Doe In The Meadow | Peeta Mellark

twenty four

Just breath. You'll find him. Lando's dead. It's not your fault. You couldn't do anything to save him. He was too far gone. Goddammit, where is everyone? My heart was racing and I couldn't keep walking because my ankles felt as though they'd break in half.

I felt myself trip over something in the dark and I looked closely to see the boy from District 8. A scream escaped my mouth as I quickly covered it with my hands, silencing myself.

"Arizona?" I looked over to Mayneck. "You ready?"

"I suppose, if I have to be." I stood up from the ground in the empty hall. I followed him into an elevator and we then entered a plane where the tracker was inserted once more into my arm. The flight to the arena was short, as usual. All us tributes were able to have different planes there so Mayneck and I sat alone.
We arrived shortly, and were led to the chamber underneath the arena. I stood in front of Mayneck, both of us not knowing what to say to each other, so I lunged forward, embracing him in a tight hug.

"Win this thing, alright?" He told me. I nodded, knowing I wouldn't be the one winning, and I knew he knew that as well. I proceeded onward, and entered into the tube.

"Five seconds to launch." A voice over a speaker announced. I waved to Mayneck one last time, sadly, and felt myself lifted up into the arena, finding myself on a platform surrounded by water.

I looked around trying to find Peeta, but couldn't, of course. I looked to see if I could find Finnick or Katniss but my vision was blurry. The timer counted down and before I knew it, my feet were springing me into the water and I was swimming to the stone walkway. Once I reached it, I looked for my katana and grabbed that, holding it out in front of me.

"Kat?" I called out, noticing Katniss looking around and then she walked over to me, hurriedly.

"Mags found him! He's over here!" I heard Finn call out to her, interupting us before we could even say anything to each other. "Come on." He said to the both of us and we followed around the corner and down another path over the water to see Peeta and a tribute fighting in the ocean.

Katniss held out her bow but the two were submerged under. I reached up, pushing the bow down, and she shot me a confused look. I shook my head. "You could miss." I told her and she obliged, lowering her weapon.

A cannon then rang out and a body floated up shortly after. I jumped in, without much thought to who could be alive and possibly come up to kill me. I swam over to the body and rolled it over, revealing the unfamiliar face and letting out a deep sigh. Behind me, Peeta jumped up and I quickly swam around, and grabbed onto him, kissing his lips, with worried tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Peeta!" I exclaimed, thrilled that he wasn't the body.

"I'm here." He assured. We swam back to the walkway and climbed up, following Katniss, Finnick and Mags. We walked deeper into the forest, all thirsty and already exhausted. Peeta continued to slice down vines and branches ahead of us, as we walked on, creating paths to follow.

"Doing alright?" I asked Finn, and he smiled faintly at me.

"As much as I can be." He said. "I'd say we've got a pretty good alliance."

"Definitely. I'm surprised Katniss is letting you in."

"She's not. But Haymitch did." He shined his golden bracelet I assumed Haymitch had given him.

"Peeta, no!" Katniss let out and I looked to Peeta to see him flying through the air from an electrical shock from the force field ahead of us. He landed on his side and I quickly ran to him, panicked.

"Finn, help!" I shouted.

"He's not breathing!" Katniss began, in worry. Finn began doing CPR and chest compressions.

"Peeta, please wake up." I begged, holding back the tears. A cannon hadn't gone off yet, so I knew there had to be a little time.

Finally, after a few moments of Finn helping, Peeta came back, gasping for air. I found myself, falling on top of him as my body turned to liquid, in relief. I just held him in my arms, sobbing. "Jesus christ, don't do that to me!" I hit his chest as he let out a weak laugh.

"Sorry, figured I should scare you a few times while we're here." He smiled, trying to make light out of the fact that he nearly could have died. I leaned down, kissing him again and then helped him back up as we decided to continue on to find a place to set up camp.