Hijacked (Peeta Mellark Fanfiction)

Chapter 9 - Fear

(Vote and/or comment if you enjoy! Thanks!)
-

A distant dream fogs my mind.

A dream of a memory, a memory of my older brother Wren walking me through District 12 to the schoolhouse on my first day of school. I'm six years old, he's eleven. He's the oldest Mellark son, then there's my other brother Ellis, who already met up with his friends and raced to school earlier that same morning.

I drag my feet on the ashy ground, nerves eating away at my six-year-old mind. Wren notices immediately, and grips my shoulder firmly, halting me to a stop. He looks down at me with his heart-warming blue eyes, the same eyes my father has.

"You'll be fine, Peeta. You're a smart little guy, and who'd want to hurt that innocent little face?" He says.

I smile at his comment, just as a something appears right behind him. Suddenly a spinning image of a person clutches Wren from behind, a long dagger appears at his neck and blood spurts out as it slits his throat. The last thing I remember is the sneering face of Katniss Everdeen and a little boy's scream before I jolt awake.

The only thing I can hear now is my breath echoing off the empty walls. I try to shake away the fright as quickly as I can. My arms shiver, so I shove them under my bent knees. I try to lessen the amount of breaths I take each second, and my head pounds in response.

Hunger rips apart my stomach piece by piece. The angry pain increases over time. The last time I had food was a couple of days ago, they slid in a small metal tray with mashed up stuff that I guessed was leftover meat mixed with some other unknown things slopped onto it. It smelled awful, and tasted even worse. I would've chose moldy cheese and stale bread in a heartbeat over that stuff if I had the choice.

Even though it tasted like spicy vomit, I still ate it because my empty stomach begged me to. After shoving the mashed up puke meat into my drooling mouth, it still wasn't enough. They'd given me only about four ounces of the mystery meat. My hunger wasn't even a little satisfied.

Next to the food, was a bowl of water. Did they really just give me a bowl? As if I were a wild animal, they delivered the water in a bowl. It took all of my willpower not to just spill it all into my mouth, drowning my dry tongue with it. There was only a little more water than there was food. It wasn't cold whatsoever, but the sensation of drinking it was still glorious- it'd been days since I'd had anything to drink.

While I try not to fantasize too much about food, I can hear a pleading voice in a cell nearby,

"Please don't, please just kill me. Just kill me now...please... NO!"

It's a woman's voice, nobody answers her, her pleads are followed by a gurgling scream. I can hear choking, gagging, and a never-ending shriek that chokes up then gurgles again. I slam my hands over my ears, when doing so; I don't hear someone enter my own cell.

A muffled voice orders me to stand, but I just stay on my knees. I remove my clamped hands away from my ears and look up to see a peacekeeper standing in front of me. There's no face to look into, just a helmet that hides their identity.

"I have an order to give you, Mellark. President Snow wants you to do another interview. Something about propaganda the rebels are doing. It's been a little too... effective. You're the only thing that would really be as effective as that."

"No. I'm not going to it." I say.

They can torture me all they want, but I'm not doing anything else for them. I'm not going to enhance Snow's power. Too many people have suffered enough.

"Really?" The peacekeeper sounded surprised, "I don't think I gave you a choice."

"When I don't respond, he adds, "You know, I have a brand new picana I can't wait to try out."

After seeing my confused expression, he adds,

"It's a really powerful taser that you use after drenching someone in water, it's a pretty ancient weapon, but it's extremely effective. And you know, President Snow gets what needs to be used. How 'bout when you refuse my orders, I'll give your feisty District 7 friend a little shock."

My body stiffens at that. I sit up and my knees are hard against the floor. I look up at the peacekeeper with pleading eyes,

"Please... don't hurt Johanna. This isn't her fault, use on it me!"

The peacekeeper snorts, then turns away from me with a wave of the hand,

"Obviously that doesn't work."

As he exits, I quickly lift my feet off the ground and frantically shuffle over to the door just in time for him to slam it in my face. My raspy voice calls after him,

"Wait! No! I'll do whatever you want! Don't hurt her! It's my fault! I'll do whatever you want!"

The peacekeeper is gone. I rattle the bars on the door with my weak arms even though I know it's no use. I swear under breath and my dirty palm slaps itself onto my moist forehead as I sigh with exasperation and defeat. There's nothing I can do.

-

Johannas screams seemed to echo in my mind more than anyone elses. Maybe I was screaming too, but I'm not so sure. Surely I was saying things, how I was sorry, how it's all my fault, how they should just kill me.

Maybe it was my imagination that someone walked into my cell and actually kicked my head so hard that I immediately blacked out. Maybe they brought me back to that dark room, or maybe I was just dreaming. Every conscious part of me was fading in and out.

Everything was happening at once. I could still hear the screaming, it never went away, but I could see a sequence of blurred images before my eyes that seemed familiar but are so far away that I can just barely reach them. A voice sneers in my ear,

"She used you, Katniss used you so she could survive." At first it sounds like a female voice, but it morphs into my own.

"She wanted to kill you so badly but keeping you alive was the only way she could win. You're so clueless to it, how could you let someone walk all over you like that?"

Strong prickles of pain pierce my skull.

"She never loved you back Peeta, it was all an act."

An act.

A memory flashes by-the train ride back home from the Games,

"It was all for the Games," I'd said, "How you acted."

"Not all of it." She'd said back.

"She's going to kill you Peeta. She already slaughtered your family." The voice continues.

"No," I say out loud, "That's not her!"

What makes you so sure?

"You're lying! Stop it! Stop lying to me!" I shout again, my throat raw with pain.

Needles, everywhere, they're stabbing me everywhere. I fade out with a great numbing sensation.

When I start to wake up, I feel dizzy. My thoughts are so jumbled it makes my head spin. Pain increases in my head as I struggle to sort things out. Aching hunger in my stomach is the first thing that greets me. The room spins, everything is spinning, where am I? Hopelessness breaks out, and I start shouting at nothing. Am I lying on the floor, am I leaned against a wall? Or am I sitting in a chair? I can feel my mouth moving, am I even saying anything? I can't hear myself, I don't know what I'm saying, maybe I'm questioning what's happening to me.

Johanna's deathly scream is the only thing that responds to my pleads.