If Fire Caught

Chapter 15: Peeta

I'm awoken by Katniss screaming. I look up to see her clutching her hand and scrambling to a tree so she can pull herself up.

"The fog is poison!" she screams and I look over to see boils on her hands and look to see Finnick running through the forest with Mags on his back. I wrap Kaniss' arm over my shoulder and start helping her through the direction Finnick ran.

Suddenly she stumbles and drags me down with her as she falls. I try to get he back up but she cries out.

"Leave Me!" she says. "I'm not gonna make it."

"Finnick!" I call out and thankfully he's close enough to come back.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"I'm not strong enough to carry her yet," I say.

"Take Mags," he says and I watch as he lifts Katniss over his shoulder and starts going through the forest again. I lift Mags and she's extremely light. I carry her after Finnick but I fall three times.

The third time, I try desperately to get back up, but I can't with Mags on my back. Finnick stops beside me.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"I can't carry her any further," I say.

"Well I can't carry both of them," he says. Suddenly Mags goes up to him and kisses his cheek. She turns and goes into the fog. "Mags no!" We hear a cannon as her heart stops.

"Finnick," Katniss says. "She's gone. We have to go." He nods and he gets up, carrying Katniss with him. I stumble behind.

We are trapped by a ravine and I feel the fog start to burn my skin worse than it had before. I fall to my knees and tumble down the ravine, Katniss and Finnick following me. Katniss lands on top of me and buries her head on my chest, waiting for the fog to swallow us. But as I watch, the fog stops as it though it hits a wall. But there is no wall. We all just passed right through it.

I feel Katniss move away from me and look to see her crawling towards the water. She reaches her hand in and groans in pain and lifts it back out. She looks at it and starts laughing.

"The water helps," she says. "It hurts, but it heals." I start following her into it and find that the pain is almost just as bad as the fog, but the boils are seared away from my skin. Katniss lays down in it and screams before sighing in relief. I do the same and feel so much better as the salt water heals the wounds from the fog.

"What about Finnick?" I ask.

"Even together, in the condition we are in, we can't drag him over here," she says.

"Then we're gonna have to do this the hard way," I say and I cup some of the water in my hands and Katniss does the same. We gently drizzle the water over the sores and he screams, instantly regaining consciousness. The fog rises from the wounds and we have to be careful not to come in contact with it as it disperses into the air. Once he's strong enough, we help him crawl to the shore and get in the water.

We watch as he heals and starts swimming through the water like a fish. Katniss unbraids her hair and combs out several strands with her fingers. Clumps fall out with her hands, noticeably thinning her dark waves.

"Katniss, Your hair," I say and she sighs.

"It got burned in the fog," she says. She unzips her severely damaged jump suit to reveal a tank top and undershorts. She rips off a piece of the damaged fabric and rebraids her hair, tying it off with the fabric. I notice how she cradles her swollen stomach and smile sadly.

"How's the baby?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says. "I haven't felt him move in a little while. It worries me, although my mother said the bigger he gets, the harder it is for him to move around"

"We need to find water," I say.

"Well unless its gonna fall from the sky, I think we are out of luck," she says. Then her head snaps towards something and she gets up, grabbing her bow.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I heard something," she says. She stalks forward and grabs something from behind a bush. She laughs happily and pulls it over to me. It's a parachute. She opens it to reveal a little metal piece that I swear I've seen before.

"What is it?" I ask her. She takes it from my hand and runs her fingers over it.

"I think it's a spile," she says. "Its for taking sap out of trees. It's useless to us." she looks at the tall trees that surround us and it must come to her."Unless these trees don't carry sap."

"What are you talking about?" I ask her.

"Remember how I said the rodent's muzzle was wet?" she says picking up a knife.

"Yeah," I say.

"I don't think he was drinking out of a puddle anymore," She says. She starts drilling a hole in a tree and then places the spile in it. She uses the hilt of the knife as a hammer to push the spile into the trunk. At first nothing happens and she hits it again in frustration.

"Come on!" she says. She hits it one more time before water starts to run down the spout of the spile. She fills her hands with it and drinks greedily.

"You are a genius!"I say. I do the same as her and find that while its warm, its extremely refreshing.

"Finnick!" Katniss calls. "We found water!" He comes up from the shore with three fish.

"And I found breakfast," he says.