10 Years Later- Chapter 3

10 Years Later-Chapter 3
By GothKoala439
Peeta POV


My eyes try to make sense of the musty air that I am trapped in, encased in. Dust is zooming through the air in all directions, threatening to choke me, making my eyes burn. All I can see are bodies, bodies, and more bodies. Of the people I love and care about, and people I don't even know. I try to push myself out of my position and deem it useless. As I lie back down on the cushioned velvet chair of the now destroyed hovercraft, I notice my arm around Katniss. Katniss. How could I forget about her? She actually looks peaceful, her eyes closed. Good. I feel numbness instead of pain. That would come later, I knew. But for now, I just let numbness overtake me, like morphling seeping through my veins. I vaguely think of my leg, now in a completely bizarre position, starting at my thigh. If it hurts, I don't feel anything. Probably another surgery right there.

As the dust settles, I can see more clearly. Plutarch has blood coming out of his ear,
for some reason. Stella and Gale look relatively unharmed, their lips still pressed against one another. Annie is at my side, covered in a layer of dust coating her sea-green eyes, still open. For some reason, this is disturbing. I clumsily slide her eyelids closed, poking her eye hard in the process. She lets out a grunt of pain.

Wait. What did I just hear? I poke Annie again. Now comes a garbled "Quit it!!" arising from her lips.

I then grab Annie, lift her up into a sitting position, prop her against a chair. Katniss slides underneath my arm, forgotten for the time being. I'm just glad to see another human being capable of speech.

I brush her hair back from her eyes. She opens them slowly, no longer coated in that film of dust.

"Peeta?" She whispers, barely comprehensible.

"Annie! You are alive!" I cry out joyously.

I try to sit up, but the numbness has dissapeared, leaving a sharp pain in my thigh. My sudden burst of joy and energy at finding Annie alive is gone. I scream in pain, bringing Annie back into focus. I let myself droop to the floor and close my eyes.

"Peeta? Peeta! Where are we? What happened?" Annie shakes my shoulders gently.

" I dunno.." I murmur. I then slide full onto the floor, my head meeting the metal with a bang. I moan.

"Peeta!!!!" Annie is positively shrieking now. She props me up against the chair, pushes the hair out of my eyes roughly, and looks at my face.

It takes all of my effort just to open my eyes. I squint hard at Annie. Other than the dust coating her, she looks fine.

" Peeta, stay with me. Please. We have to wake everyone else. Please, Peeta." Annie pleads.

" Hovercraft went down...everyone dead." I mumble, sliding down the chair a little.

"Peeta, no one's dead. Look!" She says, gesturing to the space around us filled with previously thought corpses.

I get a good hard look at everyone. Then I see their chests rising up and down, ever so slightly.

I gesture to Katniss, who is nearest to us. Annie props her up beside me, shakes her gently, checks her heart. Within minutes, she's awake too.

" Peeta..." She mumbles, sitting up straight. She streches and looks around. And catches glimpse of my leg.

"Peeta!! Your, your..." Gesturing impossibly towards what was once a working leg.
" I know." I say tiredly, because it's really about all I can manage. I slump down towards the floor again, my shoulders hunched forwards.

Katniss holds me up. The pain is so intense; I will die if it doesn't stop soon. I am completely done. So I just close my eyes, beyond caring about caring.

Katniss is fussing over me again. She makes me lie down, which I couldn't really do myself. She sits by my side and strokes my hair, crooning a song into my ear. She knows I'm in pain. I just lie there with my head on her lap, barely listening to what she is saying.

Annie has woken up everyone now. They are trying to make sense of their surroundings. Stretching, checking their injuries. Not even glancing at Katniss and me. I'm grimacing, wincing in pain, tears streaming down my dust covered cheeks, onto Katniss' lap.
Johanna is the first to notice, I think. No one had really suffered major injuries but me. She glances at us once, is there in a second, trying to make sense of my twisted limb. Others are there in seconds, surrounding me and Katniss, who is still trying to keep me calm. But I'm screaming and crying, and all of a sudden, I'm a little kid again.

"Get up, you useless animal!!" my mother is screeching into my door. My mother. Before I can swing my legs out, she is in, screaming at me.

"You don't have any idea, do you? How much work there is to be done! I'm slaving away in this place, trying to feed the rest of you, and you are sleeping in, late!!"
She gets over to the other side of my thin bed, shoving me out, hard. I tumble to my knees awkwardly.

"Get up!! NOW!"

