The hissing voices increase, they chant at me, this all seems too familiar.

Katniss.

They have haunted my thoughts and dreams before, they are the cheering voices that encourage my murderous behavior.

Katniss.

They are thirsty for blood.

Katniss.

Thirsty for her blood.

Katniss.

All they want is death. They are programmed to rip apart limbs and sink their teeth in warm flesh and rip it to pieces.

Katniss.

The chants are a rallying audience desperate for action, hungry for death.

Katniss.

The emotions are coming back, flooding by so fast like the memory itself.

Katniss.

They are ferocious beasts, they haunt my memories even when I've never actually seen them. They're ready to kill. Ready to kill her.

Katniss.

My lips are moving, before I realize it, my voice chants along with them. I'm in some kind of trance, one that took over my slumber. Taking over my mind when it's most vulnerable. The trance is enticing, and it's so easy to just give in to it. My consciousness slowly regains, and fights the trance with abrupt alertness.

Katniss.

Katniss.

My eyes fly open, and I sit straight up,

"Katniss!"

I whip around to see her standing a couple feet away, thankfully not torn into pieces.

"Katniss! Get out of here!"

She just gawks at me,

"Why? What's making that sound?"

"I don't know. Only that it has to kill you. Run! Get out! Go!"

She grips her bowstring tightly, I didn't notice an arrow fastened in there. She looks around at the alerted faces of the rest of the squad.

"Whatever it is, it's after me. It might be a good time to split up."

I need her to leave now, we all need to leave. I have a feeling that those beasts would tear through as much flesh as they need to in order to catch her, but I don't want her to run around the tunnels in the darkness alone.

The others seem to think so too.

"But we're your guard," states Jackson.

"And you're crew," adds Cressida.

"I'm not leaving you," Gale says.

They quickly arm the camera crew with guns and briefly explain how to use them so they aren't completely defenseless. Finnick gives Castor one out of the two guns he has, Gale and Katniss give theirs to Messalla and Cressida, then they take my gun, load it with a real cartridge, and give it to Pollux. I'm not bothered, I don't trust myself with a real gun either.

We leave the room empty, without a trace of any proof that we were there. The hissing mutations must have strong noses, because the only way they could track us is from our scent lingering within the tunnels, or maybe they can hear our boots thundering across the Transfer. Once we leave the small room full of machinery, the hissing becomes even clearer than before. They sound pretty far behind us, we have a good lead on them, so we might make it out in time without encountering them at all. But who knows what deadly and inhuman abilities these mutts have that could help them advance to us at a fast pace.

As we make our way down the tunnels once again, more frantically than before, I get an idea of the Squad's mission that I never actually knew. I'm not surprised, we're headed for Snow's mansion, Katniss wants to kill Snow once and for all. Right now, they form a plan of utmost convenience that will help us get to the mansion fastest and avoid the hissing mutts.

We try to maintain our distance, we've walked at least three blocks, but that's when familiar and unique screams start echoing off the walls from behind us.

"Avoxes," I say immediately. "That's what Darius sounded like when they tortured him."

The thick and guttural essence of their screams pierce my memory so hard, it's like I'm back in a prison cell, tears drowning my eyes, while the helpless Avox is tortured to literal pieces, and I could do nothing but watch and shout at the walls.

We'll be next.

I shake it all off, heaving in air at a practiced pace and immediately emptying anything entering my mind, I have to keep it together.

"The mutts must have found them," says Cressida.

"So they're not just after Katniss," Leeg 1 points out.

"They'll probably kill anyone. It's just that they won't stop until they get to her," Gale says.

Katniss looks so conflicted, she pulls her eyes away from the others and stares down at the tunnel ground.

"Let me go on alone. Lead them off. I'll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission." She says.

"No one's going to agree to that!" Jackson retorts.

Through their arguing, I notice that the screams have stopped, everything is silent, but only for a moment. The hissing starts again, but it seems different...

"We're wasting time!" Finnick says.

"Listen," I whisper.

Everyone falls silent, and Katniss's name rebounds off the walls once again, they're louder, closer, and coming not only from behind but below us as well.

That seems to ruin their recent plan of escape. We start running, then stop by a descending stairway so Katniss can look at the Holo to see where else to go. Before she has a chance, she starts gagging,

"Masks on!" Jackson orders, but Katniss waves her hand. At first I'm confused, but then the scent hits me too, roses.

"Katniss."

My heart thumps so hard and so violently that I can feel it almost beating right out of my chest. It's abnormal beat echoes in my head, I try not to stay short of breath. Those insane urges flicker inside me but I don't cave in. I don't know how much longer I can keep my inner mutt away.

We have to get out of here.

Katniss trembles and swerves onto the Transfer, that's where we take off. She blows up the first pod we encounter, and we begin to make our way around another called the Meat Grinder.

I can feel the fake senses nipping at my sanity, I look ahead, pushing it away, but it keeps coming back.

I bend my shaky wrists uncomfortably so the the cuffs start to dig into them under the sleeves. Pain flares on my skin, stinging, alive, continuous, all of my focus shifts.

