Lots of other characters are introduced in this chapter (as undead puppets like Cato and Clove...mwahaha.)
Once again, please review!
Just as Cato drew his sword, an arrow sliced through his skull and he crumpled to the ground, blood trickling from the opening onto the carpet floor.
"Are you okay, Peeta?" Katniss forced herself to leave the scene, picking the first aid kit off the ground, stepping over the corpses in the hallway like stray laundry and bounding down the stairs as fast as her muscles could go.
"K-Kat…niss…" came a moaning reply from below.
Katniss reached the end of the stairs and ran to the entryway, finding that Peeta was already sitting up, though the open wounds seemed to have grown even larger than before. Such deep marks could easily be fatal.
"I've got some of that old Capitol ointment in here, Peeta," Katniss assured, gesturing for him to lie down. "Don't move any more right now! You're bleeding too much."
"Katniss, I…I'm not feeling right…." The look in Peeta's eyes was wild. Almost as wild as Gale's.
"Of course you're not! Just lie down and I'll try to fix you up!" Katniss was already unscrewing the lid of a pot of the same lotion she'd used to heal her burns in the 74th Hunger Games.
"It's not that, Katniss. It's…my mind…it feels like it's being possessed. I don't know what I might do right now, Katniss…"
"Just try to lie still!" Katniss dipped her fingers into the substance and plastered it over one of the largest gashes in Peeta's leg. Yet its healing effects seemed to be gone. Peeta's pained expression was only intensified.
"Katniss, run!"
In a flash, he lunged to his feet and slashed at her with a set of rapidly growing claws.
Two of the claws managed to graze the side of Katniss's face, but she had already jerked back and scrambled to her feet. The blood trickling down her face was flung into the air as she whirled around and did just what Peeta had told her to: run. She reached the back door of her home in record time, taking her bow into her hand and unlatching the door with the other. As she opened it, thick, smoky mist billowed into the hallway. Undaunted, she marched into the darkness and shut the door behind her as fast as she could, soon to hear Peeta charge into it from the other side with a sickening boom. Risking just more glance behind her, she witnessed Peeta's disfigured hand slam into the small glass panel in the center of the door, accompanied by a thud, then a low screech as the bloody, curved claws raked down the smooth surface, deep scratches appearing in their wake.
Then Katniss forced herself to turn away and run off back into the still smoldering forest. She knew what she had to do if she wanted any hope of saving her husband.
I have to kill that thing controlling him out there!
Black, silhouetted trees whipped by her, only visible through the mist the moment she reached them. But her fears had vanished, replaced by the steadfast Girl on Fire's unbreakable will.
"Gale! I'm here to finish this!" She called into the forest, determined to fight the creature yet again…and win. A distant scream echoed in reply, but it was accompanied by another, in a far lower tone, and then another, quite high and almost childlike.
There were far more horrors to be uncovered in these woods than Katniss had ever imagined.
The first figure staggered, zombie-like, past a birch tree to her right. Katniss turned sharply and backed away, but hesitated to draw her bow, finally deciding to make a warning shot. Her arrow shot into the bark of the birch.
"Stop or I'm going to shoot!"
Rebelliously the figure lunged out from the cloaking mist, revealing a face Katniss knew all too well. It was none other than Wiress of District Three, with her dark hair and ashen skin, dressed in that same uniform she'd died wearing in the Quarter Quell. Her arms were extended as if she was about to fall. But those hands were aimed for Katniss's neck.
An arrow pierced the woman's throat and silenced a growing moan that would have surely matured into another haunting, unforgettable scream. Blood spurted onto Katniss's clothes as her old friend collapsed, the mist parting before her as if she fell through water. The thud of her head impacting the dirt muffled another footstep coming from behind, but Katniss managed to make out the new, approaching figure through the mist. Turning to it, she drew another arrow from the five that remained in her quiver, watching as the slightly shorter individual more gracefully stepped between the many trunks and branches in its path.
"Who are you?"
There was no reply. Instead, it too lunged from the shadows in a flurry of blonde hair, powerful eyes aimed straight at her target.
Madge.
Katniss refused to let herself hesitate and shot her dear old friend straight through one of those piercing eyes. She had failed to silence the girl's scream, however, and it rang out like a siren through the night air.
Was this how she sounded on the day of that bombing?
Katniss looked down at Madge's beautiful, contorted body slumped on the ground. Yet another strange black string slithered out from underneath her. But it seemed to be more like yarn this time, as it was much thicker, and ended in a slimy point that appeared to be soaked in blood. Turning back to Wiress, Katniss caught a glimpse of a third cord snaking off into the mist.
Another scream rang out from her left and she was forced to look away from the strange sight, drawing her bow a fourth time and letting it fly at the head of the next person the moment she saw them. At this point, she didn't even want to know who it was.
"Gale!" She called, furious at this whole horrible situation, "Where are you, Gale? Where are you?!"
Tremors of fury racked her body as she heard a miniature chorus of three more awful screams, none of them Gale's, and turned to find not three, but five more dead friends staggering out of the shadows.
She didn't have enough arrows to stop them all. Seething with frustration, she turned and ran from the descending horde and into the deepest regions of the forest. Katniss felt a hand snatch at the back of her coat and turned, simultaneously drawing her bow and shooting the moment she saw the person's head.
Her arrowhead plunged into the forehead of Boggs from District 13. Just before turning back, Katniss noticed an ever thicker black tendril scurry from his corpse.
Swiping tears from her eyes (it was difficult enough to see without them) Katniss continued to sprint, lunging past tree and tribute alike as more and more figures began to converge on her from all sides. For a split second, she attempted to speed over a clump of roots faster than she should have. Her boots caught on the upraised ground and she slammed into the dirt in an instant. She whirled onto her back, ignoring the pain and preparing to jump to her feet, when she saw a hulking figure looming before her.
Thresh raised a rock the size of a loaf of bread, preparing to smash it into her skull.
