He loses his memory gradually.
Twice daily he is given an injection. As the poison slowly leeches into his bloodstream, he yanks at his bonds and screams her name. The screams quickly turn into sobs. When the strain becomes too much and he finally succumbs to the tracker-jacker venom, he passes out. And when he passes out, he dreams.
Of the beach. Of Katniss, her pulse beating wildly, her skin soft to the touch under his fingers as he cradles her neck. Of the last time he can remember being happy, blissfully happy. He relives their kiss over and over again in his dreams, unable to shake the feeling that this one was somehow more real than all the countless contrived others preceding it.
He wakes, and is once again unsure of what's real and what's not.
He sleeps again, and finds himself back on the beach. Only this time everything is shiny and winter-cold. A knife is being held to his throat…by her hand. When he looks into her eyes, all he sees staring back at him through her dilated pupils is the mindless hatred of a mutt.
"No!" he shouts. And he can't tell whether he's pleading for his life or denying the shiny, Capitol-induced memory. He only wakes up when the blade begins to slice into his skin…
It is always this way. The moments of precious clarity are closely followed by harrowing insanity. It must be a side-effect of the toxin they've been feeding him. But as his "treatments" progress, he experiences fewer and fewer of the real memories and more of the simulated ones. He's terrified of what will become of him if the good dreams cease, if he should forget the real Katniss entirely.
In his saner moments, he wonders if they eavesdropped on his confession that night on the rooftop. That he wanted to die as himself, and no one else. That could be the only possible explanation for their…rather appropriate choice of torture method.
They were twisting him into something he wasn't. They were forcing him to forget.
He doesn't want to forget.
He dreams once more. This time, he is back in District Twelve. A sleepy Katniss reaches for his hand as he turns to leave. "Don't go yet. Not until I fall asleep," she pleads. Unable to deny her anything, he complies, heart in his throat when Katniss lifts his hand and holds it to her cheek, leaning into it. She inhales deeply, no doubt smelling the cinnamon and dill that always seem to linger on his baker's hands. "Stay with me," she breathes.
"Always," he whispers back.
That is the last happy memory he has for a long time.
[Inspired by the song "Losing Your Memory" by Ryan Star.]