a/n: this is for sara (MockingjayWithFangs) in the hunger games secret santa exchange, who's really nice and an amazing person. sorry for the lateness of this! :c i'm also sorry for any errors in the life cycle of stars. this is un-beta'd and un-edited, so sorry for any errors in general.
blighted stars
-x-
i. nebula.
Johanna Mason is born as a nebula. She has her whole entire life ahead of her. There's so much to look forward to, so many places to explore, so many things to experience. She's still growing, still learning. She's full of energy and her life story's just waiting to unravel and be written.
One doesn't really expect her to understand much about life. The younger kids are often left out of the loop on the happenings in Panem. Their innocence is supposed to stay intact for as long as possible. They're not supposed to be corrupted until they reach the age of twelve, at which point an explanation of the Hunger Games and this wretched world they live in is inevitable.
Those are the days when messing up and making mistakes are things to laugh over. Spilling your food is cute. Everyone understood that Johanna was still learning. She never cried unless she had fallen down or something, in which case there is always a pretty bandage to fix her "boo-boo".
-x-
Johanna Mason is four years old when she experiences her first major blizzard in District Seven. It's the first time she's not allowed to leave the house when it's snowing, not even to go to preschool.
She doesn't understand why. It's just snow. It snows quite often in District Seven, since they are up north. Johanna is used to seeing flurry white snowflakes on the ground when wintertime rolls around. Last year, she had built a snowman and gone sledding, so why couldn't she do it this year?
"It's not safe," her father tells her. "JoJo, the roads are very slippery. It's freezing outside and the wind is blowing very hard. We might even lose power. We need to try and stay warm for as long as we can."
Johanna pouts and throws a fit. "I want to play in the snow!" she screams. It looks so pretty outside and she doesn't believe that snow is badbadbad because to her, it's been nothing but goodgoodgood and funfunfun. Her parents try to convince her that it's just not safe and she'd be better off staying indoors. They say that this is a special situation. She has to stay inside, where she would be safe.
Johanna decides that she doesn't like this word, "safe".
She grabs her coat and swings the front door open. She runs out and slams the door, hard. She can hear her father's exasperated sigh and her mother's worried sigh. She also hears her one year old brother, Joey, start crying. Johanna feels a little guilty - perhaps he was sad that his sister was leaving.
Nevertheless, Johanna's always been a rebel child, so she runs around in the snow with her arms outstretched. It feels amazing for a few seconds before the wind almost knocks her off her feet. Johanna's ears are getting cold and she thinks that she really should've worn her hat and gloves. Another blast of wind sends her crashing into the snow-covered ground, and that's when she discovers exactly how cold the snow is.
Her hands start feeling numb quickly. She rubs them together to try to stay warm, but even that doesn't help. The snow is actually coldcoldcold and playing in it is not funfunfun. Johanna wants to cry, but she bites her bottom lip - which is already turning blue - and holds it in.
The wind stings as it blows across her face. Everything feels so numb. Johanna doesn't want to get up. She doesn't want to give in to her parents.
But Johanna forces herself up, anyway. She doesn't want to die of frostbite, or pneumonia. She pushes the front door open and collapses on the couch. "I'm sorry," is all she says. She now knows that the snow isn't safe. It's not safe at all.
Johanna puts on a fake smile and pretends that she's okay. Playing pretend is one of her favorite things to do. It's also something that she's very good at.
That's the first time she realizes that snow can actually be quite dangerous and not at all fun. She still likes it, though. It's magical and even though it's sometimes not safe, she still plays in it for years to come.
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ii. protostar.
Stars really start to form when they're protostars. Everything comes together and they set themselves apart from one another. Everyone starts to establish their own distinct personality. They discover their talent, or, in some cases, that they have no talent. It's the point in a star's life when things start to fall into place. They start to learn more and more things and are well on their way to the Main Sequence.
-x-
Johanna Mason is nine years old when her father tells her that she's made of stardust.
They're lying on the grass in their backyard and staring at the starry night sky. The stars seem to be brighter than usual tonight. She points at the stars and tries to string them together, making constellations of her own. It doesn't make sense to her. The stars are all the way up there, so far out of reach, and she's down here. It doesn't seem possible to her.
You're kidding," she finally says, after a few minutes of silence.
"I'm not, JoJo," he responds. "Practically every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. Look around you. Those trees are made out of stardust. The grass is made out of stardust. I'm made out of stardust. JoJo, the stars died so we could be here."
