Chapter 6

I left Peeta with the food and told him I would come back in the morning. When I had entered my own house, however, all I wanted to do was crawl onto the couch and find my nothingness.

I woke up several times screaming into the darkness around me. I saw fragments of horror: my sister arm, drenched in blood; Rue's lifeless eyes; a thousand sick and wounded on a hospital floor. My body trembled and I clung to myself for support.

I was underground in District 13, at one point, and the lights had gone out, I couldn't get to the surface. I was buried alive. There was no air.

All at once I needed out of the house. I needed the forest. I needed fresh air, and green living things around me.

It was pre-dawn and I grabbed my coat on my way out the door.

I walked until I came to the place the fence had once been. They had since taken it down and the demarcation was now no more than a step. Someone who did not know District 12 before would not know where the meadow ended and the forest started. I knew.

I hadn't been here since returning to 12. I look off my shoes and let my soles feel the earth here. The dirt was different. Everything was different. This place had helped me survive. The forest was an old friend. One that loved me still, but one that carried tragedy in its own right.

I walked with no direction for at least a mile. I circled around trees I'd climbed innumerable times, and glanced longingly at boughs I had hung traps from. Only it hadn't been just me. There was Gale too.

I hadn't thought of Gale in ages. I think I tended to mourn him as though he had died whenever he did appear in my consciousness. Gale and my mother were alive, but gone; gone forever. Gale was no longer the same, and so it seemed only fair to mourn the pre-Hunger Games Gale, who no longer existed.

The dew of the morning tickled my toes and the dirt caked on heavily. I sat for a long time on a felled tree and studied my surroundings. I let my eyes fall on the world the way it had once so long ago. I could see everything. I saw the movements; saw the subtle change of life as it grew around me. Small prey began zipping this way and that across the forest floor, through the brush, up and down the trees. I suddenly wished I had my bow, that I could focus my energy on this task.

Instead, I watched and waited. I breathed quietly. I stilled myself to the point of pain. My eyes the only thing about me that moved.

When the sun had completely risen and the light fell full and bright through the leaves I stood and stretched. I walked to a berry bush close by and gorged myself. I filled my coat with the berries and walked back the way I'd come, trying to track my own trail back through to the meadow.

I was exhausted upon reaching the Victor's Village, but felt that strange tug in the direction of Peeta's house. I knocked softly on the door. There was no answer.

I found the door unlocked. The light from the outside streamed into the front room on my opening it. Peeta lay there, in a pile of broken glass, small cuts on his arms and hands, unconscious.

I set my full coat on the ground and tiptoed through the debris. Then, in much the same way that I had tapped Peeta as he lay asleep in the grass, I attempted to rouse my neighbor.

The nudges were unsuccessful. I could see him breathing. But no other signs of life were visible.

I walked cautiously into his kitchen and saw the dinner I had brought untouched on the table. I scowled angrily at the food for a few moments.

I refocused my efforts at the task at hand and found a stowed broom and went to work on the glass, sweeping away from the unmoving body in the middle of the wreckage. That task completed, I went in search of a clean hand towel. Another kitchen find.

Kneeling down next to my injured neighbor I went to work removing glass shards from his skin and then applying as much pressure as I was able to stanch the red seeping from him. I struggled to disassociate the red pools from the person in front of me. I tried to remember the precision with which I had once gutted and cleaned my prey.

Once all the bleeding had stopped, I needed a needle and thread for a cut on his shoulder that had done more damage than the rest. I walked over to my house and collected the materials. I started a fire at Peeta's and sterilized my needle. I laced the thread and tied a knot to secure it.

Borrowing the remains of a liquor bottle on the counter, I cleaned the wound. This woke the sleeping man with a start.

"Ouch!" He shouted and sat up too fast.

He had to brace his spinning head with his hands to steady himself and shut his eyes tight against the dazzling light.

"Peeta" I said, in my most soothing voice. "Peeta, I need to stitch up your shoulder."

He slowly turned his head in my direction. His eyes were blood shot and unfocused.

"Haymitch is far too clever" Peeta replied.

"What?" I questioned.

"What time is it?" He asked, disregarding my confusion.

"Mid-morning."

Only at this point did Peeta look down at the trail of scratches and cuts down his arms.

"Shit." The word was said with a type of reverence, like he was surprised and satisfied with the injury he'd inflicted on himself. He then laid himself back to the floor.

Perplexed I steadied the needle between my fingers in one hand and held his skin in place with the other.

"You stick out you tongue when you're focused. You used to do that all the time." Peeta said gazing up at me, his words slow and lazy.

I blinked, registering his words and closed me mouth; my lips a straight line.

"Don't be mad," He slurred. I could feel his eyes on me, waiting for me to glance back at him. I couldn't do that. This Peeta was not my Peeta and I felt a heavy heart.

He didn't seem to notice the piercing of his skin; perhaps he was still numb from the alcohol.

When I had finished, I looked carefully at my work. It was clean, even, and well approximated. I thought of my little sister and wondered if she might be proud. I hoped she would be.

"You should eat." It was strange how our roles had reversed.

"Okay." He replied languidly.

"I found some berries." I paused, "don't worry, they're not the kind you found in the games" I smirked at him.

He chuckled with his entire body.

Managing himself into a seated position took just a moment. I returned to the kitchen for bread, Peeta's stockpile still in surplus, but growing harder by the day. I pulled out my collection of berries and I handed over a slice of bread and berries to my neighbor.

Once the sustenance was in his hand, Peeta glowered at it and declared, "I'm not really hungry." Then he got to his feet, staggered into the kitchen and removed the cap of a fresh bottle of liquor.

I stared aghast.

I worked my way over to him and grabbed the bottle from his grasp. I was still weak, but he was unsteady and already shaking badly. I was able to pull the glass from his fist and place it firmly behind my back.

"Peeta" my voice implored sadly.

"Thanks kindly for the stitches, but I think I've got it from here." He retorted sharply reaching for the bottle.

I may have had the upper hand initially, but Peeta was bigger and stronger than me. I attempted briefly to resist, but it was futile. Peeta had the bottle back quickly.

"At least eat something," I pleaded, looking at him directly.

He seemed to consider his options for a moment. He took a swig from the neck of the bottle and locked eyes with me.

"Alright."

END CHAPTER