Life's a constant game of determining what's real and what's not real, but reality is a funny thing. So often, we go through our daily tasks and don't question life; what's here and now is reality and what we can't see or taste or smell or feel or hear is not. But at times, we may have dreams or thoughts so vivid that they blur the line between truth and fiction. So who's to say I'm not really lying in a stiff hospital bed in District 13; that I'm simply dreaming and am really home in District 12 in my own, narrow but soft bed? Who's to say that the constant flashbacks I have about Katniss are not simply imagined; that she really is as evil as to kill my entire family? And who's to say that the odd, petite, frail, red-haired girl that lies with her weak body pressed closely into my chest is not some twisted and potent mirage that, in my insanity, I've imagined?
As though on cue, she stirs relentlessly as a pained outcry escapes her lips. "No," Bree cries in her sleep. "What do you want from me? You've taken everything I have; you've even killed my family! What's next, Katniss?"
By some sort of compassionate reflex, I squeeze her delicate frame even further into me, pressing out the obviously terrifying nightmare from her brain. "Please," I beg, because if she goes even more insane then I will, too. The way her body tremors is unnatural, almost as though she is having a seizure. "Please wake up." I am desperately shaking her now.
Her eyes snap open and the tears gush from her eyes. She gasps for air in between helpless sobs and manages to choke out, "Peeta!"
"Shh, shh. I'm here," I respond sympathetically, petting the soft, auburn, downy hair that's plastered to her forehead from sweat. "It's not real—Katniss can't hurt you anymore." I shudder a little bit as I say this, because that disgusting mutt that damaged us both is the reason why we are here in the first place.
Bree's helpless tears sink further into the thin fabric of my hospital gown and her body racks with cries, making her seem more vulnerable than ever. A few hours ago, I would've considered her to be the saner one of us, but I can now see that we are both just as broken. Each of us is just as crazy as the other—our common hatred for Katniss is what is bonding us together. And maybe…something else. Her hands pressed against my chest feel vaguely but uncannily familiar. It almost feels natural for me to be holding her like this, as though we've done it thousands of times before.
"She killed them," she sputters wildly. "She shot Ollie and Vern with her arrows. And then she set them on fire!"
I hesitantly touch the porcelain skin of her forehead and say, "It's all over now. We've got to show her how she hurt us." But I can tell this isn't completely what she wants to hear because her lips bury themselves into my neck. This gesture is so unexpected that I begin to push her off me, screaming, "What are you doing?"
Bree shakes her head, tears spilling out onto flushed cheeks. "I just want someone who knows what I'm going through. Someone who can identify with me. It's so hard; I just don't know what's real or not real anymore," she breathes in exhaustion, nuzzling herself back into my body. "You of all people know what I mean."
Slowly, ever-so-slowly, I am becoming receptive to the beautiful girl beside me. She's like a wilting flower, and I fear that in the flames of Katniss's destruction she might be destroyed. Like me.
"If I see her, I'm afraid I'll kill her," I say aloud, and Bree perks up at this.
"I don't want to kill her. I just want her to know what she's done to me. I'd rather have stayed dead, murdered by Cato, rather than to witness the deaths of my siblings," she spits, fists tightening into balls around the sheets covering us.
Something about what she's said sends a wave of remembrance through my mind, and I recall, long ago, watching on a television where a massively muscular boy straddled a small, ballerina-like-framed girl whom he pinned to the wet earth. Rain fell from the angry grey sky; hunger was etched on her face and in his lascivious eyes. The rain drenched his burly body till the thin green shirt he wore clung to his broad chest. His breaths were heavy and his voice was triumphant, but hers was small, scared, and pleading. He began to take advantage of the small, lanky girl, running his knife across the cleavage of her chest and deciding to stab her over and over again. Dread fills me down to the bone as I realize that this girl was Bree.
"Don't say that. He was going to take advantage of you if you hadn't escaped," I mutter into her hair. He was sick—he even licked her blood from the knife he stabbed her with.
"It's true though. Reliving the deaths of the people you loved most is worse than anything."
Does she know I've just relived her death in my mind? The words shock me as they come out of my mouth. "I'm glad you're here with me."
The heavily-lashed, amber-brown eyes that were downcast bring themselves up to my own, and all of my issues and confusion melt away. It's just us, here and now in the sterile hospital room, surrounded by nothing but the buzzing of fluorescent lights and the scent of cleaning solution. Its real; the touch of her lips against mine, the tough fabric of our clothes rubbing together, the feel of her smooth leg gliding across the hair of my only sensory one. She is not some dream materializing from my psychosis. She is and has always been real.
Our lips barely make contact, but it's enough to send the flurry of confusion flying through my brain once again. My body is shaking so much that the heart monitor liked to me through wires is going insane, its crazed beeping growing louder and quicker. In less than thirty seconds, white-clothed doctors rush in with cries of "Get her out of here!" and "Get him the morphling, stat!" The next thing I know, Bree is being ripped from my arms, screaming my name as they inject her with the yellow liquid that puts people to sleep. Evidently, I had been hurting her because there are fresh bruises rising to the surface of her cheeks and neck. An official carries her limp body away.
I begin to panic for her and rip the thin, snaking wires off of my quavering body. They'll take her to Katniss, the vicious voice in the back of my mind whispers malevolently. They'll take her to Katniss, and then that mutt'll kill her. My enraged screams fill the air of the quiet room as the medical personnel pin me down to the bed and inject me with what they call morphling, causing my fighting body to unwillingly shut down. My eyelids grow heavy and close themselves, but I still hear my own feral cries that fade out until they are silent nothings; the only reminders that what has just happened was real.
I awaken with a start, surrounded by doctors, when the sliding metal door opens to reveal a pretty olive-skinned girl with striking gray eyes and a delighted smile on her face. Then I sit up, unconfined by any body constraints, and put a name to this face. It's not Bree. It's nobody I would like to see. It's Katniss.
As my hands tighten around her thin, sinewy neck, I know that she's killed everything I love. I know that she's a mutt. I know that she's what's driven me insane, and I don't have to question the reality of her being because her muffled screams from me crushing her windpipe are real…
And I will do anything to grasp reality.