1:30 AM

~Katniss~

I watched Peeta until the lifeboat I was in was lowered out of sight. He was trying to put on a brave face so that I wouldn't worry, but I wasn't stupid. And I knew Madge wasn't either. We both were very aware that we may never see Gale or Peeta again.

I realized in that moment that I might be losing the last two people in the world that I loved. But I pushed the thought away, refusing to let the grief and panic cloud my thoughts. At least I wasn't completely alone…Madge was here. I half expected her to cry and panic like a lost little girl, but she hadn't shed a tear. It was obvious that she was distressed, but she was holding herself together and that helped me hold myself together.

I wondered what had happened to Johanna, Finnick, and Annie. I felt slightly guilty for not trying to find them. But last I had seen, they were on the top deck and not trapped in steerage like the rest of the lower-class passengers. I hoped they had found their way onto lifeboats, even though I was sure that Finnick was in the same situation as Gale and Peeta and all of the other men on the ship were in.

When Gale had told me that the ship was sinking, I didn't believe him. I had stared at him, dumbfounded. But as his words sunk in, the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The iceberg, the life jackets, the lifeboats, the distress rocket…all of those things did not mean a mere drill.

Once the shock had worn off, my first thought was Peeta. I had to find him. If this ship was going to sink, I wanted to at least be with him. I doubted the crew workers cared much for arresting people any more. And with a situation like this, it made all of my other problems seem small – including Peeta's mother.

I felt like I had searched the entire ship for him. I ran around the top deck calling for him, Gale just behind me searching for Madge, but our cries were drowned out by the mass of people that was now crowding the deck. We went to their suites but found them empty. Then we made our way down to steerage but stopped once we saw the crew workers had contained the lower-class passengers behind locked gates that blocked the stairwells. We called for Peeta and Madge in vain there too.

We decided to check their suites again when we had run into Madge. She had been looking for Gale too. After she and Gale had embraced and apologies were exchanged, I became impatient and frantic and demanded to know where Peeta was. Madge didn't know, but said she wouldn't be surprised if he was looking for me. So we made our way back to his suite once again where he found us.

When I saw him rush into the suite with wide eyes, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, panting as if he had just run for several miles, I felt a relief that I had never known before. But as happy as I was to see him again, the relief was short-lived. We were facing a dire situation that I had no idea how to escape from.

I wasn't planning to leave him. I had planned to refuse a lifeboat and stay with him. But the look in his eyes when he told me to get on the lifeboat made it impossible for me to deny him. I could tell that he wanted me to get on the lifeboat with every single fiber of his being. It was like his dying wish. He wanted me to survive, even though he was accepting the fact that he wouldn't.

But I wasn't going to give up hope. Even though every other experience of my life was jeering at me, raging that hope was a futile and senseless thing, I couldn't give up on Peeta. Or Gale. The only reason I wasn't falling apart right now was because I was so desperately clinging to that hope that despair had no room in my thoughts or my heart.

I was suddenly shaken from my thoughts when I heard shrieks and loud cries coming from below our lifeboat. I quickly peered over the side to see that we were being lowered on top of another lifeboat.

We began yelling for our crew workers to stop while some other crew workers were furiously sawing at the ropes of the other lifeboat with knives. I felt completely helpless. I looked from side to side, looking for some way to help but couldn't see any. I peered back over the edge of the boat and saw that we were getting dangerously close to the boat below us, the women shrieking and ducking.

Suddenly the crew workers lowering our boat realized what was happening and stopped, giving the other crew workers the chance to cut the other boat loose. When the other boat had paddled a safe distance away, our boat began to lower again until we reached the dark, icy waters. I shivered as if the water below the boat were seeping into my body.

I looked back up at the ship, thinking maybe I would see Peeta and Gale, but they were nowhere to be seen. I convinced myself that that was a good thing, they were probably just searching for another lifeboat to board.

As the crew worker of our lifeboat paddled us away from the ship, the sight before us made me gasp out loud and made Madge cover her mouth with her hand.

The Titanic – the glorious, majestic, unsinkable ship – was sinking. The bow was almost completely submerged below the surface of the waters and most of the portholes in the lowest parts of the ship were underwater.

The shrieks and cries of those still on the ship rose together in a single wail that drifted across the waters, wrapped my body in a haunting embrace, and clenched my heart. I was sure that if I lived past this night, that wail would find its way into my nightmares.

And Peeta and Gale were still on that ship. Tears formed in my eyes, blurring and merging the lights of the ship. This couldn't be real. This had to be a nightmare.

Just then, another lifeboat paddled toward ours and stopped a few feet away. I looked around at the people in my boat and in the other boat, committing to memory the faces of those who were witnessing this tragedy with me. All were women except for the couple of crew workers. I realized that while our boat was a mixture of upper- and lower-class women, the other boat held only upper-class women.

Many were whimpering and crying, burrowing themselves into their expensive fur coats as if that would shield them from the tragedy before them. I glanced at Madge and felt slightly grateful toward her for not sniveling the way the other upper-class women were.

"Madge!" a familiar voice suddenly cried out from the other lifeboat.

Madge jumped and looked in the direction of the voice. As if my heart couldn't sink any further – there was Peeta's mother. Some of the other women looked up in curiosity.

"Madge! Oh, thank God! We were so worried about you!" Mrs. Mellark cried.

Madge glanced at me and shivered, but didn't respond to Mrs. Mellark. I briefly looked over at Mrs. Mellark, which I realized was a mistake. She immediately recognized me.

"You!" she yelled. "What are you doing with her?" she demanded of Madge.

"Mrs. Mellark," Madge began in a calm voice. "Even if your son makes it off that ship, I'm not marrying him."

Peeta's mother began sputtering, but Madge continued. "He's not in love with me and I'm not in love with him. He loves Katniss. And I love Gale."

"How dare you?" Mrs. Mellark screeched. "You would break our deal then? You wouldn't mind if I soiled your family name by telling everyone that you slept with a lower-class man?"

So that was how she had manipulated Madge. I was slightly surprised that Gale and Madge had slept together, but that feeling was overwhelmed by the disgust I felt toward Mrs. Mellark.

"Enough!" I cried, surprising Mrs. Mellark and myself. "You are so concerned about your precious future, that you don't even realize your son, whom your future depends upon, may not even survive the night!" I felt my throat constrict as tears welled up in my eyes again. "You are a selfish, horrible woman who only cares about what you want! People are going to die tonight! Don't you understand?"

The silence that came as her response was satisfactory enough for me. Whether I had stunned her into silence or made her feel guilty, I wasn't sure, but she didn't respond.

The only sound that could now be heard was that single wail of those still on the sinking ship.