Living Lies ✜ Hunger Games x Reader

Tunnels

(A/N: Umm, there's a lot of death... but I think I did a good thing here. I changed somethings. People may or may not be totally happy with me. But I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

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It's all starting to make sense, at long last.

 The group opted to travel to Snow's Mansion through the sewer tunnels, seeing as they would be spotted outside too easily. Luckily, you have Pollux as a guide, as he used to work in the Transfer.

Katniss and Peeta were talking, and it isn't long before you had dropped back to join them, bored.  Peeta's memories are getting clearer, and he's remembering more about his time in the Capitol. The prospect of that made you very eager to hear his story, seeing as your own memories are fuzzy for that time. It's still hard for you to separate what happened and what did not. Then again, you don't want to remember being tortured.

"So we started this game," Peeta continues, "they made it to help me remember some things that I forgot."

"Hmm. How do you play?"

"I tell them about one of my memories, if it's real, or not real."

"And they tell you if what you remember is right?" you guess, watching Katniss nodding in agreement, "can you, try it with me?"

"Of course, (Y/n)," Katniss responds immediately, as if the answer is the most obvious thing ever. "Give it a shot."

"I was dropped into the arena to rescue Peeta, but I wasn't fast enough," you say quietly, "real or not real?"

There's a brief pause, heavy and weighing on your shoulders. "Real," Katniss tells you at last.

"But it wasn't your fault," Peeta insists, seeing your heart breaking expression. "You didn't fail. You were trying to save me. You can't blame yourself for what the Capitol does."

"Yeah, but I still do," you murmur. "I remember little bits of when it happened. I'm sorry Peeta."

"You already died for me once. There's no need to do it again."

"Let's not that bring that up again," you respond drily. Katniss seems uncomfortable, for some odd reason, and picks up her pace, leaving the two of you behind. "Give me one, Peeta."

"We had a secret code in the Games to signal to each other," he recalls. "Real or not real?"

You smile, taking two fingers and dropping them from your forehead to the tip of your nose and chin, and turn ever so slightly to the right. "Definitely real."

Peeta chuckles, and then grows serious again. It seems you and your friends are always having to be serious, lately. Ever since the Games, you haven't had a chance to be normal.

"Now, tell me something about when we were in the Capitol," he persists, and you sigh reluctantly.

"I remember," you start, closing your eyes, reaching through your memories. It's buried somewhere in your mind, most likely covered up and shoved away. You refuse to believe that much trauma can just be erased. You must have some memory of what it was like. "I remember being on television, once or twice. Caesar Flickerman was there. So were you. Every time it got worse. You were fighting to remember Katniss the way she was, and I was just—completely brainwashed. We got into an argument over what was really happening. After that they separated us."

"You were insisting I was being ridiculous," Peeta confirmed, and you frown at the thought. "That was I hurting Katniss and the baby. I said I didn't care. But even then I could see that they were doing something to you."