I stare at my now burning wrists, gently rubbing them with the tips of my fingers, I cringe at the pain. Good, I can focus now, I look away only to see Messalla get caught by a golden beam from an unmarked pod. He's as still as a statue, he probably can't move, can't scream, his flesh starts to melt off his body...

No, no, we have to leave now. We can't stay, we have to get out of here. No, no, no...

I try to move quickly, to escape, but the others don't budge, they just stare, gaping at Messalla trapped in the pod.

"Can't help him! I stammer loudly while shoving people forward. "Can't!"

A series of gunfire triggers another pod somewhere behind us, I turn around to see a group of peacekeepers stomp down the Transfer towards us. We can't move around the Meat Grinder fast enough to outrun them, so the others have no choice but to start shooting their weapons at the peacekeepers.

I feel dizzy, my hands clamp over my ears to avoid the noises, the gunfire is loud, but the chanting voices are overpowering, they are hissing so intensely into my ears, I try so hard to close them out. I look around dumbly as the rows of peacekeepers go down, and I notice more of them marching down the tunnel we just came from. I squint my eyes, those don't look like peacekeepers...

Oh no.

They're here.

They are some hybrid of human and lizard, some creation with every feature emphasized to look as terrifying as possible. They are the same size as a human, with naked white skin and a long reptilian tail. When they flash their sharp teeth and start ripping off peacekeeper heads, I look away.

Blood is pumping so violently, the adrenaline and panic makes everything so much harder, and the venom in my veins invade my senses, they shift everything to Katniss.

Katniss.

Kill her. End this. Now.

No... I can't...

I dig the hard edges of the handcuffs deep into the dented and bruised skin they were at before. Holding back a yelp and cringing at the slicing pain, I find myself back in reality.

"This way!" Katniss shouts, hugging the wall and avoiding the pod as much as possible. Once everyone is past the Meat Grinder, Katniss fires an arrow and activates it. Giant mechanical teeth rip up the streets and tiles to bits. The streets look impossible to walk on, but none of us knows what those mutts are capable of.

"Forget the mission," says Katniss, turning to Pollux. "What's the quickest way aboveground?"

We don't stop to discuss or examine the Holo, we move on down the Transfer, through a doorway, then through a tight pipe onto a small ledge. This is the main sewer, the grotesque scent of trash and wastes come from below.

I glance at my stinging wrists, blood is starting to drip from them, I guess the edges of the cuffs were sharper than I thought. I hide them under my sleeves, pushing the fabric over the skin.

After moving across the slippery ledge and a small narrow bridge, we're finally on the other side, Pollux leads us to a ladder. Finally, our way out.

Before getting ready to climb the ladder, Katniss looks around at Squad 451, and her face contorts into confusion,

"Wait! Where are Jackson and Leeg One?" She asks.

"They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back," answers Homes.

"What?" Katniss lunges back toward the bridge, but Homes pulls her back.

"Don't waste their lives Katniss. It's too late for them."

They were sacrifices. Nobody could've possibly known that they would survive a giant swarm of ruthless monsters like those, but they knew that they wouldn't go down without a fight, and in doing so it bought us time to escape. They distracted the monsters while the rest of us try get aboveground unscathed, and very well alive, especially the Mockingjay.

"Look!" Homes says, nodding towards the pipe we just came from, the mutts are pouring out of it, their shrieking voices piercing my hearing once again.

Katniss.

Katniss.

"Stand back!" Gale shouts. He shoots at the bridge, destroying half of it with his explosive arrows.

Everyone opens fire, with Finnick to my right and Cressida and Castor to my left, everyone else is farther behind me, closer to the ladder.

I'm panting in and out every breath I can muster, the voices are bringing me back somewhere deep in my memory that I don't want to be. They are programmed to kill, and they will rip apart anything in their way before getting to her. This reminds me sickeningly of myself, this is what they did to me, that's what I looked like, and I can't control it...

Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.

I push the cuffs into my skin with so much force, the pain is shrieking along with the mutts.

Suddenly a hand grasps my shoulder, I turn around and see Cressida,

"They found a ladder!" She says.

I nudge Finnick, but he ignores me, focused on shooting down the beasts.

"Finnick, come on!"

The other half of the bridge breaks down and falls down into the sewage, taking some of the mutts with it. The rest still make it over to our side, Finnicks gun is trained on them, taking them down with multiple sprays of bullets, but more keep coming. Castor and Homes move forward to focus their shots.

"You go on!" Finnick says.

"I'm not leaving you here, come on!"

"Someone has to hold them back, I'll come right after you!"

"Finnick..."

No, no more sacrifices, not Finnick.

He turns around to look at me, his serious sea-green eyes bore into mine. I can see the mutts behind him, advancing right to us. He pats my shoulder with his hand, speaking with a serious yet genuine tone,

"You have to keep her alive. It's your job, I know you want to."

Then he flashes me the famous Finnick Odair smile, and pushes me away.

The mutts are closing in, they're advancing even closer. They snarl with baring teeth and swing their clawed hands in the air, jumping at us with such viciousness that could only result in death. My breath hitches violently, I can feel myself slipping, I need to get out of here. We all back away from them. I can feel Cressida's hand tug me back.

