Narrative Essay On Small Peeta

He doesn’t remember when they first happened. The thoughts. The ideas of escape. Sadly enough, he had become comfortable there. They fed him every day. They made sure that his enclosure stayed clean. He had a fairly comfortable spot to sleep in, and after two years of being there, he had a somewhat safe place to be. Physically at least. When he was just a boy, he was treated just like every other child at the farm. He and his siblings were taken from his parents when they were less than a day old and cleaned up, then put in their own enclosures. After a while, he became comfortable with the others around him. It was one of the two times he ever allowed himself to feel so. After growing with the children around him, the farmers got a more
He didn’t bother to learn their names, just calling them “Boss”; even the little girl. She was his favorite Boss. She mostly just stared at him. Sometimes she would hit his enclosure to try and make him to tricks, but she was still okay. She even gave him a name: Peeta. Apparently it was a character in their world, one that he had never had the privilege of learning about. His name quickly morphed into Small Peeta because of his young age and simply on account of just how miniscule he was compared to them. He grew accustomed to his life there, grew accustomed to Little Boss bringing any of her visitors to his enclosure to show him off. After nearly two years of being forced to be their pet, when the Mom Boss came in to clean everything, he heard a conversation she was having with the device mounted on the side of her head. She mentioned that she was glad that Ella, who he soon came to realize was Little Boss, had never realized that she and Dad Boss had replaced the first Peeta with the one they have now.

He wasn’t the first Peeta. There were others before him. A small part of him knew this the entire time because of how they knew how to treat him and feed him and keep him just broken enough to stay
He was free! Well, nearly. Moving to get up and head to the door, he realized he couldn’t move. As most of his confusion and adrenaline faded, pain swallowed him whole. Sharp, dull, aching, burning pain somehow all simultaneously enveloped his body, freezing him where he landed.

He lay there.

For seconds or hours or days he wasn’t sure. The only he was sure of was the pain. After long enough, he could feel his lungs grasping at nothing. He was suffocating and with blood beginning to dribble out of his mouth, he knew that he would never make it out of this place alive. Clarity reached his mind and he suddenly knew that something of this nature must have happened to the Peeta before him.

Enough time passed that even the pain began to fade and only a heavy numbness began creeping up on the edges of his vision. It was over. He knew it. He felt it in his bones. His freedom would be death and yet nothing could please him more. He was so close, going along with the flow of the Styx. In his very last moments, before the spinning waters sucked him under, he heard the voice of Mom Boss.

He was happy that she was the one who found him, his primary caretaker. She saw him on the floor and the last thing that he heard in his short, suppressed life was Mom Boss shouting,

"Damnit babe, we’ve gotta get a new fish! Small Peeta jumped out of his aquarium or