Large black mutation beetles crawled along the crevice where the wall met the concrete floor of my cell. Identical in size and perfectly spaced, they started to track up the wall. I causciously shrunk away from them. The beetles reminded me of the ones in the clock arena that Finnick had said were carnivorous.
"Touch it," Johanna said.
I turned to look at her.
"Whatever you see; touch it," she repeated.
"No. How do you know I see something anyway?"
"Because you are cringing and moving away from whatever it is. There's nothing there, Peeta. I can't see anything. I'd be able to see it if there was something there."
Turning my attention back to the beetles, I saw them creep across the floor towards me. Their numbers increased exponentially until they covered every inch of the floor and wall. Avoiding them became impossible, and I moved my feet frantically to keep them from crawling up my leg. My prosthetic leg failed me under the strain of such quick movements, and moments later I found myself on the hard concrete floor. The beetles grew every closer, and I imagined that any second they would begin biting my skin.
"Touch it, Peeta. Whatever it is, it's not real." Johanna's calmness was annoying and made her seem uncaring. Still, the beetles would soon reach me anyway. I reached out my hand and tried to touch one. Feeling nothing, I realized that the beetles were not actually there.
How surreal, I thought.
Embarrassed, I turned to lay on my side facing away from Johanna. Being crazy was bad enough, but being unable to hide the fact that I was crazy was nearly unendurable.
"You're okay." Johanna said as if I were a small child.
Katniss is right. I am weak, pathetically weak. I thought.
I pressed my thumbnails into the tips of my index fingers as hard as I could and sighed. I repeated the process with all my other fingertips, taking longer with each one. At least this relatively minor pain was something I could control.
"I'm sorry," I said, still able to see the beetles but convinced they were not actually there.
"Stop being sorry for everything. Did they drug you again?" she asked.
"Yes."
"The whole time?"
"Probably."
Do you think that caused what's happening to you now? The hallucinations, I mean?"
Hallucinations! Hallucinations? Yes, I guess that is what they are. I thought.
"Maybe. "
"You slept for a long time when you got back," Johanna pointed out.
"Good."
"Why don't you just talk about it…I mean beyond these one word answers you keep giving me," she asked.
"Not this time. It will only make it worse."
"You don't know that," she replied.
"Johanna, I don't ask you to explain why you cower in the corner every time they clean the cells by spraying the water hose. I assume that you'll tell me if you want me to know."
Johanna paused.
"Okay. Fair enough. So what'd you have for lunch today? I had some moldy bread and half of a nearly rotten orange which I think they are gave me only to stave off scurvy. Did you get one too?"
"Scurvy? How do you know this stuff?" I asked.
"I'm smarter than people think, Mellark. Being rich and unemployed gave me a lot of time to read."
"Seriously?
She laughed, "Yes. What'd you do with your short time as a victor?"
"I baked, and I painted. I wish I could do that now."
"We'd certainly eat better!" Johnanna joked.
"I know what Haymitch does. What'd she do?" Johanna asked, approaching the most disturbing subject she could choose.
"Killed things. She's good at that," I spit out spitefully through clinched teeth. My hands balled into fists.
"Whoa, no need to get upset. Just stay calm," Johanna conjoled. "that does make more sense than the idea of her designing clothes though!"
"Change the subject!" I warned Johanna.
She did. Johanna talked about her home for hours that evening. It was wonderfully distracting.
That night a loud noise accompanied by sensations that the building was shaking startled me awake. Johanna was awakened too.
"What was that?" I asked.
Johanna looked towards the ceiling and the door. Another loud boom broke the silence, this one coming from a location much closer to us.
Suddenly, I felt very sleepy and had to sit down again. I thought it was similar to what happened when I had to sit down with Portia and Caesar, but I saw that Johanna was sitting down too. She looked dazed.
The feeling reminded me of when the man in green drugged me but without any pain. In fact, it was almost pleasant. I'd started to lower myself to the floor by the time I saw the woman in green barge through the cellblock door.
What. Is. She. Doing. Here? I thought slowly through the haze.
She fumbled with identification bracelets, none of which appeared to be hers. A mask covered her mouth and nose, but it wasn't a surgical mask. There was another booming sound, and the woman in green jumped.
Regaining her composure she threw open the door to my cell and then Johanna's.
She tossed us masks similar to hers and said, "Put these on your faces. Now!"
Johanna picked hers up but couldn't get it on her face. She looked like she was going to faint any minute. The woman in green knelt down and fastened it quickly over Johanna's nose and mouth.
I put my mask over my nose and mouth but my trembling fingers couldn't tighten the straps correctly. The woman secured the mask and offered a hand to pull me up from the floor. Though wobbly, I could stand. Johanna still looked faint and remained on the floor.
Is this a break-out attempt? I thought. If it is, I think we're all going to be shot.
There was another boom. This one sounded like it was right outside the cellblock. The woman in green who had positioned herself near the tiny window of the cellblock door jumped again. I knew that in the procedure room screams didn't startle her, but the booming noises that she was hearing certainly did. The exact opposite was true of me, I'd rather hear a thousand explosions than a single agonized scream.
There were voices outside the cellblock door, and the woman in green aimed a gun that I'd just noticed her carrying at the entrance.
The door flew open, and to my utter shock Gale Hawthorne and several other men ran through it. All were wearing masks and lightly colored military uniforms that blended in with the gray walls. The woman in green lowered the gun and started exchanging frantic words with Gale. I walked up to him, and then I looked back at Johanna.
Reaching out to Gale, I touched his arm. I could feel it! He was actually there!
Giving me a stunned look, Gale said, "Hello, Peeta."
Then he turned back to the woman in green. Moments later Gale hoisted an unconscious Johanna over his shoulder, and we all ran through the hallways of the prison. After climbing four or five flights of stairs, we reached the roofftop. The wind blew my blonde curls back against my sweaty forehead. The sky was black, but breathtaking. I had never expected to leave the prison alive. A hovercraft appeared above us, and Gale pushed Johanna into my arms.
"Hold on to her and take the first ladder," he said.
My knuckles turned white as I held tightly to the ladder. Several prison guards reached the rooftop and fired their guns just as Johanna and I were lifted into the hovercraft. Gale and several others boarded the hovercraft next as one soldier and the woman in green fired at the prison guards.
The soldier signaled for the woman in green to make a run for the hovercraft. She did, but was shot down almost immediately. Then one of the guards walked up behind her a shot her again in the back of the skull. The soldier turned back to look at her, and was shot in the head as well.
The hovercraft door slammed shut.