Chapter 2

(Peeta)

Sleep wasn't on his side tonight, whether it was his awkward position or the worry over the world itself. He didn't know. He stared at the ceiling bathed by moonlight that came from the open window. They recommended having closed windows at all times, but he just liked the night sky and that chilly feeling the wind gave him. He had never been a rebellious boy but it reminded him of home, somehow.

He shifted in his hard and extremely uncomfortable mattress and observed the other people he had to share a room with. They were around eight in the room; he suspected half of them were also awake. He knew most people, some from school, some that came to buy to the bakery, some just faces that he had seen before, walking in town. He noticed before, that some of his new 'roommates' were alone and felt his heart clench in his chest because he knew. He knew they turned. Now they were probably deranged, heartless and hungry beings without any real purpose.

When he finally started to feel succumbed to slumber he heard small sobs coming from one small bulk at the corner of the room. He knew who it was. She cries every single night. And it doesn't change anything does it? He shifted under his blanket and tried to tune out her sobs. He thought he should try to comfort her; he was good at it, at talking to people. But he didn't know what to say in this situation.

Every night Peeta wonders how it happened. How suddenly humans turned into demented and rotting monsters. He just still couldn't wrap his head around it. He has heard people, heard what they say; the rumors, the theories. Many say it's a virus that came from the Capitol, but it makes no sense. The Hunger Games were in less than a month why would they want their soon-to-be-tributes to die? If anything they wouldn't have done it on purpose, he was sure of it. They were probably saving it for the games and then it got out of hand and now they are fucked. Which is somewhat ironic? At least I don't have to go through the reaping anymore he thought sourly. Or anyone. For a while at least.

The rumors that were discussed more often were:

That it was District 13 that released a toxic substance through the air or something like that, and they had apparently been developing it over the years to kill everyone from the Capitol. The only problem is that District 13 doesn't even exist anymore. He would think to himself.

President Snow trying to send the districts a message. He could also do that with a television transmission or?

A God above them trying to punish them. Right because that makes sense.

Secret rebels from every district trying to kill the president and finally free us from The Hunger Games. By turning us into undead creatures? What a great plan.

He also heard it was people from the sky trying to kill everyone in Panem because they wanted to take over. I don't think anyone would want Panem at all.

And he heard so many things he didn't know what to believe anymore, none of them truly made any sense. But what did nowadays? Many rumors went kind of too far, but people were so desperate to believe in something and to have an explanation to this chaos that they came up with this sort of stuff.

As he inspects his surroundings once more, he thinks about Katniss. The fact that she isn't there. He had wanted to go with the patrols to look for survivors, but they didn't let him. He knew she was a fighter and that she knew how to take care of herself, but this situation was kind of different than before. There are a bunch of meat eating things now, which are dead but alive somehow. And he wonders if she is still out there, if she survived. Their 'refuge' was the Justice Building; in the middle of town. There is no way she hadn't noticed it, maybe she just doesn't want to come. In any case he knows she is out there fighting. He wishes he could help her, but he can't and it makes him feel even more useless.

In that moment he hears the hinges of the old metal door complain as it's pushed open. Haymitch's head pops from behind the door and gestures him to go to him. He groans as he gets out of his hard and extremely uncomfortable mattress and follows him outside, trying not to make any noise.

"It's your brother again." Haymitch never beats around the bush.

"Good evening to you too." Peeta replies, his voice still drenched in sleep.

"He hit one of the cooking staff this afternoon. Apparently he was looking at him for too long." He explained.

"How are you doing Peeta? Well apart from the undead people running around and all I'm great thank you Haymitch, how about you?" He japed.

"Tell him to stop being a bitch." Haymitch insisted his voice clearly showing annoyance.

"Oh me too, I'm good Peeta." He said making his voice go lower.

"I should have given you to the biters."

Silence. Peeta sighed and gaped at Haymitch's grey and tired eyes.

"Why do you call them biters?" Peeta asked crossing his arms.

"Because they bite boy." Haymitch retorted. Peeta stared at him, the dim light making the wrinkles around his eyes more accentuated and the grey in his eyes darker.

"Yeah I figured that much out too." He mumbled.

"It's just a name, how they call them - did you even listen to what I said." Haymitch said his tone getting louder but still in a whisper, his patience clearly running out.

"What do you want me to tell him?" he emitted in a hush. What was he supposed to tell him? He knew people react to different things in different ways. This 'situation' had taken a toll on Ian the most. He seemed fine at first, and then he started losing himself in the past weeks. He started losing sleep, picking fights, screaming at people. He was slowly going mad.

His relationship with his brothers wasn't the best. It wasn't even good to begin with. Even if he told Ian to stop 'being a bitch' as Haymitch had so nicely put it, he would never listen to him and he would probably get beaten too. He was the younger brother; younger brothers don't get to tell older brothers what to do.

"What are you going to do?" the old victor asked him.

"I'm just going to talk to him, I guess." He answered flatly, not really giving it much thought.

He was thinking about his father. He did that a lot lately. He wondered, what we would think about this but thinking about his father also pained him. He wondered what he would think of them. He only wanted to make his parents proud. It had been all he wanted, when his mother told him he did something wrong he tried his best to fix it.

Haymitch nodded "If he continues like this, they might throw him out Peeta."

He never uses his name.

"I know." he responded quietly, his gaze on his bare feet. He wanted to fix Ian, but some things can't be fixed .And he was afraid Ian was one of them. When he looked at him, he saw nothing, his own blue eyes staring back at him but with no emotions, no feelings.

"I know you know." Haymitch said matter-of-factly. "I'm just telling you this so it can get in your head that he can't go on like this."

"What do I have to do with this? Why don't you go talk to him yourself?"

