Pretty As a Primrose (A Hunger Games Fanfiction)

Chapter 16

I keep dreaming about going home, this time it wasn't about Rory but my sister Katniss. It was early morning, I finally had gone back to sleep and in my dream within my dream was a replay of Rue's death and me throwing my knife at the girl's head. The blood spattering on Peeta and I woke me up in a fit of screaming. Katniss was in my room, holding me down and comforting me.

I miss everyone. Only 7 left, I was going to die soon. The numbers were dwindling down, too quickly for me to understand. Last night I tried sleeping through the death toll but I opened my eyes and watched the girl from district 4 show in the sky. Then Rue's young face showed next, Peeta looked over at me but I kept my face composed so he wouldn't know how much I was actually hurting. Then her partner from her district, Thresh, showed next. They were resting in paradise now, nothing could hurt them now. They were somewhere heavenly and I hoped I would be joining them peacefully soon. After that we slept, well I slept. Peeta thought I needed to rest so he kept watch. I told him to wake me up halfway through, but he completely ignored my request.

He looked exhausted and I felt terrible because he should've woken me up last night. He drank some of our water and looked a little better, but I wanted him to get some sleep too.

"Peeta, you should get some sleep," I tell him.

"No it's already morning and we need to get moving,' Peeta replies, he blinks sleepily a few times and I could tell he considered sleeping for a second but then a cannon went off, then another, like they were proving his point about needing to get out of here. Cato was probably out on a killing spree. Aren't we all, actually?

I watched Peeta get up, he looked so tired and miserable that I promised him he could sleep all tonight and I would keep watch. He was too tired to even disagree, he just pressed his lips into a thin line and kept moving forward.

"Peeta, who's left?" I ask, I lost track of everyone who's still alive, I know Cato and Peeta and I, obviously. That's three.

"Um, not counting the two that just died since we don't know who they are. There's us, Cato, the boy from 7, both from 8 I think, the boy from 9.." he trails off. "Is that it?" he murmurs to himself.

"Two of them just died, Peeta. 5 of us are left" my voice started shaking, me, Peeta and three others. I was pretty sure Cato was one of them. At least we made it into the final 5, that's something my family and friends can be proud of years from now when Katniss tells her children about why they would've had an aunt. Maybe one of them would be a little blonde girl with bright, blue eyes like me.

We were walking for at least an hour, I think we were travelling uphill or maybe it was getting hotter outside because it was getting harder to keep going. Especially for Peeta, with his leg still pretty bad. I probably will have to look at it again when we finally stop somewhere.

"That tree right there, Peeta, do you think we could fit in there?" I pointed to the tree a ways away, it was one of those huge trees that are so big you can walk into the trunk and stay in there if you wanted. He shrugged and we walked up to it, the entrance was tall enough for both of us to walk in which meant the inside was probably big enough for both of us. I walked in with Peeta, it was dark but we could build a fire or something later when it got dark outside too.

"This is...nice" I mumble. I made Peeta lay down and rest his leg, I looked in my pack for anything we could eat and a defeated sigh left my mouth.

"Peeta, we don't have anything to eat" I whisper. "We're going to go out from starvation"

"No we aren't. Look, I'm not that hungry right now don't worry about it. We can go out tomorrow and get more food. We need to go look for water right now" Peeta comforts me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I couldn't see him, but I could tell he was giving me his hopeful smile.

Peeta and I went outside again into the daytime and looked around the area for a water source, but the area was dry as a bone. I was starting to get frustrated with the gamemakers. How are they planning on keeping us alive without food or water?

"It's getting late" I sigh, "let's just go back. This is stupid"

"Prim.." Peeta tries to get me to look some more but the sky was getting dark fast because the gamemakers were dimming it in the arena quickly. We hurried back to our little tree trunk and it was dark but Peeta and I both laid down to sleep, suddenly -as quickly as the sky got dark- it got cold. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and curled closer to Peeta. He could tell I was shivering and shaking with every gust of icy wind that wandered into our tree so he pulled me in even closer. I finally stopped shaking but for some reason I couldn't fall asleep.

"Prim?" Peeta whispers in the silence of the night.

"Yeah?"

"I have to tell you something. Something from a long time ago" Peeta mumbles.

"What is it?"

"Prim, do you remember the day Katniss came home with the bread? It was so long ago..I don't know if you'd remember-"

"I do" I murmur. It was way back, after dad died and we ran out of the money they gave us for losing someone to the mines and we had no food. We were slowly, painfully starving to death. All my mother did was stare blankly into space, lost from reality into her own world. She sat by while Katniss and I neared death. I forgave her for it, even though Katniss didn't, I did because losing people isn't easy and we know that better than most. Katniss isn't the forgiving type, but she isn't holding the grudge as badly anymore.

"It was me. I gave her the bread, Prim. I burned it in the bakery and my mom told me to throw it out, but I gave it to her"

"What? No, no you didn't. Peeta.." I trail off, my voice went was astonished. My voice cracked in his name. "You saved my life. You saved our lives"

"It's not just that, Prim. I didn't just do it because I felt bad. Prim, I've been in love with your sister since we were 5. When I first saw her in school and she wore her hair in two braids instead of one and when she used to be truly happy all the time. Ever since then"

"Peeta..." Suddenly I felt like every camera in the arena was watching us, laying here in the dark and here I was on the verge of crying. I couldn't be more grateful than when the anthem started playing and I knew attention would be focused there. I poked my head outside to see who the two that died today were, I saw the short boy from 7 and a dark haired boy from 9, he was so small, probably not much older than me and I don't know how he lasted this long. It was just Peeta and I, Cato and the other two who were probably hiding somewhere good. I went back inside and returned to my spot. I didn't have anything to say anymore, I didn't know what I could say to him. We just laid there in silence, until we heard another announcement.

"Congratulations, tributes, on entering the final 5. As you can all tell, it is getting harder to find food and water. Well I have a quite simple and brilliant plan to rid you all of this problem. Tomorrow, at noon, you are all invited to a feast in honor of making it into the last 5 tributes. May the odds be ever in your favor and I hope to see you all there."

"Peeta, we're going to have to go. This is part of their plan, draining all the water sources and killing off food supplies so we either go to the feast and get killed there or stay here and die slowly of starvation and dehydration. And no one wants the Games to be boring, so of course that would take too long. People would get bored" I explain. I would rather die a quick death by murder then die of thirst or hunger or anything like that. I hoped Peeta would agree with me and see that I was obviously right.

It's going to be all over soon.