Katniss's P.O.V

I don't return Peeta's statement. I can't and I won't and I'm not sure if I ever will.

It's hard to believe that there's any love left in the world. And Peeta loving me just sounds so improbable. It has since the day he returned from the Capitol hijacked. When he choked me, the thought of us having what we once did was farfetched. To actually consider loving and trusting the person who gave me trust issues in the first place would be insane. I had just gotten the hang of letting people in before they lose interest in trying to cooperate with my stubbornness. And he demolished any construction I had being done to that skill. Of course he's not the only reason for my disorder, but he takes a huge toll. Which I know deep down it isn't his fault. That it's the Capitol who destroyed him. But the question is, how much can be repaired?

I can only bear the thought of being with one person. But he's gone. Actually, I should hate him. He's the person I should love the least and hate the most. He left me. In fact, he is probably kissing a different pair of lips all the way in district two as we speak.

"I'm sorry Peeta, but I can't return that yet," I whisper back to his statement, disallowing myself to think anything more of . . . him. "I'm sorry."

His face falls at this. The corners of his mouth droop down into a perfect arc. His fingers find my dark black hair and he slowly runs them down my braid to where it is tied off at the end. There's lots of pieces sticking out from within the pattern of my hair that was singed off unevenly in the war. Lots of it has grown back now, but not enough to make a perfect braid.

"It's him, isn't it?" Peeta whispers in a voice that's barely audible. I glance down at his fingers which rest at the end of my braid and shift in the bed uncomfortably. It doesn't take an adept at knowledge to know who he's speaking of.

My mind goes vacuous and it's as if I've forgotten how to communicate. My mouth opens, a string of stutters rifting the silence that lasted awhile in the air. Nothing. I am speechless to Peeta's assumption.

When the moment is tense and hushed once again I focus on the sound of the cleaning and renovation outside. It sort of distracts me from my reality. The one that I wish I could quickly and easily be deteriorated from right now. That way I wouldn't feel obligated to answer the question that seems to have no correct answer. And just as I feel like I've finally gathered the right words and I begin to utter them, an euphonious scream from outside cuts through the air.

Without a second though, I stand straight up.

"Did you hear that?!" I ask Peeta, one million shades of insanity imprinted in my voice.

"Hear what?" he asks oblivious to it completely.

"That . . . that scream! It was so l-l-loud, s-so clear!" I explain frantically, already pacing around the room. My body shakes uncontrollably. I've heard so many screams in my lifetime, too many to count. But this one was by far the worst. It was the type that I uttered when I wake up from a nightmare, or the type that haunt my nightmares.

I grab Peeta by the shoulders and give him a small shake, feeling as if it's impossible he hadn't heard it too. This has happened before, multiple times actually, but it's never this austere.

I traverse to my wide, circular window and split the curtains, pushing them to either side of the window's frame. I lift up the dirt layered glass and stick my head out, inhaling a deep breath of air. The breezy, and once clean air of district twelve will never again smell or feel the same. It might just simply be a mind thing. But anything the Capitol toyed with to me will always be intoxicated.

I had a nightmare once, where I was choking on the smoky air of district twelve when it was littered with bombs by the Capitol. Every breath I took consisted of more effort each time till I couldn't breath at all. Outside the district was nothing but pandemonium. It was a frenzy of flames and sculls and dead bodies; a catastrophe of screaming people who took their last breath as fire swallowed them. And Gale had been standing right there, right outside my old house's window which I was peering helplessly out of. He hadn't caught my eye, yet I saw him perfectly. And since I couldn't call out, I died, just one scream away from being saved by him. No matter how many times I told myself it was only a nightmare, I knew that it had been reality to someone else. I'd had this nightmare the day I moved in. And ever since that nightmare, I knew that I'd never be able to think of district twelve or any part of my life the same again. Ever.

Outside of my Victors' Village house, the Victors' Village circle -the only thing intact after the Capitol demolished district twelve- is calm and peaceful. No sign of chaos. Just a circle of houses, quiet, ginormous houses. The lights are off for the most part inside, like mine. Lots of people don't have any energy or reason to turn them on. They just want to sob in the darkness and slowly slip away from reality in their own way. I know this because I suffer a duplicate and if not a double of their endless pain.

Without a second thought, I close the curtains and begin to slip on my boots.

"Katniss, what are you doing?" Peeta asks worriedly. I shake my head, shrugging him off in the nicest way possible.

"Going out," I reply simply.

"Katniss, you didn't hear that scream it's only in your head." This has happened when I'm with him before and each time he ends up dragging me away from the nothing that is there. But I'm convinced this time just like any other.

