Fire cascades down the walls, running like a fluid across the floor and up the doorway to lick across the ceiling. The roar of the flames, the crackle and pop as I'm devoured, endlessly, echoes in my head. I scream and scream, my flesh melting from my bones as I run toward my home. They are burning.
I jolt awake, my scream still ringing in my ears. I'm bound at ankle and wrist, chest and hip. Strapped to the table where I've seen so many before me endure the questions of our captors. The wall before me is glass, tormentors in rumpled uniforms stare through at me with rapt curiosity. Sometimes their heads bubble misshapenly, or the glass glimmers in rainbow waves. My eyes cannot be trusted.
The man who works with Dr. Lichten enters the room to prod and poke, peel back my eyelids and make clucking sounds and notes on his clipboard. Sometimes he has an extra eye. My own eyes dart frantically around the room as it wavers between jungle, white walls, and flaming hell. Sandy and dry, my throat is no longer mine to command, making no sounds except squeaking rasps. He notices and holds a straw to my cracked lips but I flinch away as he looms monstrously large, the tentacle from his hand replacing the straw.
"How is he?" Dr. Lichten's voice crashes in crystalline splinters through the room.
"Completely out of it," the other man mutters, human again. "He woke finally, but his pupils won't contract and he can't speak. I think he's still hallucinating. Look at him though, I think he can hear us."
"Hmmm, yes," the doctor agrees. "That dose was quite heavy. But after that colossal disaster, we need to pick up progress immediately. President Snow is furious the principal emotion was retained in such extreme circumstances. We should be past that by now!" His voice rises in frustration and he slams his fist down on the table in front of him.
With a click like a whirring clockwork the image snaps clearly into my mind. The vision of Katniss standing amongst rubble and ash. Behind her, the table. The brick bench where I've spent countless hours next to my father, pounding at elastic dough or bent close over a piping tip. "There's no one left to hear you."
The scream uncoils from the base of my spine and boils up through my chest to burst from my throat in a keening wail of despair, echoing against the cold white walls and bouncing back to pummel me in waves of anguish. A mad scramble of activity, a blur of movement, and the cold sting of a needle below my ear. Dark iciness floods my veins, pulling me away from the sharp awareness that has cut through the fog of terror and confusion. As I spiral down away from the light, my howl of desolation follows me. My home. My family is gone.
In the gray emptiness, the dull ache of my ravaged skin tugs at my attention until I have to respond. My wrists throb, raw against the biting restraints where I've been pulling until my chest and arms burn with the effort. Sandy, burning eyes and sharp, sandpaper tongue are next to complain until I'm heaved from the dark tide of sleep to sprawl splinteringly awake.
"Finally." The low mutter of the doctor's frustration pulls my eyes sideways, the rest of my body immobilized and straining.
"What happened?" I plead desperately. "Was that real? Was Katniss at my house? Where's my family?" The questions tumble over one another, cracked despair forced from my raw throat.
"He seems to have flushed most of it out," Dr. Lichten notes absently to his assistant. "The sedative lasted longer than I anticipated, perhaps a reaction with the venom?"
"Answer me!" I roar, bucking against the restraints and muscles trembling with the effort.
The doctor turns to me and meets my frantic gaze calmly, lips pursed as though deciding if he wants to share what he knows. I pull my breath in a ragged, heaving gasp and rub my wrists against the metal, focusing on the sharp pain to calm my panic. I try to look controlled and lucid, try to concentrate on what he is about to say.
"Peeta," he begins. His voice is gentle, but his eyes are calculating, watching me to note my reaction to his news. "I'm very sorry to have to tell you this. Katniss had gone to District 12 looking for you. She didn't find you there, and in retribution, she burned the entire district to the ground."
My mind slips and stutters, trying to process what he said. I saw her, surrounded by the rubble of incineration. But my eyes cannot be trusted. I squeeze them shut against the pounding terror and try to think. I can't think. I can't remember correctly, can't piece things together right. I didn't get out of here in time, didn't warn them she was coming. She burned them looking for me. I see her, soaring on blazing wings, flaming arrows laying waste below as she slavers for death and destruction. But my eyes cannot be trusted.
"Peeta?" Dr. Lichten prods cautiously. "Did you hear me?"
I ignore him, every muscle clenched in the effort to hold myself together, to keep from flying apart in the empty despair ripping through the center of me. This happened because of me.
Dr. Lichten's voice is low and cautious, and not addressing me. "Ok, try the new one," he murmurs. I feel the cold pinch of a needle in my shoulder and fire races through my veins, my jaw spasming tight and my neck straining against the straps. My muscles turn to stone in the wake of the burning flame coursing through my blood. Eyes rolling desperately, tendons bulging in my neck, fingers splayed, my scream freezes in my throat as I burn from the inside out.
"Doctor, are you sure?" The assistant's voice is worried, his words ringing inside my head where sounds are vibrant colors and sharp edged echoes.
"We're out of time. We can't risk him relapsing again." Black tinged threats from Lichten. "This won't be as clean, but once he's completed the objective, it doesn't really matter what happens to him afterward, right?"
Dark purple and gray streaked orange throb behind my eyes. A sickly yellow and brownish green blur together, sparkling and pulsing. In the center of my vision, a black whorl spins endlessly toward me, threatening to swallow me into its crushing depths. Another sting in my shoulder and waves of panic begin to rise from deep in my belly. Overwhelming fear. Crashing, clawing, screaming desperation. My frozen body cries out to flee, the agony of terror turning my insides to an icy pit.
