The wind is cold and stings my face, but I'm hardly paying attention to it. All I see is the muddy wet ground, occupied by a lifeless body with no face, because of me. Jackson. I can only recognise him by the blonde hair and the way his face lay on the rock, slanted and mangled. I bring my hands up to my face and stare at them. They're covered in blood, not mine but his and it's all over me. I try wiping it away but it just keeps coming back, each time it's more and more.

I hear rustling in the tree's beside me, somebody is running towards me, possibly away from something or someone. I jump up off of my position on the ground the second I see the silohette of a woman in the shadows, ready to turn and flee but something stops me. I know the woman, I know it, and when she speaks to me her voice stirs something deep inside me. Anger? Worry? I can't place it.

"We gotta go, now!" The woman says in a hurry and beckons me towards her.

I want to question her, but I realise I'm not in control here. Without a word I follow her, quicker and quicker until we're practically running through the tree's away from the unknown. For a very brief moment the moon light flickers through the trees, bringing a small share of light to this nightmare. In that moment I see the womans face as she stops, turns to me to tell me to hurry and then starts running again.

"Johanna?" My heart races as I follow her once more.

As I'm running, dodging trees and trying not to loose my footing, I shout out to her again but she doesn't stop running. If anything she seems to get faster to a point it almost feels like she's running away from me. I barely manage to keep up with her, but eventually she leads me out onto a field with nothing more then a tunnel that goes underground placed in the centre. I freeze up when I reach the tunnels mouth, the familiar smell of rot and decay brings back painful memories of beatings and cell walls. I see Johanna - though hardly - walking through the tunnel, mindful of where she steps. She reaches the end of the tunnel and just as the light seeps through the opening door I rememeber where it leads.

"No! Don't go in there!" I yell as loud as I can but again she doesn't listen to me.

I force myself into the tunnel, running through it as fast as possible, slipping on the bones and blood that paint the ground. I reach her too late, as the door closes on my face as I reach the end of the tunnel. I tug and pull with all my strength but the door isn't budging. I kick it and ram and still nothing moves it. I refuse to give in and continue to try everything in my arsenal to get the damn door open, but it all turns out to be futile. The door opens on its own from the otherside and no matter the fear I feel in my heart I charge inside. There awaits me the man who fills my every nightmare including this one, the man who loves to remind me what he did to me even when he is incapable of touching me again. Thread.

The smile that settles onto his face is terrifying as I take a step closer, but I won't let him intimidate me when it's HER life on the line.

"Where is she?" I demand from him, grinding my teeth furiously.

He doesn't answer further fuelling my rage.

"Where is she?" I step ever closer and wrap my hands around his neck.

Thread laughs at me and then fades to dust in my hands. A moment later I spot him wandering down the hall, twirling his whip around between his fingers as he whistles a less than delightful tune. I take chase after him without further debate, the will to find and protect Johanna from that monster of a man outweighs any fear I have of meeting my end in his hands. He turns a corner and leads me to a cell with glass walls, only he's on the opposite side standing over Johanna who is out cold, and I can't reach him.

His smile continues to haunt through me as he uncoils his whip and raises it high in the air. I swear his eyes start turning red as he brings the whip crashing down, again and again and again, all the while I can do nothing but stand at the glass banging and screaming away at him to stop hurting her.

I wake up with cold sweat dripping off of me like a waterfall and panting like a wounded animal. It takes me a while to notice where I am, to remind myself that it was just a nightmare and it isn't real, despite how it felt. Then I remember it is real, I'm just not there to help them. I let my head fall into my hands and I try to think of something else, anything else,
but all I see that face smiling at me like the devil himself.

Tearing the covers off of me I throw my feet over the bed and onto the floor. Hanson is sat up in his bed staring at me,
looking confused and worried all the same.

"You okay man?" He asks, taking a position similar to mine.

I shake my head. "No. I'm not."

I don't elaborate further for him, instead I head to the bathroom and splash some water over my face. The silence leads to me thinking again, this time not about the dream but what is probably really happening in the hell beneath the tribute centre in the Capitol right now. I'm not there but I can hear their screams, their pleads for help and it scares me as much as it angers me. If I knew I could get away with it I'd steal myself a damn hovercraft and fly to the Capitol to help them myself; Johanna, Peeta and now Annie Cresta - the woman Finnick Odair loves - who was captured not long after he arrived here in Thirteen with Katniss Everdeen. You can be damn sure nobody who is actually in a position to rescue them is in any hurry, and yes I mean Coin. If anything she talks about them like they're already dead, it's always "they're sacrifice" or "they'll be remembered" with her. It's annoying and it's slowly driving me crazy to think she just wants them to die for the cause.

