I don't sleep at all that night. I just lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling. The rain starts up again in the early hours of the morning, and I just let my mind focus on the sound of it hitting my roof and nothing else. I see the blank canvas make its way in front of my eyes again. The raindrops make splotches on it like tears, but other than that it's empty. I feel very, very empty.
When I go downstairs for breakfast in the morning, I hold onto the hope that Peeta will come, but he doesn't. Haymitch stops by, but when he realizes Peeta isn't here he looks at me and I nod, and he quickly turns to leave. Peeta needs him much more right now. He shouldn't be alone, but he doesn't want to be with me.
I'm not sure which of his emotions is plaguing him most: if it's the embarrassment of me seeing him in a moment of what he sees as weakness, if it's the guilt that he couldn't keep up his facade of strength and steadiness for my benefit, if it's the fear that he might have hurt me and could hurt me at any moment. I don't think he needs to worry about any of these things, but I know that he does.
I spend the rest of the day alone for the most part. Sae comes with her granddaughter to cook me dinner. I think I chat with them somewhat, but I honestly don't even really register what I'm saying. They leave me be, and I barely touch my food. I just stare out the window at Peeta's house, wondering how he's doing. I see Haymitch cross back and forth between his house and Peeta's a couple times. He looks alright, so I know Peeta can't be doing too badly, but that's about all I can discern.
That night I lay on my couch, not having the energy to carry myself up the stairs and into bed. As I close my eyes, I see nothing but blank canvas. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
When I wake up the next morning, I'm screaming. I'm not even sure why, I can't remember what happened in my nightmare, but I feel awful and frazzled. I sit on the couch for about an hour or so. I can vaguely tell it's morning, but I don't have a sense of what time it is. It hasn't stopped raining, and the sky is too grey and cloudy for me to track the sun. Eventually I realize it must be breakfast time, but no one arrives at my door.
Things carry on like this for two, three, four days. I sit alone, only visited by Sae. My days are filled with numbness, and my dreams are dotted with fear. The nightmares seem to be getting worse and worse the longer I'm alone. The rain doesn't stop, and now the sound has gone from pleasant white noise to a massive droning in my head. I don't shower or change clothes.
At the end of the fourth day like this, I make my way slowly up to my bedroom, my muscles stiff from lack of use. I crack my window open slightly, not caring if a bit of rain gets in. I just want to feel some part of Peeta's presence with me, and I know he can't sleep unless he gets fresh air in through the window. Some part of my brain is hoping recreating his habits will ward off the nightmares, as if he's here with me, but I know it's delusional. I crawl into bed and prepare myself for the worst.
In sleep, I find myself back in an Arena. It's a strange variant on the Arena from the Quarter Quell; the clock structure and beach appear to be the same, but the sky is green and bright patches of light keep appearing and disappearing around me with no discernible cause. I'm looking for Peeta, desperately looking, but I can't find him anywhere. I don't know what's happening, but I know that it's absolutely imperative that I find him as soon as I can.
The flashes of light keep appearing, and I'm startled when the female Morphling comes out of one of the flashes. She's painted entirely in the golden light, and she lunges at something I can't see. A knife hits her head and she collapses. I whirl around, panicked. I don't know where that came from. Suddenly I see Brutus charge at me. I take off running, but he's gaining on me impossibly fast. Johanna appears, and she hits him with an axe. He doesn't fall, he's not dead, but his arm is cut off and he's screaming in pain.
"Go," Johanna says, looking at me with an imploring look in her eyes. "Go, now. You have to find Peeta. Get him out of here. Go." I nod at her and take off running, but not before I see a flash of light hit her. She's on fire now. Wait, is it fire or water? I don't know what it is, it doesn't look normal. But she's screaming.
"JOHANNA!" I yell, but it's like there's a wall between us and I can't get back to her. I run around the perimeter of the lake, searching frantically for Peeta. I don't know what's happening here, but something about this beach is filled with horrors and I need to get him out of here as soon as I can.
