randomshit | And you'll ask yourself, where is my mind

[When the lights power down, a film replays in her mind. Over and over again, stuck in a horrifying loop she's helpless to stop.

It begins with an image behind a wall of glass. A Peeta who isn't Peeta. Even from a distance, she knows everything is wrong. Though similar in appearance, nothing remains the same. His eyes are dark, completely devoid of anything she associates with them. His face contorted into something wholly foreign. It's enough to make breath catch in her lungs, a lead weight to drop to her stomach, a chill to run down her spine.

But the words are the worst, the words that aren't his own. That can't be his own, for the sake of any kind of fractured grip on reality she makes one last desperate attempt to cling to. A grip that slips even further from her the more his voice, his but not his, echoes in her thoughts.

"A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!"

By her request, they're sending her to Two tomorrow, but that knowledge isn't enough to bring her any kind of relief tonight. This tiny compartment has never felt more stifling and claustrophobic.

Yet she has nowhere to go.

She knows she shouldn't; if Prim is asleep, she doesn't want to disturb her. But she just can't spend another minute alone with her thoughts. Another minute, and they might very well consume her.

So she chances a whisper into the darkness.]

Prim?

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I'm awake.

[ It was hard not to be. Prim hadn't seen Peeta, not since he'd been brought back but she'd heard - heard what had happened to him, even what he'd said. Their mother hadn't wanted to tell her that but Prim had found out anyway, through overheard whispers between people that weren't whispering as quietly as they'd thought.

Prim had wanted to go to Katniss earlier, to see her, to see how she was holding up, how she was handling not only Peeta being back but what they'd done to him. But she couldn't, not with her duties. As much as she wanted to be her age, to be a sister she had responsibilities in District 13, ones that she'd agreed to.

Prim had hoped to see Katniss at dinner but either their schedules hadn't meshed up or Katniss had skipped it. If this had been anywhere else Prim would have saved food for her, to make sure that she had a little something later but this was District 13. They lived, they survived but it was strict. And as much as she liked regular meals and the safety she knew that for Katniss this kind of life, this control (especially with the rebellion) was hard for her - some days too hard.

Although Prim had gotten to bed before Katniss she hadn't been able to sleep. She was tired, physically from her work but the need to speak to her sister, the wish to hold her, comfort her as Katniss had done to her so many times during the years before her first Hunger Games was stronger. So when Katniss spoke? She was there, her answer fast, and relief that Katniss was there, and reaching out. She knew when not to push, when to only give her so much, but when Katniss came to her she gave her everything, honest and true - even if it was hard to say (and to be heard).

Climbing out of bed, and feeling around for Buttercup, Prim walked slowly in the dark, making sure her steps were light and quiet. After crossing so far Prim put her arms in front of her, reaching for her sister, or the bed; whatever she found first ]

[At the sound of Prim's voice answering her, she exhales a quiet relief. Even if it's only temporary, it's the first semblance of it that she's had since they pulled her out of that room while Peeta continued to scream his head off like a lunatic behind her. ... No, before that. Since a pair of familiar hands, hands that had supported her through hell, hands she trusted almost more than any others, locked around her throat.

Although a semblance won't be a cure. It doesn't stand a chance against the confused war of emotions that rages on inside of her, against the fire of something she can't quite identify but can't ignore that burns, burns and burns, tearing her apart, continually fueled even if the image that sparked it has taken respite from her mind's eye.

Already, she feels herself begin to slip to it again. As long as she's still in District 13, she's doomed to repeat this cycle time and time again, where she'll surely only find one thing. Pain. Pain like she's never felt before.

But this time, something is there to hold onto her and draw her back from the edge. A pair of arms, steady, a ghost of reassuring. She doesn't waste a second's worth of hesitation in giving in to those arms, in pulling her sister closer to her, clinging to her like her last lifeline.]

