Smokescreen

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K. POV

My eyes snap open at the moment of impact, but there is none.

It's dark. My awareness is a splintered thing, a jumble of half-images and heightened sensations. I'm nothing but a frantic heartbeat, nerves on fire, sweat on skin. In my paralysis, I struggle to make sense of what I can recall: Tall trees with sunlight pouring through. A cannon booming in the distance. Running over uneven terrain. Fragments of blue watching me from the undergrowth. A misstep, then free-falling. With shaking hands, I feel around for broken bones and torn flesh. I'm sure I'm a million pieces shattered but strangely enough, I only find a smooth expanse of clammy skin.

That's when my eyes begin to adjust. A weak light filters through a gap in the curtains and the mundane details of my room begin to materialize in degrees; the oak vanity, the brass mirror, the flowered wallpaper. Solid, normal things. Everything mercifully slows down. I relax back into the mattress and stare at the little indentations in the ceiling. I repeat to myself: I am at home, safe in bed, far from the forest even though it's a truth that can't be any truer.

I shift over to my side and pick up the clock on my nightstand to squint at it. It's barely dawn and I'm wide awake. Even if I could go back to sleep, I wouldn't want to. The phantom stench of blood lingers in my nose and it makes me the deepest part of me shiver.

The nightmare had felt so real. One week before, it had been real.

Haymitch, my mentor, told me about the visions, that they were a badge of the Games. It was on the bullet train back to District Twelve. I distinctly remember that he had punctuated this with a long swig from his flask. The point couldn't have been made any clearer. I swore right then and there that I wouldn't turn into him or other Victors of the past; a broken thing addicted to being numbed.

It hadn't hit me at first. Being in the Capitol was like drifting through a dream. Now that I'm back at home, I'm thinking I was hasty in my judgment. I assumed the visions would be like flashbacks but what I face on a nightly basis is an entirely different breed; a mixture of events real and imagined. What I did, what I should have done, what could have happened; all magnified and distorted. Like fingerprints, no two are alike, but they always end the same. I die. Night after night. Painfully, horribly, vividly. It's tempting to turn to something that can shut out these images, especially when waking in my new room in Victor's Village offers no lasting comfort. It's a harsh reminder of what I paid for it.

Peeta. I bite down on my lip to distract myself from the wrenching in my chest. Perhaps it's only fair this way.

A banging noise startles me from my daze. It's a trigger that sends my heart pounding all over again until I realize that it's just someone is downstairs, at the front door. I relax by a small fraction. No one ever comes this early with good news. The knocking is persistent. Horrible news it is, then. I ease myself up and push away the sheets to answer its call. Whatever it is, it's a welcome distraction.

On unsteady legs, I make it through the darkened hall and down the stairs. There is no peephole so I carefully open the door a sliver to look through. Gale is here; his tall frame, what I can see of it, illuminated by the porch light. I feel equal parts relieved and anxious. If it had to be anyone at my door early in the morning, with the remnants of a nightmare still fresh in my mind, I'd want it to be him. He's my oldest friend, familiar and safe. But even so, I feel a ripple of self-consciousness as I stand in a thin cotton nightdress, my hair all snarls. This is the first time I've seen him since the stilted meeting after my homecoming, since I realized that a rift had formed between us. The Games had changed things drastically, but I think it began before that, when I noticed the strange look of longing in his eyes that made me feel uneasy.

I shut the door so I can unchain the lock and open it wider. I see that this is not the time to linger on petty issues. At the moment there is an injured and thoroughly disheveled man slumped against him, his head tipped down so I can't see his face.

"Help me get him in," Gale urges, and I quickly come around to the man's side and sling his arm over my shoulders. I try not to gag. He reeks of blood, sweat, and earth. Although he's lean, he's as limp as a rag doll and the deadweight makes it difficult to haul him inside the house. I guide them to a spare room on the ground floor, where we carefully lay him out on the bed.

My hand moves to his wrist where I detect a weak but steady pulse. "Where did you find him?"

Gale rests against the wall. A slight sheen of sweat reflects on his face. "I was in the woods to check the snares I set out a yesterday when I saw a shape on the ground in the distance. I thought it was a felled deer at first." He grimaces slightly as he mops his brow with the back of his hand. "He was barely breathing. I shook him awake and got him to stand with some help. We made it back through the fence together but he was slipping in and out. By the time we got here, he was unconscious again."

"What was he doing in the woods?" I ask, although I'm certain Gale knows no more than I do.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

I perch on the edge of the bed, studying him intently by the light of the bedside lamp. At first glance, he doesn't seem to belong to District Twelve. He lacks the olive skin of the Seam and the light hair of the merchant class. Underneath the caked dirt and blood, I can see his features are striking; a strong chin and jaw line, a defined nose, and startling jet black hair. Although I don't personally know every citizen of Twelve, I'm sure he's not from around here. I would have remembered him. I try to think. He was found in the forest, and the only place beyond that is District Thirteen. But it's a wasteland and he couldn't have possibly come from there.

He stirs at my touch when I brush my hand over his forehead to smooth away his hair. His skin is burning hot; a fever on top of the half-healed bruises and cuts all over his body. I look closely and see that these aren't the self-inflicted kind, accidental or not. He had been severely beaten. With a sick twist of my gut, I wonder if he had been brought to the woods and left for dead.

"I'm getting my mother," I tell Gale as I rise to my feet. Before I can turn away, the man on the bed groans. He moves his hand, his fingers tangling in mine; a small entreaty to stay. His eyes slowly open. Even unfocused and bleary with fever, they're a strange bright blue that chills me to my core. I stiffen under his gaze. It's… oddly familiar, like I've seen it in another lifetime. And when I think that I'll be tortured wondering for the rest of the morning, I suddenly place it. A little clicking noise goes off in my head, like a grenade pin being pulled. There is only one other person I've met before with these eyes; someone miles and miles away, far too important to be mistaken for this man in rags. I tell myself it's impossible but the more I look at him, the stronger my conviction grows.

We had met once, fleetingly. I can barely recognize him without his crisp red and black uniform and his perfectly groomed beard, but once I make the connection, I wonder why I didn't realize it sooner. The maker of my nightmares stares back at me, a similar recognition flickering in his face before he sighs and sinks back into the bed, his hand dropping to his side.

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A/N: Hello! Trying something completely different from 'Spectacle' here, as well as attempting a first person POV. Let me know what you think!

-Chiisana inori