The Hunger Games- Prim's Story

Chapter 22

We don't stop for anything. We run and run until we get to the cave. Rain starts pounding down, and eventually, I can't tell if my face is wet with raindrops or tears. Peeta messily pushes away all his hard work on the outside of the cave to let us in. We scramble in and lean against the cave walls. I close my eyes and hear my heavy breaths and my heart pounding in my ears. After a few minutes, I grab the bags and dump them out when Peeta restores the outside of the cave. 

I dump out Foxface's bag and there's so much food crammed in it. Capitol food. My face burns as I burst into a smile. Peeta turns towards me and says exactly what I'm thinking. "We have a feast!" He smiles and we lay out the food in front of us. Four large plums, cheese tarts, two big bowls of thick stew with meat and beans, fish cakes, fresh rolls, and thick pieces of bread, puffy and golden with honey. I don't recognize a lot of the food, but I guess that makes sense. This food wasn't meant for me. For us. 

I take our small District Twelve bag and hold it in my hands. I wonder what could be in here. We were never really suffering. Maybe it's burn cream, the Capitol kind. The kind that will get rid of these disgusting burns forever. I quickly open the bag and two small containers fall out. One of them, as I suspected is burn creme. I ignore the other container and quickly spread a thin layer of the purple burn creme on my burns. It doesn't have any immediate effect on my legs, I don't try it on my legs yet. Instead, I grab the other container and read the label. In bold letters, it reads Happy Pills. With a smiley face at the end.

I angrily throw it across the cave and it bounces against the wall and rolls next to Peeta. "What happened Prim?" He asks, then picks up the pills. He frowns a little and looks at me. 

"They knew this would happen!" I explode. "They knew she would die! And they just let her!" 

Peeta nods and puts his arm around me. "I'm so sorry Prim. I know how much you liked her. She was too young. Way too young. I'm so so sorry." He lets me cry, but after about ten minutes, he pulls me away and looks at me sternly. "You are not to take any of those, do you understand? They won't solve anything. They'll just numb you. Understand? Don't even touch them." 

I nod and scoot away from Peeta. He looks at me sadly and strokes my hair. Then he goes outside and gets more water. I sit with my knees against my chest and my head in my knees. There must have been a reason outside these Games. The reason I survived. Thresh could've killed me, Cato could've killed me, even Rue could if she wanted to. She wouldn't have actually driven a knife into my heart, but she could've signaled to Thresh to sneak up behind me. It would've been easy, I was very vulnerable then. Why wouldn't she kill me? That's the point of the Games, isn't it? To bring pride to the winning district? To survive? 

There's a reason I survived. One more person down. One person closer to District Twelve. I'm meant to win and I will not be caught being vulnerable again. And I know I haven't been the "little sister" the crowd wants, but it's a hard position to fulfill. I crawl to the entrance of the cave and pick up the "Happy Pills". I put two in my mouth and gulp them down with water. 

Peeta enters the cave with more water and smiles gently. "Are you hungry, Prim?" I nod and gesture to the food. He nods knowingly at the food. "District Five food," he says. He points to the stew and calls it chili. And he says the puffy honey bread is fried. 

"How do you know that?" I ask, but I can't tell if I'm genuinely interested in his answer. I guess he was right about one thing, these pills make you numb. And they work fast. Perfect.

"Did you even notice the other tables of food during training?" He asks, with a halfhearted  laugh. I put on a small smile and shake my head. "The other tables had the district numbers on them with some of the district's signature foods on them. Obviously, they spiced it up a bit, no one would eat District Twelve's food if they didn't." He takes a close look at my face and asks, concerned, "Prim, I'm so sorry. Try and eat some of this and you should sleep. I'll take watch, okay?" 

He pushes a plum, a bowl of chili, and one of the fish cakes. I take it and quietly eat the plum and fish cake, but can only manage half the chili before I start to feel sick. Peeta smiles and says gently, "It's okay, we'll save it for later. You can eat it when you get hungry later." 

I nod and lean against him, using his arm as a pillow, but I don't go to sleep yet. His head is turned towards the entrance of the cave, keeping watch, but I poke his cheek. "Go to sleep Prim, you need it." He says, turning his head to look at me. 

"Peeta, I just want to go back home already," I say, feigning the voice of a sad child. 

He looks down at me with sadness in his eyes. "It's going to be okay, I promise. We're going to get back home soon. Go to sleep thinking of home. Think of every little detail. We'll be back before you know it." He gently strokes my hair and I eventually fall asleep, missing the thump that sounds outside the cave.