Chapter 3

Peeta and I drop down from the tree we're hiding out in, and stalk over to the dead wolf, not sure if it had actually died or not. Looks can be decieving. As soon as we confirmed that it actually was dead, Peeta grabs me, and embraces me in a loving and happy hug. I hug him back, and we look into eachother's eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he kisses me, and his lips are wet and warm. A comfortable feeling overwhelmes me. He pulls away, a huge smile on his face because he was so happy we were alive and not a meal for a hungry wolf.

"That was absolutely amazing! Holy crap! I thought we were in for it, you know? It was eyeing us, and watching our every move, so I thought we were done for. Oh my goodness. I can't breathe. Do you have an adrenaline rush to? I have a huge one right now! So, now that's over, how about we grab this, and see what's left of the deer? Greasy Sae might be able to salvage a little of it, and this wolf's pelt has to be worth a fortune! I don't think I've ever even heard of someone killing a wolf before... We must've just made history!" Peeta was basically yelling everything from how excited he was. I was excited to, but I wasn't about to start yelling to attract more preditors that I've never even heard of, none the less seen!

"Sounds good, but I don't think you should yell so loud! You'll attract more preditors. I don't want that. I don't know if I can keep my head through another stand-off with another one. Let's get going, the woods is starting to make me uncomfortable," I tell Peeta as I grab the wolf as he's going to grab what's left-over from the deer.

The wolf isn't that heavy. I easily threw it over my shoulders, and truged over to Peeta where he's picking up what's left of the deer we had killed earlier. There isn't much left though, a little salvageable meat, but its mainly entrails and skin. There's blood everywhere, much more than when we had first killed the deer. It's more than I'm used to seeing. I normally kill small things, and they never get eaten by a predator.

"Okay, let's get out of here and get to Greasy Sae before it gets too dark out. I hate being anywhere near the woods when it's dark," I urgently tell Peeta. I'm getting worried, because the sun is setting, and as soon as it sets, the woods supposedly instantly becomes alive with predators, stalking around to find a meal. I don't think they would hesitate at going for me and Peeta.

We walk out of the woods, the deer over his shoulders, and the wolf over mine, hand in hand. "This was actually fun! You completely came through with your promise. I hope you realize how happy I am," Peeta says softly, because he knows how worried I am about any predators coming and attacking us.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself! We do have to work on your shooting skills though... That shot at the deer was absolutely atrocious! I swear though, after a while you'll get better. It took me years to get as good as I am now. I think we can make you pretty damn good though. You have a lot of potential," I tell Peeta as we get close to Greasy Sae's.

As we walk in the door to where Greasy Sae's, there's a lot more customers than usual, so we walk right into the back, where we know she'll be, but she's not there.

"Well... This is odd. What do we do with this deer now? Do we just leave it here? Maybe we could put a note on it that says its from us," Peeta says warily, because he knows Greasy Sae is always either back here, or out front. I can tell he's troubled by this because he furrows his brow, and his eyes narrow.

"I guess we can leave a note on it... Hopefully someone doesn't take it. That would be horrible! I hope she's okay. It's not good that she isn't here. Something must be wrong. I'm not getting a good feeling..." I say as we leave a note on what's left of the deer and leave.

We walk out hand in hand, and start to walk back to the Victor's Village. We turn the corner to the road we live on, and all we can see is fire. Haymitch's house is on fire. Blazing hot and bright red. The whole village is here with buckets of water, chucking them into the flames. Peeta and I slowly walk towards the inferno of fire, everyone making a path for us to get to the house. We get to where we can barely stand the heat, and we find Haymitch passed out on the ground. We look at eachother, worried, because we're not sure if he's passed out from smoke inhalation or from being drunk, as he always is.

"What is going on? What happened Haymitch?" We scream as we shake him awake. He looks at us like we're completely nuts, and then he looks at his burning house, and then screams. Apparently he passed out from being drunk, because he starts screaming like a banshee and running around in circles, freaking out because all of his liquor is burning.

"It's just like Haymitch. His house is on fire, and he's running around like an idiot because of his liquor. Damn. I guess we have to find a way to put out this fire before it spreads to our..." I stutter. The fire apparently has been going for awhile, because its spread to our house.

"Oh my god, Peeta! Our house! It's on fire! What do we do? What do we do? Oh my god!" I scream, freaking out. Everyone starts pouring their water on Haymitch's house, extinguishing the fire in 10 minutes. Then, it's to the fire at our house. Our house, with all of Peeta's wonderful paintings, and everything we own, just burning. Burning into a million little pieces of ash. The people have their buckets of water, but it doesn't seem like enough to put the fire out.

