A/N: I'm sorry for the melodramatic chapter title, but be aware! This chapter has torture in it and hallucinations of violence and cannibalism, so read carefully.

He is in the training room, or a room that had been built to look like the room in the Training Center.

Peeta is strapped to a chair, facing one of the rooms tributes could use to train with spears or swords. They have filled the room with water again. The glass separating the room from the one Peeta is in must be strong enough to withstand weapons gone astray, but it turns out it's also waterproof.

The first time this happened, or, he thought of it was the first time (he was the first to admit his memory seems less than reliable these days) Johanna had stood in the room, feeling the cold water spray on her head and face and body, watched it rising, and she had said, "What are you gonna do? Drown me? Do it! Do it now, you cowards! You idiots ! You think I care about dying? You'll be doing me a fucking favor!"

Back then, a different Peeta, a Peeta who remembered, had been a little in awe of her bravery. She was using her anger as something that would help her.

Now, today, this new Peeta watches Johanna doggy paddling through the water. It's just high enough she can't stand, but low enough that he has perfect sight of her through the glass.

There's no shouting this time. Just desperate swimming. Every time she slows, they shock her. Every time they shock her, she screams.

Claudius Templesmith's voice booms into the training room. It scares him so badly, hearing that voice that he jumps, trying to stand, upending his chair, landing on his hand, and he's screaming, so he misses the announcement, and Claudius has to repeat it.

"Two tributes may leave if they are from the same district."

Someone comes to pick him up.

He and Johanna, screaming again as they shock her, are not from the same district. Only one of them would be going home. It wouldn't be him. Claudius Templesmith had told him so, last night.

After hours, or days, or minutes, Johanna passes out, and sinks to the bottom. The water begins to drain. Johanna wakes up, struggling, trying to get back to the top of the water, drawing water into her lungs in her panic.

The water drains quickly, and Johanna is soon on all fours, coughing, retching up water and thin, brown bile. She's crying. Two Peacekeepers enter her room and carry her away. The intercom in her room is still on, so he hears her pleading.

"No, please, please, leave me alone. I'm sorry, please."

She's speaking in a quiet mutter. They take her somewhere he can't see.

They're in a car on their way to the President's Mansion. He hates being there. It reminds him of the Victory Tour, and dancing with Katniss. It gives him the shivers. He also looks forward to it. They always feed him there. His stomach feels like it's being twisted by a ghostly hand. Last time he had eaten an entire cake, while they cut off parts of Darius. His guttural, rattling screams, and the creamy, delicious sweetness of the cake. He hadn't been able to stop eating, it had been so long since they had let him eat.

Then he had thrown it all up anyway, either because of all the sugar on an empty stomach, or because his stomach was twisting in knots while his head was forcibly turned toward Darius's torture.

Last night, perhaps to fortify him for the interview, they had given him moldy bread and cheese. He had picked off the mold and eaten what was left. He had gone to sleep feeling full, but had had terrible dreams.

His arms and shoulders hurt. After he had eaten, they had chained him to the ceiling again. He could sit on his bed, but just barely. He had woken in agony a few times, his arms and shoulders stretched beyond endurance. He had sobbed with pained relief when they had unshackled him.

They reach the Mansion. The three Peacekeepers in the car with him hop out, and walk either side of him through the main entrance.

They take him to the President's formal sitting room, still set up for the interview from his first few days in the Capitol. When he had slept in his old room in the Training Center with Portia and his prep team. They had disappeared not long after that first interview. He assumed they were dead.

He walks with the Peacekeepers to a sideboard loaded high with food. His arms and shoulders ache so badly he's shaking. One of the Peacekeepers makes him up a plate of eggs, sausage, and rolls in the shape of roses, and they sit together, almost away from everyone else. No one gets tortured, but Caesar Flickerman comes in and out of the room. Maybe it's because of his strong association of Caesar with the Games that makes him feel weak and queasy every time he catches sight of him. Peeta wishes he would stop coming into the sitting room.

Peeta finishes his plate, and one of the servants takes it away. Caesar comes back into the room. They sit side by side, while the President's own prep team does their hair and makeup.

Before they sit down, Caesar whispers in his ear, "Do a good job, and your stylist and prep team will live."

Peeta nods.

They sit in their chairs and begin.

Later, back at the Training Center, he's asleep, and dreaming. Or, he's awake, and watching a screen. Or, he's gone completely insane.

His heart is pounding. His hands are sweating. His whole body is trembling with fear and anticipation of some dreadful event.

He's by the river. Cato has stabbed him with a sword, and he's slowly dying. Then Katniss appears. At first, he's happy. She has come to save him! She heard Claudius Templesmith's rule change, and now, he won't die alone.

Katniss helps him out of his pile of mud and riverside plants, and drags him to the river. It's very cold. Next, she'll wash him off, and get embarrassed when she undresses him.

Instead, she takes out her knife and cuts at the wound in his thigh. It's agony. He blacks out. When he comes to, seconds later, Katniss is eating a flapping, bloody strip of the flesh from his thigh. Her eyes are closed in bliss, her lips covered in his blood.

"Mm, Peeta, it tastes so good. I know we should take it slow, but," she puts the knife back to the thigh wound, "I don't think I can."