Hunger Games (Peeta's POV)

16

I awoke to the stab in my thigh sending feelings of searing hot pain through my leg. A cannon tears through the silence of the forest. I  look around quickly, as though I'll see who it is, see who died. I have enough hope within me to think of Katniss. I imagine if cannons are sounding, the remaining Career's are awake and on the move. They sleep through the days and hunt through the nights. So, it's all I can do to hope that they'll stop hunting soon. 

I close my eyes, blocking out the world and trap myself within my own mind. I know I won't live long with an untreated injury, so I let myself sit within my happiest memories, oblivious to the world surrounding me. 

I couldn't tell you if the days were passing at all, I was trapped in the part of my brain that hopes. I imagined a future with Katniss, a future surrounded by dandelions and sunshine. I imagined a world without war and Hunger Games. I imagined a million worlds and futures as the days passed. I couldn't tell you if I was alive or dead. All I was aware of was the happiness, the hope. 

I created a game, one where I challenged myself to remember every moment I'd seen Katniss smile. A few stood out to me, the look on her face as she ran off with the bread, her smiling as Prim ran up to her after school, her staring at the cakes with a smile on her face, her on stage for the interviews. Each memory brought me comfort, for my own sake, I hope Katniss will live a life full of smiles. 

I try to imagine her going home, I force myself to ignore the jealousy that threatens to arrive with the thoughts of Gale and her together. But, a part of me is comforted to know she'll have someone to go home to. 

I go in and out of consciousness, time losing all meaning. Voices sometimes interrupt my dreams, but I'm never sure if I imagined them. 

I stay awake for my longest bit of consciousness in I don't know how long, forcing myself to eat. I only eat grass growing from the edge of the stream, but I throw it up. I wonder if this is how I'll go, peacefully and already buried into the ground. I hope so, for my family's sake. 

I think of every person from home, all those people I refused to look at during the reaping. How they're watching me right now. It must have been a first watching one of their own in an alliance with the careers, and me trying to save Katniss. I wonder of their reactions to my declaration of love. Only my brother's really knew. One too many times they saw me staring out the bakery window to her and Prim staring at the cakes. I can hear them teasing me in my head when an explosion breaks the silence I'd been sitting in.