Hijacked

Voice of Reason

"Are you sure you don't want us to come with you?" Katniss asked worriedly as she straightened out the collar of my jacket. I refrained from swatting her hands away. She was smothering, like a mother but I didn't want to push her away. It would almost feel like I was pushing Catora away.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You're not going to like what's down there." Gale said softly glancing out one of the many small windows of the Hovercraft.

"I don't need babysitters." I said forcefully. Katniss started wringing her hands.

"We're not babysitters Peeta, were your friends and we want to.. Help you. This is tough on all of us, loosing Catora but.."

"We didn't just loose her Katniss. She was taken." I said forcefully. "I could have helped her. I was the only one here with the means. If they had just told us what they had planned.." I stopped. "I hope she's dead. Who knows what they're going through if they're alive." Katniss swallowed hard. The bay door for the plane was opened but the engine clearly hadn't been cut. I could see we were hovering just above the ground.

"We're dropping you off here. If you want to be picked up before you get to the Victory Village, just get our attention. We won't be far behind."

"Fine." I grumbled before stomping my way out of the Hovercraft. As soon as I jumped down onto the ground, I heard the metal scraping of the door close but I didn't look back. My eyes were scanning the Seam. There was a fine layer of ash covering everything and I swallowed hard with the thought that, the ash probably wasn't just from burning buildings but burning people.

I walked slowly, spotting Katniss' house. Not much of the Seam was intact, I was surprised her house was still standing. As I moved deeper into District 12 though, everything became much more destroyed. The Justice building was in ruins. You could hardly tell where it had originally stood. The gallows and hanging posts were completely destroyed and covered with rubble. Walking through the streets was harder with the jagged slabs of concrete jutting out of the ground. As I hopped up onto one of the slabs, that's when I noticed the crows.

There were hundreds of them. They were flying in circles above me and moving along the ground, hopping here and there. I frowned, confused by their presence. That's when I smelled it. Hundreds of burnt bodies. The ground came into focus as I took in the ash covered bodies, flesh still smoking. Dogs were pulling them apart and birds were picking at bones. I threw up on the ground.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to get to the Victory Village and the sight of it made me want to laugh until I couldn't breath. It was nearly perfectly intact. The first two houses on the block were ruined but nobody lived in those. Haymitch, Catora and I lived in the ones farther down the line. I walked slowly to my house, letting all the good memories spent here wash over me.

Over there I laid with Catora under the stars. I comforted her over by that bush. She kissed me by the water fountain. I stopped walking and just stared at the stone inlaid ground. What was I doing? Was this my way of trying to bring her back to me? This wouldn't do anything. The drawings might help me remember what she looked like but if she wasn't physically here with me, what was the point.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed Carora's hunting bag off the back of a chair. It smelled like her still. Then, heading upstairs I grabbed some of my art supplies, stuffing them into every nook and cranny of the bag. I carefully placed every drawing I had of her inside one of my sketch pads before closing up the bag. I was getting ready to walk past my room but I stopped just outside the door. This was the last place Catora and I were together before the games. I opened the door to the room.