[ The quiet of the room, of everything around them allows Prim to hear the sight, and she can almost feel her waiting, the fear and pounding of her heart. And in a way Prim shares it. Although she barely knows Peeta, at least compared to Katniss, she's still anxious - worried over his health, over what the Capitol did but also worried in fear of what it may do to Katniss. After being brought to District 13, after hearing about the destruction of District 12 and the capture of Peeta... it's been a rough few months for Katniss, rougher with the impact of both Hunger Games and the show needed for the Capitol added on. And she's scared that Katniss will pull away from everything again, just when she's started getting her back.

At the feel of Katniss's grip, the slight surprise at the motion of the tug due to not being able to see in the dark, Prim falls to her, landing as much on her as Prim did on the bed. But she uses that to her advantage, wrapping her arms around her sister in a big, gripping hug, sitting as close (and on) her as she can, wishing that Prim's strength and resolve could pour into Katniss like water moves through osmosis, wishing that helping her would be so simple.

But it's not, and Prim knows it, she's always known it. But knowing so makes her prepared, perhaps more prepared than she realises. She doesn't know what to say, not yet, but she is there - she'll always be there for her because that is what they do.

Prim sits silently, not loosening her grip around Katniss. She lets herself just sit there, the quiet of the room filling around them again for several minutes. And then she speaks, as quietly as Katniss's original whisper had been ]

They'll help him.

[ Prim doesn't add that what's happened has scared her, scared them all, or that they're not quite sure how to help Peeta (she overheard that too) but she's confident that they can, mostly because they need to. To beat the Capitol they need to beat this, because not being able to do so would mean that they hadn't completely won, that they couldn't.

And they needed to do it for Katniss, but most importantly for Peeta. Even if it will take a while Prim's just glad of one thing: they got him back. Alive ]

[She doesn't respond to that. She can't. There's hope in Prim's words, a hope she wants to believe in so badly, but knows is ultimately futile. Because what she saw in that room had no underlying hope behind it. An ally is now a stranger, and doesn't even think she's human. The gravity of that hits her once more, more strongly than it did earlier, and elicits a series of unwanted physiological responses. The formation of a lump in her throat that blocks the passage of air and makes breathing difficult. A set of tears stinging in her eyes, tears she's fighting her absolute hardest to blink back, even in the darkness of this room.

Hope can't take root in this unnatural maze of lead and concrete. There's only one truth that exists, she knows this now. The boy with the bread is lost to her. Forever.

And the faster she forces herself to accept that truth, the easier it'll be. The better she'll be able to focus on the only objective that matters, the one she specified with shaking hands when she agreed to be the Mockingjay.

I KILL SNOW.

It matters now almost more than it ever has.

Silence persists between them, one she allows to extend just long enough to avoid this topic of conversation. She simply keeps her sister as close as she can, as if to shield her from the horrors of this day. From unknown potential horrors that could still emerge. There are no limits to what could be taken from her, Snow has more than made that abundantly clear, but maybe if she holds on tightly enough....--

When she finally speaks, still maintaining the quiet whisper from before, she hates how unsteady it still sounds.]

I'm leaving for Two. [A beat.] Tomorrow.

What?

[ Prim replies quickly, pulling away from Katniss to look at her, or at least face her with how dark it was ]

No, Katniss, you can't.

[ Not just because of how short notice it was but because she couldn't. Sure, they needed her, needed her to be their Mockingjay but Prim needed her too, and even if Peeta was ill from what the Capitol had done he needed her too - he needed her to help him remember everything.

But she was going instead. Running. Doing what she always did when things were hard, especially after the Games. Their lives had never been easy, and it had been harder on Katniss because she'd had to do everything for them - Prim had seen, and realised that more the older she'd gotten, especially after Katniss had left for the Games and her mother had returned, had done things that Katniss had done before (or even- especially when there'd been no one, and Prim had had to do it herself).

Prim wants to stop her, to whisper that she needs her but even though that's true, and even if Katniss wants to stay because of that, Prim doubts that that will stop her and make her stay this time, not when there's more important things at risk than just family.

They got Peeta back for Katniss, and now Katniss has to do this. Prim knows that, but it doesn't mean she has to like it ]

And you'll ask yourself, where is my mind | closed to asaraindrop

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