"Peeta!" I call out as I search. "Peeta!" That's when I hear a moan, and I bend down to try and identify its source. I finally see him, camouflaged in the sand, just like I found him on the river bank in our first Games. Something is deeply, deeply wrong. I look at him and see that there is a gaping hole where his stomach should be. It goes all the way through, like his insides have been cut out.
"PEETA!" I shriek, grabbing his head in my hands. "PEETA!"
"Katniss," he mumbles. "I wanted to save you. I'm sorry."
"Peeta," I repeat, sobbing now. I don't know what to do. I should have saved him. I should have saved him. Why can't I save him?
I wake up, sobbing and screaming. My body is convulsing with fear and I am racked with sobs. I can't stop. I can't escape. At this point, I'm desperately trying to conjure up the blank canvas, as numbness would be vastly preferable to whatever this hell is, but when I think of the canvas it's filled with green and those strange golden lights that only bring torture and death. I try to calm myself down and steady my breathing, but I can't. I just continue to sob. I rip part of my pillow case in an effort to ground myself, but nothing is working. I'm losing it, losing myself and my grip on reality. I don't know what's happening. All I know is that I am so, so scared.
I need to find Peeta. That's the one thing I knew in the dream, and I know it here too. I need Peeta. At this point I don't care that he doesn't want to be alone with me. I can't care. I just need him more desperately than I've needed anything in my life. I stumble out of bed and down the stairs. I don't even grab shoes or a jacket for the rain before I head to the door. I open it and feel myself jolt back when I see that Peeta is standing right in front of me. His arm is outstretched like he was just about to grab the knob when I opened the door from the inside.
"I heard you," he says. "The window was open. You were screaming, I think sometimes it was my name. I think you would feel better after bad dreams when I'd come comfort you. Real or not real?"
"Real," I say, and I throw myself into his arms. He is drenched from the rain and I do not care. I stay in his arms for several minutes before I pull him inside my house. We both collapse onto the couch. He wraps me in his arms and I start sobbing again.
"Tell me what you saw," he says, running his fingers through my hair soothingly.
"I don't even know what it was," I say, tears flowing. "We were in the Quell Arena, but it was wrong. The sky was green, there were these weird flashes of light. Some of the tributes were there; the Morphling, Johanna, Brutus. I could never get a grip on what was happening, all I knew was that I needed to find you, and that everything around us was trying to stop that from happening. Johanna tried to help, but then she couldn't. She was hurt, she was screaming. I couldn't help her, but I wanted to help you. I found you, but then you were cut open, and empty, and I couldn't save you, and, and," my speech just devolves into sobs. Peeta wraps me tighter in his arms and sushes me gently.
"It's ok," he says. "It's ok." Eventually, after a long amount of time in his embrace, my breathing begins to steady.
"I'm sorry," I say, sniffling.
"No, I'm sorry Katniss," he says. "I was scared I'd hurt you, so I isolated you. That was so stupid. I should have known better than that."
"Shut up," I say through more tears. "I don't want you to keep beating yourself up over me."
"What do you want, Katniss?" Peeta asks, his voice quiet and somewhat sad. "I want to do whatever you want, but I can't seem to figure out what that is anymore. They confused so much of you for me. Help me understand what you want, please." There is no anger or resentment in his voice. He is completely genuine. That's when I realize that he has tears in his eyes too. He wants to understand so badly, he wants to get past whatever they put in his head and figure me out like he used to be able to
"I don't know what I want," I say, truthfully. "But I don't want you to stop holding me." He pulls me back into his arms and I return his embrace.
"I don't sleep without you," I confess into his shoulder.
"Me neither," he admits. "My nights have been bad recently. I usually just give up and go to paint after a couple hours"
"Come back," I ask him, begging slightly. "We used to sleep in the same cabin on the train. It was the only way either of us could manage. I need you again. Please. Stay with me?" I look into his eyes and I can tell he's scared. He doesn't want to lash out at me in his sleep or wake up confused and end up hurting me. But he knows what I need, and he knows that he needs it to.
"Always," he says. We stretch out on the couch, me still in his arms, and eventually drift off to sleep. It's the first time in ages that I've felt any sort of peace in resting. His arms are again the respite, the stability for me that they once were. I realize just how much I need him in my life, and how grateful I am to have him back.