Written for Prompts in Panem.

Day 3: Modern Locations

Visual Prompt: Cemetery

A million Thank You's to safe-always-real for betaing and preventing this story from becoming a disaster, and megsonfire for putting up with all my annoying, panicky fanmails.

Story cover by the talented Ro Nordmann!

I am greeted with total darkness when I open my eyes. It is pitch black – not even a speck of light – I wouldn't be sure that I had opened them at all if not for the blinking of my eyelids telling me otherwise.

I lay on a soft, padded surface, both my hands folded across my stomach. A thin material covers me, tucked just below my chin. Satin, I suspect, judging from the sheer feel and delicate way the fabric kisses my skin. My fingers strive to flex themselves, to rub on the smooth cloth, but I find that I can't move them.

I can't move my limbs.

Panic begins to rise in me. I try to move again, but to no avail. I can't move even the merest of muscles.

My motor functions have been rendered useless. But somehow I have retained my sensory responses; I feel something hard and cold on my chest (a locket?), the way my elbows and the heels dig slightly into my bed, and the general weight of my entire body. But other than that, nothing.

Am I paralysed? Did I have a stroke?

Surely not. I'm too young and healthy to have a stroke. Don't be stupid, Peeta.

I remember my late grandfather. He was paralysed from the neck down, as a result of a stroke decades ago. I watched him, a man who had exuded power, vigor and wealth reduced to a weakling, a phantom of himself, hunched in his wheelchair. Frail. Helpless. All-seeing but unmoving. Watching the world bursting with energy and unable to be a part of it.

To have a capable soul trapped in the useless husk of a body. I tremble at the thought. Why, I'd rather be dead than—

Ahhhh.

It can't be. Surely this isn't possible. Not real.

I stare into the darkness again, trying to make sense of what's happening.

Listen!

A man starts to speak. His voice is coming from outside, to my right. I am in a… vault? The barriers filter the sounds, but the voice is still distinguishable; thin and reedy.

"…and today we are gathered here…" That sounds like Pastor Cray. I have only met the man a few times, but I can still remember what he sounds like. Does he know I'm here?

I try to raise my arms to beat against my prison, to announce my presence, but they remain stubbornly clasped over one another.

"…was tragic, but God had other plans for him…" I pay little attention to Pastor Cray droning as I attempt to move my limbs through sheer willpower, but they refuse to do my bidding. I blink in frustration, hoping whatever invisible force that was binding me will miraculously disappear and leave me mobile again. Nothing happens.

Blinking, that is still the only movement my body will allow me. But what use is opening and closing my eyelids when I am trapped in infinite darkness?

"Amen," Pastor Cray said with finality. Then comes another "Amen", this time formed by a collection of voices. Judging from the volume, it must come from a large crowd. I am laid in a vault, in a place surrounded by many people. Where am I?

Silence. Whispers and mutterings travel in and I hear footsteps approaching me. The sound of heels.

A woman is crying hysterically, her hiccups punctuating a sob every now and then. I hear the sniffing of a nose, then a grateful "thank you". My heart leaps in joy, relieved at finding some familiarity in this strange situation – Katniss.

Strange, though. My wife isn't one to become emotional, let alone demonstrative in public. Katniss was always quiet and stoic, with a mysterious allure. I was instantly attracted to her the moment I first set eyes on her. She was different, unlike the other women who constantly fawned over me because of my wealth. The Mellark inheritance was old money, passed from generation to generation. But Katniss has expressed no interest in the money, even though she was from a lower social standing (much to my late mother's chargin) and I believed in her for that. We lived a comfortable yet simple life, far from the lavish and extravagant lifestyle my late parents had lived.

Katniss's cries were subdued now. She clears her throat. "Thank you all today, family and friends, for coming." A sniff, then a trembling sigh.

"Peeta lived a good life, with blessings from the Lord. He was called home to the Lord on Wednesday night, the eighth of May—"

Wait. Everything since I woke up comes into full circle. I am lying in my very own coffin, and they all think me dead. But this is a huge mistake. I'm not dead. I am very much alive!

Am I?

My whole body is immobile, save for my eyelids. I still have my hearing and my sensory receptors are still active. I am a catatonic man, the symptoms eerily similar to that of death. Have they mistaken me for dead?

Am I still breathing?

I try to listen to the sound of my own breathing, to feel the rising and falling of my chest, but Katniss's voice carries on, covering them completely.

"He was a good man, a devoted husband. He provided the best for his wife. His death was sudden, but—"

Sudden? I rack my brain to retrieve my last known memory – hazy visions of hospital beds, bright lights, nurses, frantic orders, the electronic hum of machines.

No, no. Before that. The hospital scene is too chaotic, too out of focus.

Rewind to the scene before.

I remember. We were celebrating her 32nd birthday. Just the two of us, in our cozy little kitchen. We were childless even after three years of marriage. I've always wanted a child, someone to carry on the Mellark name, but Katniss always seemed to hesitate. "Later," she kept delaying. "We're still young, Peeta."

