I saved Katniss. Is all I can think. The Careers ran in the complete opposite direction. I saved Katniss. I begin to let myself relax. The venom taking over. This is alright. I think. This is not a bad place to die. Despite the pain I am in the shallow water I seem to be floating on is peaceful. I did what I came to do. I saved Katniss. I sigh and move my arms around in the water. Until suddenly there is a tickling on my hand. I look down amusedly but gasp at what I see. One big black bush spider is crawling it's way up my arm. Suddenly there is a whole tonne there following it. I let out a terrified screech and scramble backwards until I bang into a tree which appears to be growing more massive each second. The spiders keep coming appearing out of nowhere. I use the tree to get to my feet but immediately I tumble back down from the pain in my left leg. It's limp, I'm unable to use it. It feels heavy and I slump back against the tree. I glare down at my leg wound frustratedly and all I can see is a golden sparkling, thick liquid substance which seems to be spraying out of it. How bad did Cato cut me? Is it really that bad? Is this real? Is any of it real? What is and what isn't actually happening? How foolish I must look on the screens theoughout Panem, thrashing around, screaming out, stumbling around and tripping over nothing. Did Cato even cut me at all or am I just hallucinating that too? Even though it seems so vivid I'm still sure that not all of this is real, but some of it I'm not so sure about. I wonder what my friends, my family, my mentor, my escort, my District and the Capitol think of my crazed actions right now.

Using the sticky black tar on the tree trunk I pull myself back up again and start to limp away, literally dragging my leg. But the spiders are all over me know. Some black, some brown, some of them even red. They make high pitched shrieks and their eyes are like human eyes. Watching me. I scramble desperately away from them, half dragging, half gripping, half tripping my way along tree trunks. But I'm not going anywhere fast. I even resort to shaking my arms to get rid of the beasts but they dig their oversized teeth into me and stay there. This only adds to the pain I am in and I collapse down onto my hands and knees. I crawl along the ground but it's slippery like ice and I'm sliding around everywhere, going nowhere. I grunt and struggle along inch by inch. Dragging my left leg through the layers of mud and dirt. The pain is a mixture of stinging and throbbing and aching. It's everything I could ever imagine. Suddenly the leaves start to fall from the trees. Green pine needles, orange pine needles, even bigger greener leaves. I reach up to grab one, mesmerised. But the moment I touch it more pain fizzes through my finger. Deep and penetrating. I cry out. More and more leaves fall and as they touch my skin they turn to acid droplets, sizzling their way into my skin. I scream and yell in agony. At least they are killing most of the spider though. I slip my way across the ground and I feel like I'm up and running again but when I look down at my hands they are pressed into the pink mud of the earth and it squishes it's way between my fingers. Dazed and confused I look around me. The trees are spinning around in circles and are all wild colours. A bird lands in front of me and starts to sing, a familiar tune, and it's not a birds voice either. It's Katniss. Way back on our first day of school. She sings the Valley Song. The bird is small and blue and each note it sings it seems to inflate and expand until finally it explodes. Feathers fly into my face and I wipe them away to find another round of spiders coming from where the bird just sat.

They're all over me know. I scream and yell at them to go away but no voice leaves my mouth. They're on my face, in my mouth, ripping off my finger nails with their jagged teeth. Who knew spiders had such big white teeth and human like eyes? I gag and choke on them, unable to breathe. They crawl into the gaping hole where Cato cut me and only aggravate the pain even more. I don't know how long this goes on for, but I painstakingly make my way through the growing and shrinking bush, dragging myself along the pink, watery ground, leaving a trail of the golden paint spewing from my leg. Sick and disorientated, I have no idea where I am going until finally I can't bare it any longer. The pain is too much. How long have I been travelling with this tourcher for? Seconds, minutes, hours, days even? It just seems never ending. Everything is shiny. So shiny. Too shiny. Bright and intense. It hurts my eyes. Eventually, I half stagger half crawl out from under the acid leaves which are now falling heavily and covering my stinging body, into the bright white overly intense sunlight. As if it cooks them, the spiders shrivel up and disintegrate as the blazing sun beats down on them. I vomit all of the ones that crawled down my throat back up. But now from what I can see my arms are covered in their tiny bite marks. I here a bubbling noise ahead of me and I turn alarmed in the direction of the noise. Just ahead of me is a gently flowing stream. Desperately wanting to quench the thirst in my dry, scratched throat from the spiders. They left a disgusting taste. I clumsily drag myself by my hands and only my right leg towards it. My left leg has gone numb. I can't feel it at all now. For all I know it could have fallen off by now. Just as I reach the waters edge I here a cracking noise and I watch in horror as the thing I want so badly right now freezes over into an impenetrable layer of crystal. That's when I give in. It's too much. I give up. I collapse down and sink down into the ground, surrounded by snakes that seem to be stuck in the earth by their tails, just unable to reach me. Shivering cold and sweating hot. I curl up into a ball. One hand resting on the cool crystal glass. I lay exposed to anything around me. Animals, human hunters, the elements. But I don't care. Death would be far better then this terror I'm facing right now. The sun seems to be falling down on top of me. Then it blinds my eyes and everything turns black.

Am I awake? Am I asleep? Am I dead? I don't know. But wherever I am is a nightmarish place. The fear that is induced by these tracker jacker stings is literally the worst possible things that I could ever think of, picked from the deepest depths of my mind. Thoughts that I have forced myself to suppress for obvious reasons. I'm beaten repeatedly by mother. Ruthlessly, heartlessly, until every time I'm sure that I'm dead. Except when I open my eyes again she looms over me with another tourcher tool. How many times and how many gruesome ways do I have to see Katniss get killed in these Games. I didn't know there were so many slaughter methods. You would think I would get used to the visions. But each new one only brings on a renewed, deeper fear of what is to come. One time, when Katniss is killed I am crowned victor. And when I returned home there is nothing left there. Just a barren wasteland. Then I notice the little girl sitting in the middle of it. Blonde hair in two plaites. Big blue watery eyes. Skin and bones. She sobs into her hands.
"This is all your fault."  Cries Primrose as I cross over to her.
I stop dead in my tracks overcome with guilt. It is my fault. I should have done something else to save Katniss. Now I have no idea where she is, what she's doing or if she's even alive. No, remember, she's dead. You were crowned victor. She's dead because of you. And now look what's left for you. Nothing. Life without Katniss around leaves me nothing. Except the reminder of how I let down her family.