I know I'm not the only one here feeling like this now though. I'm not the only one who would finally fly off the handle should anything actually happen to any of them that were captured. Katniss was only recently released from the hospital as I hear it, they finally thought she was mentally stable enough to be introduced to Coin and the Mockingjay idea, though she refused because Coin refused to go back for Peeta. Good on her I say, I wouldn't get away with such a thing but she can get away with murder down here. I also heard that Finnick was in the hospital, apparently he had a breakdown once he heard about Annie. I can relate to the guy, though they didn't stick me in a gown and keep me on constant serveilance.
Not yet anyway.

Unable to clear my mind by staying in my room I decide to get dressed and head out to the armory to do some work, it may help me. Or not as the case may be. I tried to clear my head of those images and sounds, but since the armory is so empty and silent all they do is get more frequent. I'm loosing my damn mind and there isn't a thing I can do about it. I could go to the hospital and talk it out with one of the doctors, but from my time with them when I first arrived in Thirteen I know they don't do much but tell you not worry or that you're in no danger at all.

I grab some weapons from the racks that need adjusting and work away, making as much noise as I possibly can whenever the thoughts crept back up even slightly, it works for a while, I get so distracted by the noise everything else kind of just fizzles away. When everyone starts piling into the armory by the boatload there's no reason for me to keep clanging and battering everything I get my hands on. They made good timing too, I'm pretty sure I broke something a moment ago. With the comforting sounds of people chatting away, I work away with a mostly clear head and try to look like I'm supposed to be here right now, though odds are I'm probably supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms as a punishment.

"There you are. I started to worry when I couldn't find you in the mess hall." Cressida throws her gear down onto the ground and pulls out a pistol, which she instantly gets to work on.

I don't reply to her, instead I point my head down and continue to fumble about with the tools in my hands. Cressida is staring at me for a long while, I can feel it, but I still don't move or even acknowledge her standing there. I don't want to have to explain myself and my constant absence for breakfast or lunch, or that because I'm barely getting any sleep at night I just don't feel like sitting around a table and conversing with her or the guys. I'm a real mood killer lately, trust me.

"Is everything okay?" Cressida stops me from working and forces me to look up.

I pull my hands away from hers and grab another gun. "Fine. I'm just not sleeping too good."

Well I've not slept well since the Hunger Games, not really. But the nightmares - the gruelling, torturing nightmares that still play out in my mind like a movie during the day - were never this constant before. Sometimes I daren't even close my eyes because I know what I'll see when I do and it scares me.

"Maybe the doctors at the hospital can give you something?" The second Cressida suggests it I frown, and I know she picks up on my disliking to thought of asking the doctors for help. "You need help Ethan, putting it off will only make things worse."

"I can manage."

"No you can't." Her voice holds a certain authoritive tone. It feels like I'm one of her camera crew being forced to follow orders. "We're worried about you, me and the guys. And if we really will be sent into battle soon we need you at your best. Odds are Coin won't even let you leave Thirteen if you aren't in the right place."

There's no argument there. Though Coin won't likely let me leave the district anyway. She hasn't called for me since my outburst and she hardly seems the forgiving woman. I think it's time I faced it, I had all the oppertunities to fight back laid out in front of me and I threw them all away in a matter of seconds. I'm angry at myself for that too, for loosing the Presidents respect. I might've been able to convince her that we needed all the victors and should rescue them at the earliest convenience. I'm deluding myself I know, but it's a thought that keeps circling my mind regardless.

"Please go to the hospital during your free time, ask them for help." Cressida says sincerely.

I don't know whether I mean it or not but I nod my head and agree just to put her mind at ease if nothing else. She seems happier by it and changes the conversation to something a little lighter. Her stories from the Capitol are quite something, especially the ones about some actor she once filmed a documentary on. He's terrible by all accounts - I've had the pleasure of watching one of his so called masterpieces - but he himself thinks he was blessed by God at birth and actually had the gall to call Cressida out for everything she was doing wrong. I don't think he liked it that much when she pointed out his flaws in return.

By the time she finishes telling the story lunch is called. Most of the people in the armoury instantly drop what they're carrying - no nukes thankfully - and rush to the jam packed corridor to get the mess hall the quickest. Cressida and I stay back to put everything away properly before heading in the general direction of the mess ourselves. On our way we discuss schedules, or rather hers since I had a rebellion of my own and didn't get mine this morning - still waiting on the earful or the bullet to the head. She's actually very enthuiastic about her job cleaning the bathrooms after lunch, making a few wry remarks on how she hopes the cooks don't have that duty before they go and make the grub. I never thought about that and now it's in my head I'm all the more sure I'm not going to eat anything. So when we meet up with the rest of the camera crew and they all grab trays of sludge and sit down I watch them with a small grin on my face, carefully sipping my cup of water as Mesalla and Castor shove spoonfuls of the stuff in their mouths.