People are literally running everywhere trying to find water to put out the fire. Peeta just squeezes my hand, to shocked for words, and also knowing no words right now could calm my mind down. We're loosing everything we have. My bows and arrows, all the weapons, our food, everything. No amount of words can express my feelings of anguish. Self pity. Every unhappy emotion possible washes over me. I didn't know one person could feel like this. This is horrible. The feeling of self pity that overwhelmes me. My legs start to shake, and I fall to the ground, tears streaming down my face, and I'm not trying to hide it. It's no use. It's obvious that I'm hurting inside.

"Katniss... I'm so sorry," I hear someone whisper into my ear. I don't even know who it was. All I know is that it was a female voice.

All of a sudden, everything goes black, and I can see nothing and hear nothing. I feel empty inside, and there's just nothingness everywhere I turn. Then, out of nowhere, Peeta appears in the black about 20 feet infront of me. I try to get up and run to him, but I'm stuck. I can't move an inch. I can only wait, wait until he comes and saves me. Saves me from this emptiness and unhappiness I feel. I try to thrash around and free myself, but everytime I move, I only get more and more stuck. Stuck in this pit of disgusting black slime stuff that is the emptiness of my life right now. Peeta's getting closer, but very slowly. To slowly for my liking. I scream his name, but that doesn't make him walk to me any faster.

"PEETA! PEETA! Please, Peeta, you have to help me. Save me... Get me out of here... Please," I beg as he nears me.

Once he gets close enough to reach out and grab me, he just stands there, unmoving, and as solid as a rock, with his eyes trained on me, his pupils fully dialated, as if he was trying to take in what he was seeing. The only thing he was seeing was me enclosed in a freaking puddle of thick black slime! He sits down next to me, and he reaches out to grab my hand, and as soon as he grabs me, I come to, and we're in our room, in our house, only, everything is backwards. I sit up, and take in my surroundings, and it hits me. This isn't our house. It's another house in the Victor's Village. Our house really did burn down. The million pieces of ash floating around me, the burning inferno of both Haymitch's and our house, everything. It was all real, it wasn't a dream.

Peeta's sitting next to me, holding my hands, letting me soak everything in. The silence is overwhelming though. Horrible. It's like the apparent dream I had before, when Peeta wouldn't talk to me, only keep walking with the same slow pace, only focused on me, apparently not hearing me screaming his name and begging him to help me.

"How long was I out?" I whisper to Peeta.

"You were out for 3 days. I've been by your side the whole time, just hoping you would wake up. You were thrashing all around and screaming about screaming to me, asking me to help you, to save you. I just sat here, holding you, and praying that you would come back to me. That you would stop screaming, because everytime you did, I felt so bad, because I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do. You were in a different place. Somewhere I couldn't penatrate to actually save you. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I'm glad you have come back to me. I love you so much," Peeta says. I can see tears welling up inside his eyes, and he let's them spill over, not caring.

Seeing Peeta like this... It makes me so emotional. He only crys when he's seriously upset about something. seeing him cry makes me cry as well. So we both just sit there, holding eachother tightly, crying. It's like we're back in the arena, when I first found Peeta after Cato had cut him. All the emotions welling over inside both of us.

"I love you to, Peeta. I can't even tell you what it was like... In my... I guess you could call it a dream. It was absolutely horrible. Everything was black, and I was stuck in this thick, black slime, and everytime I tried to move, it just engulfed me more and more. Then, you appeared, but you were walking so slow, and when I screamed for you, you wouldn't walk any faster, which just pissed me off. When you got within arms length of me, you just stopped moving and stared at me. Then you sat down, and grabbed me, and then thats when I woke up. It was horrible Peeta! Absolutely horrible. I can't even explain what I felt. Just horrible. That's the only way I can explain it," as I try to explain this to Peeta, the emotions bottle up inside me, and I start bawling again.

"Shh. I know. I know," he whispers in my ear, stroking the side of my face, trying to calm me down.

"All I know right now is that nothing seems to be going right for us right now. I don't know how long I can keep up with this charade, Peeta. It just keeps getting harder and harder every day. It's like some new horrible thing happens every day to us. I just don't think I can put up with this shit anymore. It's just getting so hard to function like a normal human does," I confess to himm, the tears still streaming from my eyes, my voice shaking from the sobs coming out of my throat.

"I know exactly how you feel. It's the same shit everyday. Day in, and day out. It's just a new situation everyday. It just keeps getting crazier and crazier, and I feel bad for you, and myself. I actually think this is worse than when we were in the games. Life is crazy, and sometimes it sucks. Obviously its sucking right now, but we have eachother, and that's all that counts. Love. Love keeps everything alive and going," he says, his voice full of emotion, almost overwhelming. Just the amount of passion in his voice is enough to make anyone feel his pain.

"I love you, so much. I really don't know what I would do without you," I whisper as I pass out again.