on the sides of my face. I sighed and opened my eyes. It was an angel. An angel with her hair plastered against her sweaty forehead, her eyes filled with so much emotion it made me queasy. But she was here. I was back. I was okay.
The first thing I heard was an angel, screaming me to stop. The first thing I saw was an angel. It was the same angel, calling me back when I was lost.