We end up discussing what it's like back in District Seven once Castor has told me about the Capitol. It's surprising how enthralled they are by the thought of pretty much living in the woods, doing the same thing every day and always smelling like a pine tree. I tell them about my house, my friends and family, my boring job and the places I'd go to sneak off for a nap sometimes when I just downright couldn't be bothered with working. They look shocked when I tell them I was never caught, not by a peacekeeper anyway, but I soon realise it's not my incredible illusiveness that has them sitting there slack jawed. It's what's on the TV screens around the mess hall that has their undivided attention.

Caesar Flickerman, the man of the hour, and Peeta Mellark, the boy who is being held captive, calling for a cease fire. Oh the angry roars and harsh insults that fill the mess are almost deafening as Peeta is instantly branded a traitor.

Through all the uproar currently consuming the place it's fairly difficult to see the person who runs out of the mess with their head in their hands, but seeing as no one else knows and understands Peeta I'm assuming it was Katniss. It's strange, even though I haven't met her yet I actually want to chase after her and tell her it's going to be okay, to ignore these assholes who don't understand what the right amount of fear applied by the Capitol can do. It takes all I have to restrain myself from doing so, plus the sudden need to speak with Coin, regardless of what she'll think of me barging into her office.

I excuse myself from the others and head straight there, breaking out into a jog when I see Boggs heading down the corridor. He locks his eyes onto me and breaths out heavily, almost sighing as I reach him.

"I was just about to come looking for you." He says. "Coin wants to see you. Immediately."

"Lead the way." I gesture forward, forcing a smile off of Boggs.

Along the short distance to Coin's office I notice how the chaos in the mess isn't just confined there. Everybody across the District is losing their minds in rage, it has Boggs worried and Coin too by all acounts. As Boggs explains to me, it's bad that the Capitol are using Mellark as a means of propaganda to hurt us here in Thirteen. He's just as loved as Katniss, in some cases maybe more so, and he was always the voice of reason between the pair of them. If it looks like he's on the Capitols side then it makes us look like the bad guys, the villains. Basically we become Snow as long as Peeta is calling for a stop to the rebellions and Katniss is nowhere to be seen. We need her voice, it's the only one people will listen too more then his.

I feel rather anxious as we enter the office and Coin is sat waiting, staring at the door with her cold eyes. In my anger I got a little too close to doing something I would've have regretted, she sure as hell hasn't forgotten that. She smiles warmly as she stands to greet me, though there's a sense of dread that I still can't shake no matter the niceties. "Hello again Ethan."

"President Coin." I smile back, though I know she sees right through it. She knows I'm afraid of her. I get to what she's waiting for immediately, not daring to push my luck any further then I already have. "I wanted to apologise for my behavior. I realise now that you were right. Sending Plutarch back for the others - or any kind of rescue - would have ended our chances before they even began. I'm sorry, and I promise it won't ever happen again."

It kills me saying that to her because I know it will happen again if anything happens to Johanna. Coin knows that, she has too, though she makes no acknowledgment of it even if she does see through my bullshit.

Her smile feels more genuine as she invites me to sit beside her. "Apology accepted. I understand it was hard for you, you're only human after all, but I'm glad you see there was no way of reaching them in time."

I nod at her, hoping it's enough to seem convincing.

"I assume you saw the footage from the Capitol?" She asks.

I respond with a yes and Coin goes on to explain how even if they were to attempt a rescue on the victors Peeta has just made it considerably more difficult to pull off. It's no longer just a case of breaking into the Capitol, the minute they walk into the District people will want their heads, assuming all three of them are actually allies of the Capitol and turn cloaks to us. I get the feeling Coin is telling me this to see if I'll explode again, but in this case I actually agree with her. At the moment it'll be just as dangerous here for them as it is in the Capitol.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"We pacify the District first." She explains. "After that Plutarch and I will meet with Everdeen once more. I think seeing this little propaganda campaign is just enough fuel to ignite the fire."

We can only hope right.

"In the meantime, I want you to speak with Doctor Hamlin." President Coin looks at me knowingly. "After he's evaluated your condition we'll discuss your future."

"Of course ma'am." I bob my head respectifully and try to keep my curious mind from wondering exactly what she meant by my future.

"You're dismissed for now Ethan."

I get up out of the seat and head for the door, determined to get out of this office before I run my mouth and start asking questions. The way she said "you're future" sent chills up my spine, like she was promising me a rough road in the days to come. As much as I want to find out exactly what she meant I'm not stupid enough to risk it right now. I can wait until this doctor passes his evaluation on to her and then find out, for better or worse.

"Oh and Ethan." Coins voice calls me back. "No more skipping schedules. Or missing them entirely for that matter. The punishment is not something I'd want you to endure."

The smile on her face grows more unsettling by the second as I backstep out of the room.