Ring, Ring.
The phone rings but I don't answer. I haven't answered anyone the past few months. Greasy Sae, Haymitch, Dr. Aurelius on the telephone – they all try to help but they don't realise that it's what I don't need. What I need is a way out. I'm so tired. So, so tired of life. Everyone I love has gone, I have nothing to live for anymore. I see them when I close my eyes, their deaths on my conscience. My list of kills has escalated from three in the arena to thousands in the bombings and in the war against the Capitol that I started when I took out those stupid berries. I can never help any of them. Why do I deserve what I can't give?
I sit by the fire, not moving, everyday. I only leave it to go to the bathroom or to disengage the phone when the ringing doesn't cease. No one seems to understand what I feel. They think I'm doing this because I'm depressed. Maybe I am. All I know is that I'm living time that others should have had. At night, when I sleep, I see my list of personal kills, people that have left me because of me, what I have done. People who have gone to a place I where can't join them, because I'm fairly certain I'm going to hell when I die.
Marvel Glimmer Cato Finnick Mags Rue Madge Darius Lavinia Cinna Boggs Leeg 1 Leeg 2 Mitchell Jackson Holmes Castor Messalla Prim
They haunt me in my sleep. I try to say sorry, scream my apologies at them over and over, but they are unforgiving. The guilt I feel is so suffocating that sometimes I can't breathe and turn blue. I am the reason these people are dead. Friends and family mixed in with enemies.
After weeks of helplessness, I start to shy away from human contact. Rather than nodding and shaking my head to questions from Greasy Sae, I stare ahead, ignoring and shrinking away from her when she comes close to me. If my life has taught me anything, it's that the people closest to me always pay for my mistakes. Maybe if no one is close to me anymore, I will finally be the one to pay for my actions. I stop eating willingly – she has to cram the food in my mouth, but she can't make me swallow. I refuse to move. I stop needing to go to the bathroom as my body gets less and less nourishment and just sit in my rocking chair. I feel myself wasting away, but instead of fighting it, like the old Katniss would have done, I embrace it. I am a broken version of myself, but this is me now. I deserve this, I tell myself. I'm a murderer, and murderers should be punished.
I start to see each of their deaths in my sleep. I relive each moment, looking on while I send an arrow through Marvel's throat after seeing the arrow enter Rue, or run away while Jackson and Leeg 1 stay behind to try to fend off and eventually succumb to the lizard mutts. Constantly I see Prim running to help the injured children in front of the President's Mansion. I see myself yell her name, and her turning and beginning to shout… I see her turning into a girl on fire, literally. Thinking of the nickname makes me think of Cinna. Brilliant, enigmatic Cinna who is dead because of me. And thinking of Cinna makes me think of the Games and P-, no, I stop myself from thinking about that. So I think of other people that have left my world. And I begin to see myself for what I am – a monster. I was so selfish and cold, putting my hunger for revenge above everything else. I can see why my mother left me to go to District 4. Thinking of my mother makes me think of Prim, and the hollow pain in my chest intensifies. But I'm too weak to cry. Remembering Prim makes me think of Cinna again, and the circle repeats. It's a never-ending circle of pain and guilt.
The only person I don't regret killing is Coin. She ordered the parachutes that killed Prim. She used Gale's human snares to break me. To ensure that I would never trust the one person who has always been there for me. And it worked, because I don't trust anyone anymore. I don't even trust myself. Over the next few weeks, I become bony and gaunt. My eyes look like they pop out from my skull and my cheek s are hollow. But I deserve this. This is what happens when you kill your friends and family.
One day, I wake up from a constant doze to see Peeta sitting opposite me. A shake of my head dispels the image, but from that moment on I can't get him out of my head. I see him when I close my eyes, with his half smile and vivid blue eyes. I feel his presence when I'm awake, when the hairs on the back of my neck rise as If someone is watching me. But no one ever is.
It's when I'm asleep that my worst memories come to the surface. I see every time I hurt him, and more times that I long for. They're the worst nightmares, the happy memories. They make me hurt more than anything else. Which surprises me; because I thought had had all the pain in the world. But the pain in my chest is nothing compared to the ache in my heart. I remember everything about him – his warm embrace, the way his hair stuck up after he ran his fingers through it when he was stressed, the feel of his lips on mine. And I remember what happened to him because of me. He was hijacked by the Capitol because I loved him. I remembered what Haymitch always said – that I could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve him. He was right. I never deserved him – I just took him for granted and now, when he's gone, and it's too late, that's when I realise how amazing he was. How he held me together during all those times I was falling apart. But he's not here now. Because murderers don't need to be 'helped'. They need to be punished. But I'm not grateful for the pain. It reminds me that I'm still alive.
It's another endless day when I hear the locked door forced open, when the curtains are thrown open so that sunlight streams into my dark den. It hurts my eyes, so I force myself to hold them open. The more pain the better. But then, when I see who it is, I wonder if it's finally my time to die. Because being so close, but not being able to touch, is torture. Because I feel so guilty about what I caused I feel myself crumbling inside. Because when I look at him, my heart swells up so much that it hurts to feel so happy and so sad at the same time.
Because it's Peeta.