I had handed her a document, her birthday present. It was my latest will. I had transferred all of my inheritance to her. "What's mine will be all yours," I told her. Something had flashed across her face. A triumphant look? Maybe it was the wine affecting me. She didn't say anything, but started to feed me a sugar-powdered donut. She knew how much I loved those. We always bought them from the local bakery.

"You love me. Real or not real?" I had asked her. It was our little game, started during our courtship.

Then I felt a sudden sharp pain in my chest, and everything from that moment on was a blur. I vaguely remember collapsing, the shattering sounds of a wine glass, and Katniss's alarmed face hovering above me. "Peeta!"

"…and may he rest in peace," Katniss finishes her eulogy to applause all around.

They all think I have died, but I am going to prove to them that I am very much alive. Granted, my body will not cooperate, but my voice! I can use my voice!

"Help!" I shout at the top of my lungs. "HELP!"

But the sound only echoes in my mind. Nothing from my vocal cords. Even these have betrayed me.

Fear settles within me. Is this my fate, then? Am I going to be buried alive?

I have heard of premature burials. It was common during the last few centuries, but that was only because they weren't as medically advanced back then. Surely it couldn't happen with today's advanced technology?

But still, it was entirely plausible the hospital had pronounced me dead when I was still alive.

And I'll be damned if I allow this sick joke to go on any longer.

"Help!" I try again. "Help!"

Still nothing.

Pastor Cray is leading everyone in prayer again. I try to jerk, twitch, mentally willing my limbs to move again. Move, move, I command them. But it is futile.

"Katniss!" I cry, hoping she will hear me. Isn't there some sort of tale where close couples have this mental bridge built between them? Telepathy? Where one is in trouble, the other half will immediately sense it? "Katniss!" Is there truly no link between us?

A pungent scent begins to pile on. Flowers. Different types of flowers, their scents clashing together like a perfume gone awfully wrong. They must be placing wreaths on my coffin. What happens next? They will be lowering me into a freshly dug grave, I suppose. The danger of my situation overwhelms me.

I want to shake my fists, to beat them against the wood of my confinement. Scream, Peeta, Scream!

"Wait, I have a few last words," Katniss tells Pastor Cray. I imagine she must be pressing her face close to the side of my coffin. I cock my ears, the only organ still faithful to me, to listen.

"Not real."

What does she mean? And then it hits me. I freeze in horror, understanding the insinuation behind her words. Katniss! Had she—? Could it be possible?

Was it the donuts? I had noticed they tasted different lately, but dismissed it to the fact that they were made by a different baker. Could she have added something to them?

But why? Why would she do that? Inheritance? My thoughts are incoherent, a jumbled mess of confusion.

In my state of shock I hadn't noticed the footsteps surrounding me, and suddenly I am heaved upward. They must be lifting my coffin, preparing it to be buried. I tumble slightly to the side.

No! I snap out of my stupor, momentarily pushing aside the thought of my wife killing me. Survival comes first.

They are lowering me into the grave, I can feel it. A descent, a swoop of gravity. No, I scream, this is a mistake! I nearly black out from the terror, and it would have been a relief, but I must stay sane and awake to communicate for help. If only I could claw my way out later, scratch and scrabble the hard wood with my fingernails.

Is this really the end?

They are singing hymns. Concentrate, I chide myself. Move a finger, any finger. Oh, how I wish for psychic powers. The singing is over. A prayer now. Quick, do something Peeta. Prise open your jaw. Open your mouth to let out a blood curdling scream. Kick your legs against the damned wood. Do something, anything!

Oh no, the prayer is over. Katniss, as the wife, will now throw the first shovel of dirt. Her voice drifts down, her tone chilling.

"Goodbye, Peeta."

The dry earth spatters on my coffin, my head echoing not real not real not real.

She kneels beside her husband's grave. All the well-wishers have gone. The evening sunset casts an eerie glow on the white tombstones, contrasting with the black wrought iron gates of Panem Cemetery.

It had been hard, at first. He never included her name in his will. She guessed he wasn't as completely guileless as he had appeared to be. Then it became easier. Four years of trust and a little help from the poison, the powdery weapon she had spiked his donuts with for months. Since the day she learned that he had changed his will, long before her birthday, so that when he died from sudden heart failure no one would suspect her, the demure little wife.

Her fingers run across the new tombstone, brushing on the inscription. Mellark. How she hates that name. His ancestors had conned hers of their money, dooming the Everdeens to lives of hardship and poverty. She only wanted back what was rightfully hers.

And she did. Money, estate. The Mellark legacy belongs to her now.

There were times she would wake up to his blue, blue eyes, and wonder if she could love him back the way he loved her. No, she told herself, the descendants have to pay for the sins of their forefathers.

She had never loved him; he was just a piece in her games.

Not real, she whispers, more to herself than to the person six feet under.

Not real, she covers her stomach with one hand, feeling the tiny fluttering of movement within her.

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