I'm shocked awake by bloodcurdling screams, more like screeches really, echoing off the wall of my house in the Victor's Village. I'm sitting up in an instant with adrenaline already flooding through my body when I realize that the screams were mine.

I am Katniss Everdeen.

I am in what was District 12.

I was the winner of the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

There is nothing more I can be sure of, no more remnants of myself to distract my mind from another nightmare, another night of feeling Peeta choke me, watching Rue being speared in the side, seeing Finnick being blown to pieces, listening to Cato slowly being torn apart by the mutts of former tributes, and worst of all, looking into Prim's eyes as she reached out for me in her last moments.

There was no way I could keep going much longer. There was no reason to, really. No one left that I really loved, apart from Peeta. But he wasn't here either, not really. President Snow had taken my Boy With the Bread too, as if Prim, Finnick, Rue, Cinna, and all the others was not enough.

But I got up, just like I forced myself to do every other morning. It was pointless effort really, there is no need for me to hunt, like before the Games, there is no real physical danger like in the Games themselves, only the danger of my own mind, and there is no rebellion to encourage and see through anymore. There's only me, living in a house much too large for one person, hunting needlessly, evading nightmares, and avoiding my neighbors, my mentor Haymitch and the shell of what once was Peeta.

Yet I do it anyway, focusing on only the action before me so I don't have to see the faces of my loved ones, also known as the dead. I awake screaming if I've let my guard down enough to fall asleep, I change clothes, and I go to the woods.

Days and night blur, and only God knows how many weeks or months or seasons have passed so far. Everything has lost meaning by now, I've become hopeless. Sometimes I even catch myself wondering where the real me has gone. The real Katniss would have taken charge, would have been rebellious, would have kept surviving.

But at some point I decided that Katniss, the Girl on Fire is dead. She's been dead since the moment I was crowned victor. That makes things the slightest bit easier, knowing that me and that girl are two separate things; it's not as if I've lost myself.

I leave the empty house without eating, and walk unseeingly to the fence. Ducking underneath, I pick up my bow and sheath from its hiding place. I head out.

Then somehow I realize that the sun is dipping below the horizon and that I have no idea where I am. Somewhere in the middle of the forest, lost. So I drop my bow and sheath and sit on some pine needles, I've given up. It's over and there is really no need or desire for me to return to the Victor's Village. So I lie down and stare at the sky between the branches. This is what Rue saw as she died.

The memory and thought hits me out of nowhere, sending me screaming in anguish. All those people I couldn't save; all those people I killed. I scream and scream, sending birds fluttering away until my voice is hoarse and my throat will not allow any sound to escape.

Night has fallen by now, and tears start to prick at my eyes. But they will not be allowed to leave. Even if I wanted to cry, I've refused to for so long it's more or less impossible for my body to do so. So I just sit and shake, trembling like the leaves surrounding me. Until a voice followed by footsteps comes through the trees. Just like the Games.

I can't bring myself to respond as Haymitch scoops me up from the forest floor and follows Greasy Sae out of the woods, ducking under the fence with me in his arms. I think they're saying something to me. Haymitch sounds angry but relieved, and Sae is soothing. But their words don't reach my ears.

Soon Haymitch deposits me in my room, and the two of them leave shaking their heads almost sadly, regretfully. When my front door closes I reach down under the bed and my shaking hand hold a glass bottle of liquor. I drain the bottle swiftly, knowing that at least the nightmares are fuzzy and vague when I go to sleep like this.