I stop midway through slipping on my second boot and tilt my head up to see Peeta. I cock an eyebrow and then decide to laugh instead of snapping, pursing my lips together. But this still fails to keep me from letting out what I want to say.

"I know I'm crazy, I don't need to be reminded, but I know what I heard," I reply with agitation weaved throughout my voice. That's when it happens again.

"No! No! Stop!" A female voice cries out in agony. My heart skips a beat.

"I- I gotta go!" I sputter quickly. Peeta looks mystified and I know he hadn't heard that one either. And although I know what happens, what always does, I am dragged out by the same curiosity that has baited me before in the same way.

I throw on a polyester jacket and hurry downstairs, heading out the cream colored door and out into the January weather. My feet sink into layers of snow like I'm sinking into a thick, soft mattress. It takes only one more outcry for my pace to pick up and I'm running, kicking up snow into the air behind me as more falls onto the thin roots of my hair from the sky. I pull my jacket tighter to me over my chest when a strong wind improves the brisk temperature. I run and run and run until I've crossed the Victors' Village sign, but the rubble, half covered with white layers of snow, stops me just like it has the last two times I was hearing things and ran out of the neighborhood. The demolition seems to never get better. Not too many people have focused on this particular section of the district. I actually couldn't tell you why. They just haven't. I don't think they have many volunteers at all for any construction.

"Help me! Help!" The voice pleads for the third time, sounding so close it's as if I can taste the words and smell the voice. That's why when I snap my head to the left of me, she is only about twenty feet away in a clearing with no rubble.

The blond braids and blue eyes. They're unforgettable. And they seem to look straight through me when she turns her head to the side. I feel invisible. Like she's liable of seeing through all of me. I feel weak, helpless. Like just seeing her image is slowly withering me away. I can't handle it. But when I see the familiar parachute gracefully drifting from the sky, my feet don't hesitate to move. I run full force through piles of sculls and bones and burnt objects that used to be in many houses that probably belongs to a dead person nearby it. I keep my hands outstretched to swat the parachute away before she takes hold of it, thinking it can help her. Part of me knows it's not real, but another part screams,

What if it is?

Because I don't wanna make the mistake of being too late again. That's what cost her life. So at this moment, I do exactly what I would've done. That's all my mind is focused on. And I trip and fall and scrape my skin up on rubble, gigantic pools of rubble.

And I never reach her.

I feel large arms wrap tightly around my waist lifting me into the air sending me into a complete moment of madness. I thrash around, legs and arms swinging in all directions and my mouth crying out,

"Let me go! Just five minutes! I need five minutes with her! I have to save her!"

I don't have to ask who the person holding me up in the air is. I know automatically that it's Peeta. And he knows that it's Prim who I'm speaking of without me having to say so.

"This isn't real Katniss," he says in a serene voice, but I've heard it before. Many times before. And I'm tired of hearing those lies. Cause what no one understands is that Prim was real and moments with her were real. And that's my direct problem. So without a second thought, I kick him in the knee causing his legs to buckle and him to fall on his back in the snow. Luckily, we fell in one of the rare sections of district twelve that the rubble is completely covered by layers of thick, soft snow. He still holds me up though, making sure he falls first and so I don't get hurt by anything that might be sticking up. But I could care less about getting injured right now.

Peeta doesn't wince or groan in pain. His grips on me is tighter, actually, and he hugs me to his chest as if he'll never let go. Which is probably his intention. But that doesn't stop me because I don't hesitate to bite into his hand till both arms fly into the air and I'm free, sitting up immediately . . . for nothing.

The blond braids of the girl I loved so much are no longer visible and those blue eyes are nowhere to be seen beyond the rubble where she laid a second ago. I feel my eyes swell up with tears and I fall backward into the snow helplessly. Peeta's arms find my frail, weak body and wrap around me. And so we lye there, shivering in the snow that is probably hiding many dead bodies and objects that were once valuable to someone who might still be living in the pain of their loss today. And the realization that the pain many people all around the world are feeling was caused by me makes me sob in Peeta's worn arms.

The girl who was on fire is now being burnt out by the result of her own flames. And I know I need more fire to spark my flame before it completely dies out. I need a guidance, the spark that can help me set my fire without causing destruction to others or my own self. I need the spark that can help me set my fire for a good cause instead. Because the dandelion in the spring is doing nothing for my fire but tame it a little. I need fire to fight fire. I need the oxygen, not the hydrant or the hose. And yet I lay in the petals of the dandelion, slowly dying out without that spark to light me up once again . . .