"You need the body armour, it's just because you need the body armour" I keep telling myself. "Body armour" I can't afford to attach myself to another person, I can't afford to be weak. "It's the body armour. It's because he took the body armour" I run faster, faster than I've ever run before. As I speed up, I can't stop the thought anymore "CLOVE!" it rings through my body, my mind, my entire being. Clove! "No, it's just because she was your ally. Your chance to win improved when you were two" I try to convince myself, but even as I think it I know it doesn't help. I don't care about the body armour, I don't care about winning, I only care about one thing, the only thing I've ever really cared about. 'Till this day the only thing that mattered was winning. Training for the games. Eating for the games. Volunteering for the games. Fighting for the games. Killing for the games. To win. But I've never really cared about anything before, not like I do now. The burning empty feeling in my stomach. The feeling of loss. The feeling when you lose something you really care about.
At home I never really loved anyone. My parents were all right, but our feelings toward each other were business related. I needed to win, so that they could keep living like they do now. My siblings were nothing but rivals. It was the same with the other males from my district, nothing but rivals. I liked the females from my district, but never loved, I know the feeling of desire and I'm used to getting it satisfied. That was my relationship with Glimmer, lust. But not with Clove. I try to convince myself, that it's just desire – nothing else, just like Glimmer, but it's not. It's another feeling, a warm feeling, not violent, but gentle. Though right now it hurts.
I'm crashing through the meadow, making far more noise than I need to, trying to numb the pain, but it doesn't help. I need to kill Thresh. The hate, the urge to destroy him helps far more. I direct all my feelings towards him, towards the hate. It's easier to cope with, it makes me stronger.
As the hate slowly facilitates I become aware that I don't know where I am. I know I'm in the meadow, Thresh's meadow. I stop to listen, the grass damps the sounds from the outside. I've got no idea where in the meadow I am. I know that I've been running for some time, but I've been running blindly and I've lost trace of him. I shout at the top of my lungs "COME OUT! COME OUT COWARD!" but he doesn't come. I keep screaming, not because I think it'll make him come, but because it helps. I scream for myself, I scream for my lost childhood, I scream for those who destroyed whatever good might've been left in me, I scream for those whose lives got destroyed by the game, for those whose lives is going to get destroyed by the games and I scream for Clove. For the loss of her. She wasn't innocent or pure, she was as cold and brutal as I am, and that was what made the hate go away when I was with her, not being alone anymore, having someone to share it with. But she's gone, she's not here anymore and now I feel the madness creeping slowly.