The screen pops to life in front of me. Flashing across the view is frame after frame of horror. Burning, tearing, gashing, clawing. Women, men, children, animals. War, accidents, injuries, battles. And every few frames, her. She stands coldly detached, surveying the chaotic madness with a satisfied smile, her ravenous hunger finally sated. District 12 fills the screen, a smoking ruin, my home smoldering in the foreground. Katniss, fiery wings folded behind her, holds out her hand to me. Her storm gray eyes meet mine, clear and strong.
A tearing sensation, deep in my mind. With a guttural scream that starts in my belly, blackness surges up my throat and gushes behind my eyes, oozing and twining its way into my brain until it invades and claims everything that I am and finally, despairingly, I slip unresisting into its embrace.
kill her kill her kill her The whisper echoes in the cold, white room where I wake. My body is sluggish and unresponsive, heavy and aching. burn burn burn burn I force my head to the side, where is it coming from? I'm alone, shackled to the wall, but lying on my side on the floor. she's coming My body jerks and heaves, fear flooding my belly and working out to my trembling hands. The chains clank and rattle, my head splitting with the jangling noise. Then, the piercing beeps of the keypad and the door opens to reveal the assistant to Dr. Lichten. He stares at me intently, is he afraid?
Stepping inside, he pulls the door almost closed behind himself and crouches out of reach. It's unusual to see him alone, no guards or assistants. careful watch out don't trust I twitch my head, trying to ignore the hissing whisper.
"Hello, Peeta," he says, his voice hesitant and his eyes watchful. "How are you feeling?"
I pull myself upright, keeping him in my sight the whole time. "Who's talking to me?" I ask, my voice a crackling wheeze.
He looks unhappy. "It's me, Peeta. You remember. I'm Tihen, I work with Dr. Lichten."
"No, no, no," my head shakes rapidly back and forth. "I mean the other one. Before you came."
He watches me carefully, calculating. "Just now? When you woke? Was someone talking to you then?" he asks.
hurt him choke him rip him The whisper snarls and commands, my mind begins to pinwheel, control of my thoughts slipping from my grasp. "It's there," I murmur. "Do you hear it?" My eyes lift to his and I feel the corners of my mouth rise in a cold smile. "It wants me to hurt you."
His eyes widen and dart to the shackles, but then, is he sad? Is it regret in his dark stare? "Peeta," his voice is low and urgent. "You have to fight it." He leans toward me, close enough for me to grab him. do it I shudder and shake my head, listening to both is making my head ache. "These aren't your thoughts. You've been given an assignment but you mustn't do it. You have to find yourself. You have to remember."
burn burn burn tear rip claw I can't hear what he's saying, can't make sense of his words. The whisper is a shriek in my head, the hiss drowning out my thoughts and making it impossible to concentrate. I squeeze my eyes shut and clamp my hands over my ears.
"No, Peeta, please," he reaches for my wrist, but I snarl and snap and he backs away immediately, hands raised. "We have no time," he hisses desperately. "Listen, you have to find a way back. You have to remember what's real. None of this is real. None of this is – " The shot is a cracking echo and I jerk my head up to see him arch backward, hands clutching at his throat as he collapses to quiver and bleed and gasp before his hands fall away and he lies silently, blood spreading in a wide, glimmering pool around him. done done done
Dr. Lichten steps forward quickly, the smoking pistol tossed aside, and uncuffs my unresisting wrists from the wall. He stares at me a moment, as though deciding, then smirks.
"As ready as you'll ever be," he shrugs.
kill kill kill kill kill kill kill A guard scoops up the body and moves quietly away.Lichten steps back into the hallway and swings the door shut again. The keypad beeps and in a moment, I hear the scrape at the end of the hall and they are gone. I huddle against the wall, eyes wide and heart racing, alone, except for the whisper.
It's been hours, days, years. Alone, except for the constant hum, the buzz and call, the command. find her I can relegate it to the background, can think of other things, but I can't banish it completely. I don't know what happened, don't know what's happening now, but something is different. They've stopped feeding us, stopped beating us, stopped paying any attention to us at all. I don't know what Tihen meant, that this isn't real, but I try desperately to figure out what I know for sure either way, grasping frantically at the fragile shreds of certainty.
My name is Peeta Mellark. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I was taken prisoner. Katniss Everdeen is trying to kill me.
It's a short list, worryingly so. But I cannot trust my eyes, my memories, my thoughts. The only other thing I know for sure is that I will escape, and I will kill Katniss.
Clutching my hands in my hair, I breathe deeply, trying to quiet the whisper. I've grown used to it, but the bile sets my nerves on edge. The constant hiss for violence and blood and – the room shudders to a muffled concussion. I throw my hands against the wall behind me as dust sifts down from the ceiling. A detonation? Far away, but powerful. I'm suddenly very aware of how much earth is piled over my underground cell. The claustrophobic tension sends the whisper into a shrieking frenzy and I begin to rock back and forth, grating a high pitched moan through my teeth.
I hear a clatter and a hiss, like a gas leak. A faint odor, almost like eggs or rotten vegetables. My eyes begin to lose focus and my head swims, my thoughts chasing each other uselessly. Weakly, I lift my collar over my mouth and nose, trying to filter the air, but I can tell it's too late. My bones are sand and I slide limply to the floor.
An enormous blast. In a squealing crumple, the door crinkles inward, the hinges hanging uselessly. A gigantic figure fills the doorway, a mask covering the face, but crouching down to reach for me. Through the visor, familiar gray eyes meet my own, and the depths of horror and sadness reflected there swim blearily through my awareness, unexpected. Swirling darkness pulls at me as I'm lifted, cradled protectively, carried through the door to the hallway as the lights cut out. I force my lips to obey me before consciousness fades.
"Johanna," I mutter in a cracked whisper.
"We got her," Gale's voice is gentle. The darkness takes me.