I Promise to Get You Out of There

Chapter 1

Hey! So this is my first fanfiction... Ever, so don't judge me too harshly. I spent the whole morning reading Mockingjay and I started thinking... "What if Peeta and Katniss's positions were reversed?" Finally, after much speculation, I plucked up the courage to write about it.

None of the following characters belong to me, all places, names and significant events belong to the glorious Suzanne Collins, I simply did my own take on it in the hope that people will enjoy it :)

Peeta's POV

Ashes blow across my feet in the soft breeze. I stand in the ruins of the District 12 bakery, my old home. All I can make out is a melted blob that I take was once the oven. My family hasn't been found and are presumed dead, probably underneath the pile of rubble before me. I shake my head to rid myself of tears and walk to the Victor's Village, the only place left unharmed. I walk straight up the front steps to my house and open the unlocked door. Everything is clean. It looks like no one lives here, probably because the last time I was here, I had no intention of ever returning. Faint sunlight streams through the curtains in the kitchen, giving the white tiles a golden gleam.

Plutarch hadn't wanted me to come back here. Thought it would push me over the edge, believe me, I'm nearly there. Katniss is still with President Snow, it's all my fault. Why did I leave her with Finnick and Beetee while I went with Johanna to unravel the coil? Why didn't I run away with her earlier that day? Now I'm just a useless mental patient who wanders around District 13 consumed with grief and regret.

I keep having horrible nightmares. All of them feature Katniss. One moment she's laughing with me on the roof of the training centre and then she's screaming in agony as President Snow runs her through with a dagger. Last night we were in the arena and she was calling out my name. I called back to her but by the next time I heard her, she was even further away. I chased her around the arena for hours in the darkness. When I finally found her, she was floating in the air.

President Snow was floating on a pristine white cloud. His eyes were like a cat's and his tongue like a snake's, he grinned manically and laughed as he whipped her over and over. His snake's tongue whipping out from between his teeth as he cackled, and my beautiful Katniss screamed and writhed, trying to evade the whip. All I could do was watch. It was happening 50 ft above me. I watched for so long and screamed out for it to stop.

President snow then turned the whip on me and I woke up with a start. I'm still trying to get over that one, it was the most vivid and terrifying one by far. I realize that I'm crouched on the ground with my hands behind my head. "Shake it off, just get it out of your head. It's not real" I tell myself, only, it could very well be perfectly real. I decide to go to my bedroom to pick up what I came for. I take my scetch book and some extra graphite pencils, they are very strict on practicalities in 13. Drawing is considered impractical, so I don't get access to pencils and paper.

I suddenly hear a voice in my earpiece, "you have 5 minutes down there Soldier Mellark." Comes the voice of Katniss's 'cousin' Gale. "You know, It is ok to call me Peeta, Gale" I tell him. No reply.

Gale blames me for Katniss's capture. Which is perfectly reasonable, I blame me too, it's just that he hates me for loving her as well.

I leave my house and walk in to the Everdeen's home. I grab Katniss's hunting jacket, for her mother, who's suffering. And I pick up the book of different plants that we worked on together before the Quarter Quell. I try to think of something I can take for Prim as well, I find a blue ribbon on her dressing table in her room. As I'm about to leave, I hear a hiss from behind me. "Buttercup?" I ask the yellow-eyed cat incredulously. How on earth did he survive the bombs? I come towards him slowly and he walks to me cautiously.

Buttercup doesn't exactly love me, but he never hated me either. Despite what Katniss said about him hating everyone except Prim, he even let me stroke him a couple of times.

He continued to come closer to me and he let me pick him up. Prim would be delighted to see her cat again, I put him in a game bag I see hanging on a doorknob. "Sorry," I quickly apologize before stuffing him in. He meows indignantly but doesn't struggle. With the book, the jacket, the ribbon, pencils and my sketchbook in my backpack and Buttercup in the game bag. I signal that I'm ready to leave.

The hovercraft sends down a ladder that sticks me to place when I touch in and pulls me up. Once I'm up, I put my stuff on the chair next to me and fasten my seatbelt. Gale looks over at me, "did you get what you wanted?" He sneers at me. I sigh, "yes, I think so," he nods and continues to look out the window at the travesty below.

"I think so."