Disclaimer: you must be kidding. You believe really I'm Suzanne Collins? I'm so flattered. Well why waste the opportunity? Here's my cell, lets do a selfie, you can put it on Instagram and hashtag it #ImAnIdiot...

Part 14

Do you believe in hallucinations, silly dreams or imaginations

Don't go away cause I feel you this time

Don't go away cause I need you there this time

Do you believe in hallucinations, any dream or its revelation

Don't go away cause I need you there this time

Don't go away cause I'm making you all mine

~Angels and Airwaves

Cato POV

Running. I kept running, gasping, stumbling, entirely unable to stop. Trying to gain on my father, who kept slipping away from me, shouting expletives and laughing manically as he twisted Clove's limbs off one by one. Her screams went on and on, washing over me like fire.

I felt broken inside, my lungs were caving in, tears kept trying to break through but never really succeeding... so they just flowed down over my insides, flooding my heart. And all I could do was run, even when I realized I was losing track of the other two.

I ran into a tree.

The screams faded out with abruptness and I was left with a faint ringing in my head as I stared at a blurry smudge that resembled Clove's face. My chest burned, a voice that sounded like Marvel's spoke something indistinctly, and I thought, I'm back, it was a dream.

Relief had barely set in when I was back in the woods, running again. I stumbled over a bloody girl lying next to a small fire and realized the screaming was back. She turned her head and her eyes met mine.

Clove's eyes.

Clove was dead and I had killed her.

This time I was screaming and the rest of the world was very, very still.

Clove POV

My eyes snapped open to the echo of a shriek, my whirling world of agony, otherwise known as hallucination, growing fainter by the second as I stared at blue sky showing through gently waving leaves. I lay silently, resting, feeling the total absense of any kind of strength weighing down my body. Then I felt energy creeping through my blood again, slowly, bringing life back into my dull consciousness.

I sat up.

Ow ow ow.

Bad move.

I held my head. Squinting against the pain, I looked to my left. Beach, water, woods. I looked to my right.

"Cato?" My own voice almost gave me pause, it was so cracked. I realized suddenly how dry my mouth was. How swollen.

Cato was lying beside me as I suspected he had been all along, however long that might have been. His lashes fluttered open at the sound of my voice; he looked at me and I was surprised.

His eyes, always such a clear, violent blue, were clouded. Scared.

He also didn't seem capable of speech, so I filled in. "Cato!" I crawled closer to examine his wounds. "How do you feel?"

He just watched me with a very weird expression.

I ignored him and looked up at Marvel, who had walked up and and was kneeling on Cato's other side. "What did you do?" For the angry lumps had nearly disappeared.

Marvel held up a small round container. "Medicine."

"Sponsors?" I asked.

He nodded. "You both got some. How's yours looking?"

I glanced at my arm. Wait, was that the right one? I looked back and forth, left arm, right arm, until I realized I had been correct the first time. The sting just wasn't there anymore. It had almost completely disappeared, leaving a small red dot behind.

"I tended his first," Marvel said, nodding to Cato, "but they're healing slower, cuz there's more of them, I guess."

I squinted at Marvel and wondered when he had become smart.

He ignored me and handed me an apple from his knapsack along with one of my own knives. "Leave some for him. This is the last one."

I hacked off a chunk, eager but slow, trembling from exhaustion. Marvel shoved a water bottle under my nose and I promptly nursed it dry.

Cato continued to watch me like a drowning man. His face looked tired.

What's wrong with him, I thought, but couldn't voice, through the apple pieces I was cramming into my mouth.

"You were out all day," Marvel told me, returning the water bottle freshly filled with lake water.

That explained the setting sun then.

I pulled myself over to Cato again and tugged him up to sit against me, Marvel helping out my efforts by supporting Cato's other side, which was a good thing or I might have collapsed from the weight.

Grabbing the water, I slipped my fingers into Cato's hair, cradling his head, and tipped the bottle's brim against his lips. He drank obediantly.

I gave him several breaks and just held him, thankful, so thankful, to be back in reality. He leaned his head on my shoulder. I looked out at the low sun reflected on the lake, startled at the warmth that was flooding me.

Marvel absently studied the beach.

Cato POV

I had been yanked out of hell and into heaven, and my brain was having a hard time processing it. One minute I was stumbling through the horrors of my own twisted mind, the next I was lying on sand, terrified but blessedly awake, Clove's face bobbing around above me as she hollered my name.

It just got better from there.

Now we were both just sitting on the shore in fast-gathering darkness. Clove was perched about a foot away from me, not moving, just being, and I knew I would never take her presence for granted again. Images from earlier kept flashing back into my mind, making me shiver. I studied her small profile in the last streaks of light. She didn't stir. Only a few strands of hair fluttered on a low breeze.

The Capitol anthem interrupted the night's silent peace and I could feel her tense from several inches away. Come to think of it, where was...

Glimmer. Her face shone bright and beautiful in the sky, unreal in its still luminescence. I felt the evening's chill suddenly wash over me. Glimmer, fretful, stunning, violent... Glimmer, nothing if not lively... Glimmer was dead.

Four's face, dark, sober, popped up next. Peeta's did not appear. He must still be with the living, though he certainly hadn't stuck around.

I looked over at Clove as the anthem sounded once more. She was trembling.

I discovered I was trembling a bit too.

Because I had watched, helpless, as she was hurt so often that day, I moved over to her, pulling her against me. She remained quiet but the shivers eventually subsided.

I set my chin on top of her head, liking the feel of her hair. Her hand slipped over to touch mine and my world rocked, then resettled.

That bracelet I had given her caught light from the rising moon, glowing at me from her wrist. I brought my other hand over to hold her head on my shoulder.

And as I looked out over the lake, I wondered.

What is going to become of us?

…...

And I'll be holding on to you

~Twenty One Pilots

…...

A/N: What indeed? Ideas? I do have it all plotted out already but your thoughts are still welcome... sorry it's short, longer chapter next up.