There's a familiar hint of salt in the humid air, and both the heat and the shadow of dense vegetation hang heavy about him. He can feel his pulse quickening, his breathing becoming shallow as panic tries to rise. Focusing his swimming mind, he tries to remember the last thing that happened, but his memories are a jumbled mess.
He was in the water, then he was in the trees. Then he was fighting - something? He shakes his head, and a thought clicks into place that erases all others.
Katniss.
He pivots in place, eyes searching the undergrowth, half expecting to find her lying there, bleeding and dying - or dead. He can't fully explain why he expects that, but they're in the Games and she isn't here with him and that's enough to add up to death.
He has no idea where he is, but he picks a path that looks clearest and starts running. He's going full-tilt, glancing back over his shoulder, when he plows into a fence. It isn't an invisible barrier, like in the arena, or electrified, like the District fences. In fact, the wires of the fence are far too widely spaced to have been built with the intention of containing people.
"Muttations," Peeta mutters, and a shudder rolls through him as he looks back over his shoulder again. He hesitates, wondering what side of the fence he is on - the "in" or the "out" - but a closer look through the wires reveals that there is a road not far away from the fence. He frowns at that; there aren't roads in the arena, are there?
Confused, but sure that the road side of the fence is the better side, he easily slips between the fence wires and walks toward the road. There's a track of some kind in the middle of it that reminds him a little of a single railroad rail. Following the track with his eyes, he starts when he spots a car not far away. Even as hurries toward it, he can see the rust that lays heavy across the body. It's sitting on the track, but that all it's doing; it clearly won't be moved. Not that Peeta would have any idea how to move it, but at least he could have tried.
He's staring forlornly at the useless vehicle when a sound unlike anything he's ever heard before rends the air. Head snapping up, he spots - are those birds? - taking flight from trees somewhere much closer to the horizon than he is. A faint tremble ripples through the ground and, without giving the instinct a second thought, Peeta turns in the opposite direction of the noise and, following the road, he bolts.
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There's a familiar hint of salt in the humid air, and both the heat and the shadow of dense vegetation hang heavy about him. He can feel his pulse quickening, his breathing becoming shallow as panic tries to rise. Focusing his swimming mind, he tries to remember the last thing that happened, but his memories are a jumbled mess.
He was in the water, then he was in the trees. Then he was fighting - something? He shakes his head, and a thought clicks into place that erases all others.
Katniss.
He pivots in place, eyes searching the undergrowth, half expecting to find her lying there, bleeding and dying - or dead. He can't fully explain why he expects that, but they're in the Games and she isn't here with him and that's enough to add up to death.
He has no idea where he is, but he picks a path that looks clearest and starts running. He's going full-tilt, glancing back over his shoulder, when he plows into a fence. It isn't an invisible barrier, like in the arena, or electrified, like the District fences. In fact, the wires of the fence are far too widely spaced to have been built with the intention of containing people.
"Muttations," Peeta mutters, and a shudder rolls through him as he looks back over his shoulder again. He hesitates, wondering what side of the fence he is on - the "in" or the "out" - but a closer look through the wires reveals that there is a road not far away from the fence. He frowns at that; there aren't roads in the arena, are there?
Confused, but sure that the road side of the fence is the better side, he easily slips between the fence wires and walks toward the road. There's a track of some kind in the middle of it that reminds him a little of a single railroad rail. Following the track with his eyes, he starts when he spots a car not far away. Even as hurries toward it, he can see the rust that lays heavy across the body. It's sitting on the track, but that all it's doing; it clearly won't be moved. Not that Peeta would have any idea how to move it, but at least he could have tried.
He's staring forlornly at the useless vehicle when a sound unlike anything he's ever heard before rends the air. Head snapping up, he spots - are those birds? - taking flight from trees somewhere much closer to the horizon than he is. A faint tremble ripples through the ground and, without giving the instinct a second thought, Peeta turns in the opposite direction of the noise and, following the road, he bolts.