"Go!" Finnick shouts again, dropping his now-empty gun and whipping out his fancy trident.

"Peeta, we have to go." Cressida presses on. pulling me back and pushing me towards the ladder. I numbly climb up, with my heart sunk low in a deep abyss and my head spinning faster every minute. Above me I see Gale and a glimpse of Katniss.

We reach a platform, climb up a second ladder, reach another platform, and climb third ladder. With every step I take to safety, the more guilt and regret finds its way into my chest and twists around inside. It only makes everything worse, I force my arms and legs up the ladders while urges of different actions seep into me. Human emotions try to push their way out, but so do the fake ones. I shove it all away, It can't come now. I'm concealed, but breaking, the painful barrier I've set to keep it all in is starting to crash down. I can't have it, I can't let it crash down, all the effort to keep me alive and I'll just kill another person.

It should've stayed down there instead of Finnick.

Katniss waits at the top, where we go through a pipe and she helps pull us off the ladder and onto the final platform. I'd been so distracted in my sanity that I didn't look down to see if Finnick is coming up the ladder as well, like he said he would. When I look down to check, he isn't there, he's still all the way at the bottom, swinging his trident at the mutts while they surround him with their bared fangs lunging forward at him. When he fights them off as best he can, one of them flys towards him with an open mouth, before its teeth chop down into his neck, I force away my eyes.

Katniss stares, horrified at the sights below. I huddle against the wall, hugging my bloody wrists. Gale prompts Katniss to move on, but she pulls out the Holo, and whispers something into it before dropping it down the opening. What follows is a big explosion that rocks the platform, then there's nothing but silence.

My heart rate is wild, my insides are still twisting, my lungs can't find air, voices are still echoing in my head...

Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.

It won't go away, I can't push it away any longer. It's coming, I can feel the unwanted chemicals shooting into my bloodstream, with programmed anger and fear beginning to flood my mind. I desperately try to hold it back, but I've been holding it back for so long, I don't have the strength anymore...

You have to keep her alive. It's your job, I know you want to.

Someone has to hold them back, I'll come right after you!

You know the difference between reality and destructive adolescent fantasies?

Katniss

Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other.

Katniss

End this now.

End it.

Do you really know what love is?

Katniss

Feed it to the pig you stupid creature!

She came here with me.

Katniss

I'm not gonna leave you.

I'll see you at midnight.

Katniss

Memories rush by so fast, the programmed emotions make their effect stronger, coursing the anger and confusion through me with powered force, feeding off my panicked energy. But there is also fear, the ultimate fear of myself and the danger I am to the others that had been lingering in my thoughts ever since they decided not to kill me.

No, I'm not one of them. I'm not one of those... things, those monsters, I can't be one of them. I can't.

My hands cover my sweaty face, my eyes are burning with unwanted tears. I try to hold onto reality as hard as I can, but I'm slipping, it's slipping away. I so desperately don't want to let go, anything I can think of that could happen if I do terrifies me, but I can't hold on, I just can't. Through muffled hearing, I hear a voice saying my name.

"Peeta?"

Someone moves my hands away from my face, Katniss, she gazes into my eyes, searching.

"Leave me," I whisper. "I can't hang on."

"Yes. You can!" She tells me.

"I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them."

I stare at the ground with unfocused vision. This is the moment. She has to kill me. No more time can be wasted. It has to happen now, before I lose it. I wait for it, but instead of a arrow to the head, I get a pair of lips pressed against mine.

Just when I think my sanity is about to completely explode, everything goes still with relief. It's as if I was being held underwater for a long period of time, like I was drowning, and someone just pulled me back to the surface. I can breathe again, the fresh air suddenly soothes all the things raging through my head, so that they now appear very faint.

The venom fights back, striking a certain coldness into me with the memories scrambling everywhere like they always do when I lose control, but it's different this time, there's a core emotion that stays the same in the middle of it all, unaffected.

The warm feeling of closeness and devotion, a comforting sense of undeniable fondness. It all comes back to me, as if I were back on the beach, or in the cave, on the train, wherever it is, she's there. She stays like that until I stop shuddering, then she finally pulls away.

My breathing is still limited, I try to control it while staring down at my quivering hands. The coldness is coming back, I try to hold onto the warm feeling, cradle it deep into the depths of my mind. It's so agonizingly hard to keep back, like I'm trying to push off a boulder that is crushing me. Katniss slides her own hands up my wrists and grasps mine. She's still leaning in close,

"Don't let him take you from me."

Snow, this is what he wants, I can't let him win. But all I want is for the pain to stop...

I can't let him win this easily.

"No. I don't want to..."

I'm falling into darkness, filled with grief, guilt, regret, and pain. Katniss clenches my hands hard, she leans in closer,

"Stay with me." She whispers.

A glimmer of light, it rages through the darkness, and I finally get a hold of it, I keep slipping away from it, but I don't let myself let go, I hold it close and let it reside deep inside me. I open my eyes to see Katniss right in front of me, her eyes are searching for mine, and I gaze right back.

"Always." I murmur, with the warm memory clearer than ever.