"I tried, but he didn't even let me talk. He is your it was you instead of him wouldn't he try to help you?"

No, Peeta thought grimly. "I don't know" he said instead.

Then Haymitch shoved his hand inside his old jacket, taking a small flask out of an inside pocket and sipping from it. And Peeta thought tonight he was sober.

"You can also let him get eaten by biters for all I care." He said as he walked away, chuckling. His voice resonating through the hallway as he stumbled towards the door, leaving him standing there, dumbfounded and cold.

Peeta returned to his 'room' and saw that one girl - Kadisha if he remembered correctly - was awake staring intensely out of the now-closed window. When she acknowledged him, she gave him a small nod and he nodded back. He wasn't sure what that nod was for but maybe it made her feel better, in some way.

He lay on his hard and extremely uncomfortable mattress again and tried to fix the pillow that was actually his jacket. He put both his hand behind his head and thought about what Haymitch told him. If they threw Ian out, he wouldn't have anywhere to go. He would be a meal for the 'biters'.

It actually felt good to give them a name other than 'them'. But he didn't want to be like the people here, so he refused to use it. It was dumb; he just didn't want to feel like they would change him. If the 'they' were the living or the dead, he wasn't so sure himself.

He didn't know what to do. Ian got himself into trouble, it wasn't his problem. He knew Ian got like that because of what happened. He sighed and remembered the day that he and his brothers met Haymitch. He kind of saved them. Kind of.

His brother stood in the doorway to their parents' bedroom, his sight transfixed on something inside. He called out to him when he saw him, though he gained no response. He crept closer, hesitantly tilting his head as he heard strange growling sounds coming from the room. He poked his head around the frame of the doorway to look inside. He felt his own heart stop for a second at what he saw. His father lying dead on the bed with what could only be described as a mangled creature over him, ripping at his insides and spooning the bits of flesh and organs into its snarling and bloody mouth. There was so much blood - his father's blood. Peeta felt his knees go weak. The blood was all over the bedroom, his dad's body barely recognisable other than his face and familiar blonde hair. His whole world went still at the sight in front of him. His father wasn't moving, his body was devoured by that beast. It couldn't be. His dad wasn't dead.

Upon their entrance, the creature looked up from its feeding and let out something resembling a growl towards them. Too shocked by it all, he and his brother did not move at all. In that moment the creature climbed off the body of their father and staggered towards the brothers. He didn't know what to do, he was so overwhelmed. Was his father really gone? No it couldn't be. But as his thoughts got cloudier the beast got closer and then they realized who it was.

"Mother?" Rye croaked out.

Everything happened in a blur. One moment, the thing that was their mom curled its hands around Rye's arm, ready to bite. He let out a strangled cry and the next moment her body lay on the floor; a whole in her head. Rye turned around and shouted "Ian!". During this scene never did Peeta's gaze move from the massacred scene.

"Come on Peet we have to go!" Ian screamed. Peeta felt numb everything felt senseless. His mother killed his dad, his brother killed their mom.

Ian dragged Peeta by the arm as the three of them ran outside to try and find some sort of shelter when they saw a dead person on their doorstep. It looked like their neighbour, the one that owned the flower shop, her long auburn hair sprawled on the floor .She was lying on her stomach, blood all around her body. The blood painting new red flowers on her already flowered sun dress. His brother Rye kneeled down next to her and tried to turn her around, Ian was already beginning to tell him not to, when suddenly she jumped at him and tried to bite his neck. (The second time that day they were trying to kill Rye; he was on a roll that day).

Suddenly her eyes went wide and her head slowly came off from the rest of her body. Someone had sliced her head off. They watched her head roll away and as her yellow sundress became bathed in blood. Her limbs were still slightly moving even after the head was detached from the rest of her body.

"Are you three fucking crazy? Do you want to get yourselves killed?" – and that was their first encounter with the delight that was Haymitch.

Everyone already knew him of course; he was the only victor from District 12. The old, drunk, hot-headed man that lived alone in the victor's village. Peeta always wondered what he was doing out of his home that day. He told them he was going to buy alcohol and was passing through the neighbourhood and heard the screams coming from their house. It made sense, but was still strange.

Peeta could not remember much of what happened after that, his mind overwhelmed and confused with the death of his parents and his neighbours and people he knew. However, He did remember when they were bustled into a peacekeeper truck quickly after they gathered as much people as they could. There was another guy helping them but he couldn't remember his name or his face for the matter.

Rye layered the silence and sobs in the truck with frantic questions about what just happened, while he remained silent next to his other brother and a woman he thought was the wife from the butcher. He wondered if he was dead now too. He hadn't really spoken much, only saying his name when Haymitch demanded it. He didn't have anything to say, he was at loss of words for the first time in his life.

After the other guy made introductions about how everything was going to work, Haymitch cut him in the middle of his introduction and told them what was happening. While Peeta had mostly tuned out - the image of his dead father being eaten by his mother still on his mind - he did catch some words, barely taking in the fact that all those rumors some people told had been right all along. He got something about a districtwide epidemic virus. The dead coming back to life or something. And that they should try to not get bitten.

He was still quite confused and lost.

"So, you are basically telling us that this is some sort of apocalypse?" Rye demanded breaking the silence that had swept between all of the people in that strange-smelling truck. You could taste the fear in the air and if you looked closely you could see it in everyone' eyes.

Haymitch's eyes met Rye's in his rearview mirror, he licked his lips as if he was tasting the question asked. He gave him a sour smirk that he had grown used to now.

"Something like that."

AN: Kind of short but I'll try to update sooner. I know Peeta is kind of OOC but he just didn't come out in any other way. Sorry bout that. Ideas and comments are always welcome.

Thank you for reading 3