She kicks my feet and pulls my hair, hard, as she walks out. I swear audibly as I get on my feet. This was the norm, every morning. I sigh, run a hand through my hair, and stand up. I'm 13 years old, getting up at 4 every morning while my brothers sleep in. My brothers, Oliver and Dillon, are snoring in their rooms. I open their doors, and then slam it hard, startling them awake. Call me the evil bratty younger sibling, but they well deserved it.

At least, they do in my mind.

I clean my teeth and put on some day clothes, then go out to the bakery.  I inhale the smell of fresh bread like I do every morning, and remind myself that I am much more fortunate than other people. I should make my days count. So I do.

I bake, clean, help my mother in the kitchen. No matter how many times she has a go at me, I keep my cool. My brothers aren't like that. They bubble up until it finally spills over, like a volcano. It's only me and my father that can handle my mother's antics. I spent my whole life watching him. I haven't mastered the way he keeps his cool. Not yet. At about 5:30 in the morning, Delly arrives. She arrives in the morning every day, without fail, to help out at the bakery. No one can help liking Delly. Not even my mother. I think Delly is one of the only people she ever smiles to. She sweeps in, as usual, smiling with her faded apron on, and gets right to work. We stop at 6:30 to get ready for school. Delly goes back home, while I take a shower, comb my hair, and put on my drab school uniform. Brown pants, white shirt, black tie. And I head on past the square, where the school is located. A small faded crumbling building, everybody, from the Seam to the town, is educated here. There are no other schools in District Twelve.
Delly is dancing up in her uniform, a white shirt, brown skirt, and black tie. Her yellow hair in curls that are all over her face. I look around, and see a small blonde girl, looking frightened, all alone. I don't really know her. And then I do. Her name is Primrose. Primrose Everdeen.

I consider walking up to her, dealing with her sister, Katniss. She looks really scared. She is so small, just 9 years old. I decide to help her.

"Primrose." I say, approaching her cautiously.

She jumps when I say her name, and then relaxes when she sees me. She knows who I am, at least. Primrose is quite friendly with my father, saying hi to him whenever she passes.

"I'm lost." She squeaks. "Katniss disappeared."

"Katniss is in my class. Let's look there." I say, taking her icy hands.

I lead her to my eighth-grade class. When she sees Katniss there, asking the teacher, she squeaks and grabs her hand. Katniss looks down at her, and then seems to have genuine worry on her face. I observe her closely. She looks so skinny, her crumpled uniform hanging on her thin shoulders. Her cheeks are hollow and her lips are chapped. Her hair is in its long thin braid down her back. Her forehead has lines etched on its surface and her face is blotchy, probably from crying. I remember her father was one of the coal miners who died in the accident. I remember his voice. It was so high, loud and clear. The birds stopped singing when he sang.

When Primrose points to me, I see her eyes travel to mine for a second. She doesn't make the slightest movement of thanks or acknowledgement. If anything, she looks more worried than ever. Great. Did I cause that? Did finding her sister safe just add to her worries? I didn't feel angry. I just felt hollow. Like I do now.

Now.

Right now, I'm lying in a hospital bed. My leg is inexplicably back to normal, just in a cast. I'm lying there in a hospital gown, with nothing covering my but a sheet. I find the strength somewhere to open my eyes. And see Katniss' face hovering inches from mine.

"Peeta." She whispers.

Before I really grasp what has been going on, she's kissing me unbelievably hard, squeezing me tight, her hands holding my head up, like she's afraid I might slip away through her fingers.
When she breaks away, she looks down at me with tears in her eyes.

"That's the third time I almost lost you. I was so scared when you passed out. Everyone was screaming, trying to find a way out of the wreckage. It turns out we were near the Capitol anyway, so Plutarch called them up and they brought another hovercraft. We made it safe. Somehow, they pieced your leg back together, but you've been out for three days."

Three days?

"Then I must have missed the festivities." I say, with a weak attempt at a laugh that quickly turns into a groan.

Katniss sits on the side of the bed, my head on her lap.
"Oh, no, actually, they have actually postponed the festivities. So I've been right here." She indicates to the chair next to my bed.

I feel my head sway. I close my eyes and mumble "I'm sorry." into the blanket.

"Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for. You save both me and Johanna, there. And you got the worst of it. Plutarch said that if you were not there, the initial impact would have killed both of us. Another thing I owe you for."

I look up into her anxious eyes and feel my heart melt. She looks so tired and worried and sad. Without a word, she bends down and kisses me on the nose, and lowers my head back into the bed, where I start to slide into a dreamless sleep.

I clutch her hand.

"Stay with me." I whisper.

I just catch her answer.

"Always."