Hunger Games – Turning Tables

I sat in the middle of my bed; legs sprawled, on top on the sheets, shivering. I made no effort to get comfortable; it wasn't the cold which had my bones rattling. I couldn't shake the feeling of cold inside me. Emptiness filled my chest and a pain, a feeling which I thought I had become accustomed to, ripped through me; though there were no signs externally of the torment I felt. I couldn't even cry; it had never helped me before. My chest convulsed as I tried to hold the dry sobs echoing around the room, reaching the ears of people in the rooms near mine. The last thing I wanted was company. I retch and choke on the air around me, suffocating in this god forsaken underground hell.

I didn't want this. If there was anything I could have prevented, it would have been this. Not for me but because back before all of this the one thing he wanted was to never forget himself. Damn it! He never deserved this. He had only ever done what was best for everyone else, for me. And now it was my fault, my involvement in his life and decisions that had led us to the worst place he could have ever imagined.

A sound escaped my throat, unlocking my lips, tearing through my chest. I expect it sounded like a defeated animal's last plea, in desperation, to live. The deafening silence of blood in my ears prevented me from ever knowing.

Everything I once had was gone. Smashed, dispersed like shattered glass across the floor. My life as I once knew it, my home, was gone. There was no way to go back from here. There hadn't been a way back or out for a long time now. I tried to think of a time in my life where I had felt safe, to recall a time without such a burden to carry. Fleeting memories pass my eyes but I can't quite catch that secure feeling again.

Peeta.

I don't know if I thought it or spoke it but with that one word manages to draw more pain, more hurt, from a place I never knew existed. The thought constricts around my mind and body, impossible to shake. It had already taken me so long to become what I needed to be all along but just when I thought I had a stable footing the earth moved from underneath me. I doubt I will be any use to anyone in 13 now. I was already a dead weight to carry but I wasn't sure if this was something I could ever recover from.

In all honestly I don't believe I'll see a point in fighting anymore. In the beginning I had been fighting to keep my family alive. In the games I had to fight to get back to Prim but here she didn't need me. In district 13 she was just another person. No starvation, no fighting for her life. In the Quell it had been him. Whatever happens, at all costs, he was to live.

Now, now I don't know what to fight for. Freedom? A life free from the Capitol. What life is that? I never wanted war, I just wanted everything to go back to how it was before the reaping.

My body sagged underneath me, collapsing, absent of the energy to keep myself upright. Despite everything, I couldn't help but think "you deserve this". Now I was consumed with the pain he felt that moment I told him it was all for the games. I will never forget the look on his face and that nagging thought in the back of my head that whispered 'lier'. I couldn't help it. I did what was needed to keep us alive.

Us. That's when I realized it could never have all been for the games or I wouldn't have wished his survival. If he meant nothing I would have left him to die so I could win and return to Prim and my Mother. But I didn't, couldn't. Never once did that cross my mind. Even when I went for the 'feast' to get his medicine, I was comfortable risking my life to save his. Not to pay off a debt but because he couldn't die. I couldn't see a world without him.

I thought nothing could beat the pain I felt after waking up and hearing Peeta had been captured. However this pain, knowing what has happened to him, not knowing what he went through to get here and to become...that. It eclipses any pain I have ever felt.

And now I couldn't see him. Be near him. Talk to him. Touch him. For my own safety. Screw my safely. I don't care at this point I just want him back. All this time he had been worried about me leaving him. I never once doubted his love for me. It never crossed my mind that I would be left. A prickly feeling crawls across my body; alone. That's what I was now. I had always been needed or had a purpose. Now, I was useless and erasable, even from the minds of those who love, loved, me.

I know I would never have been able to give Peeta what he needed, especially what he deserves. Still, I had a right to some happiness, didn't I? The numbness returns and I don't remember how to feel happy. I clamp my eyes shut. Trying, anyway, to lock this all out.

God I'm so messed up. I think about that smile prim would give when I gave her a ribbon or when we looked at the cakes in the bakery. That just causes more pain because that's all gone. 12 has gone. And so has Peeta.

I've been so lost in these thoughts, consumed and haunted by memories I have now concept of how much time has passed. Hours or days? My eye lids are heavy and I wonder if I should sleep. The hope that rescuing Peeta once gave me was gone. Helplessness devours me, as I wave goodbye to conciseness.