Never Yours (Peeta Mellark X Reader)

Chapter 20--Alone

YOUR POV

It couldn't have come any quicker.

The thought that struck you the day before the reaping made its reappearance as you opened your eyes to see the sun peeking out from between the leaves in the trees. For a moment, you felt comforted, until you suddenly realized you had no one beside you.

In short, you were completely alone, for the first time in the Games. Cato wasn't there, Peeta wasn't there, Rue isn't even beside you anymore.

"And so it happens," you murmured to yourself. "I have to end up being alone."

You struggled as you got up now, awkwardly placing your wrists on the tree branches as you sat up, feeling a bit sore from lying in the tree for so long. The bread from District 11 and the circlet from District 1 still laid in your hands, so you quickly put them away in your backpack and started to search for any more food you might have. Luck didn't play on your side, however, and you realized there was nothing else in the pack that screamed out edible, so you resorted to eating the bread from District 11, taking small bites out of it. It tasted good, with its seeds--something that, for you, really hit home.

Taking care now not to make too much noise, you quietly packed everything up and made your way down the tree. The moment your feet hit the ground, you took out a knife and looked around for more tributes. Luckily, there weren't any, and you managed to breathe out a sigh of relief.

Wait a second. Exactly how many people are left in the Games? There's Cato, whom you know is probably still ranting and raging about leaving you alone and letting you go when Pearl came back to attack in her tracker-jacker trance. There's Clove, who you still haven't seen in the sky. There's Foxface, there's Thresh, there's Peeta...is that it? Just five other tributes?

It didn't matter, though. You still felt like you lost a lot of friends in the process. Of course you didn't mean to grow close to the tributes at all, but every time Cato's smile appeared in the back of your mind, the way Clove handled herself with the knives in training, Glimmer's smirk and charm, even Marvel's boyish qualities, and then Rue's determination...the happy memories made you feel sadder, mostly because most of them were either dead or just gone.

"Snap out of it," you scolded yourself. "You're going to be killed if you keep thinking like that."

Hesitantly now, you started stepping forward through the trees, trusting all of your instincts now to watch out for any more danger. Odds would probably be by this point that Cato would spring out and kill you or Peeta would--no. You refused to let your mind wander to Peeta. Maybe you'd accidentally come across some kind of poisonous fruit and eat it, or an animal would come and attack. It hurt you to even think about the fact that there are just so few tributes left, and the Games wouldn't be over until 5 more of you die.

Throughout the day, all you did was hunted, fished, refilled on water, and gathered. No tribute was in sight. No Foxface, Thresh, Cato, Clove, or Peeta. On the plus side, you didn't feel like fighting at all. The thought of being alone for the first time in the Games, with no one to stay beside you, greatly weighed you down, especially when the memories began to replay in your mind. Your conversation with Rue as she brought the pain out of your tracker jacker stings. Cato's arms wrapped around you in protection. Your conversations with Peeta before his confession. Clove's face when she saw how talented you were with a knife. On and on the memories flashed in your mind, and eventually you found yourself at the bank of the lake with your arms hugging your knees so tightly you felt like if you kept yourself too open you would lose all sense of rationality and go insane.

How could they, though? How could anyone in the Capitol bother doing this kind of thing to you and every other tribute? Or rather, every district who rebelled against the Capitol? There must have been reason behind it. You never talked about it with anyone other than Peeta, and even Cato made slight mention of it. But other than that, the Capitol would be listening. Any mention of you ticking them off...