Johanna stares at the stars and tilts her head to the side. She still can't understand. There's no way that she's made up of the same stuff as the stars. She plays with her pigtails and tries to forget about it by focusing her attention on counting the stars. There's infinitely many of them, though. Johanna gets tired after she reaches one hundred.
Nevertheless, she thinks the stars are the prettiest things in the world. They are so important. Everyone gets to see them. Johanna is just another little girl living in a country called Panem - no one special, really. She's just another star among thousands, no, millions, of other stars.
-x-
Two weeks later, she learns about the "Big Bang" in science class and realizes that maybe, just maybe, she is made out of stardust. It still doesn't make too much sense, but it provides an explanation for a lot of things.
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iii. main sequence star.
A star spends most of its time on the Main Sequence. Of course, low and medium mass stars spend a longer amount of time there than high and very high mass stars, the reason being that higher mass stars use up their energy faster than low and medium mass stars.
In Panem, most kids are generally low or medium mass stars. They're the ones lucky enough to avoid a trip into the Hunger Games. Once they reach the age of nineteen, they're safe and ensured at least a few more years of life, given that their living conditions are fine and they're healthy enough.
For the not so lucky kids, the Hunger Games awaits. Most of their lives end there. But some people are "lucky" enough to make it out; however, they're never the same again.
-x-
Johanna Mason is just average, or so it seems. She's not particularly tall, but wouldn't be considered short, either. She's fairly skinny, but not unhealthily. Most kids in District Seven are skinny, anyway, with the exception of the rich kids.
She blends in with the crowd easily. She's not extraordinary or anything. Not memorable — she's just another girl.
She wouldn't consider herself poor, and she certainly never has any family problems. There was that fall-out with the blizzard a few years back, but now everything's fine. Her little brother, Joey, is the sweetest little boy ever and looks up to Johanna as a role model. Her family loves her. She couldn't ask for a better family.
-x-
When Johanna turns twelve, she is eligible for the Reaping. She doesn't understand what the Reapings are at first, or what the Hunger Games are. Her parents didn't want to corrupt her, so on every past Reaping Day, they told her that the two kids being selected were going to attend an exclusive show in the Capitol, and that they were very lucky. Johanna had believed them back then.
Now that the truth is out, she is angry, both at her parents, and at the Capitol for forcing children to kill each other. She hates her parents for keeping such a big secret from her, for making her believe that Panem was a wonderful place to live, when in reality, it was the opposite.
But they are her family, and Johanna just can't stay mad at her family for long. She forgives them soon, but it doesn't change the fact that she is now forever in fear of the Capitol and this messed up country. She now knows that Panem isn't a paradise. Her life isn't going to be perfect forever. But she can pretend it is, because it's still what she's good at.
-x-
Her first Reaping Day doesn't seem like a day when children would get sent to their deaths. It's a beautiful summer day. If it wasn't Reaping Day, Johanna would've been playing at the playground and twirling through sunshine. But the playground is deserted today, as attendance at the Reaping is mandatory.
Her mother has chosen a pretty yellow sundress for her to wear to the Reaping. It's Johanna's favorite dress ever, because the color reminds her of stars, and the sun. When she is wearing it, she feels like a bright star. She feels fearless. It's amazing what a single dress can do to a small twelve year old girl.
Johanna puts on the dress and immediately feels free. She's not one of those girly girls that like to obsess over fashion, but this dress is special. Her mother braids her long brown hair into two braids. "You're going to be the prettiest girl there, JoJo, I can assure you." Mrs. Mason beams down at her daughter. Johanna looks like a princess. She feels like one too.
They walk to the Town Square together and Johanna tells herself that she'll be fine. After this, she'll go home and life will go back to normal, and she'll be able to live the next 364 days in peace. She starts tugging at the hem of her dress nervously to occupy her hands.
"You won't get chosen," her father tells her, sensing her nervousness. "Twelve year olds rarely get chosen." Johanna believes him. She takes a deep breath to calm down her nervous. Everything would be okay.
She is ushered into the twelve year old section after letting the Peacekeeper prick her finger for a blood sample. She stands next to her best friend, Marietta. Marietta looks like she's about to throw up. Johanna seems like the only confident twelve year old around, the only one who doesn't want to turn around and run back home.
"Hey, you'll be fine. Twelve year olds rarely get chosen," Johanna says, repeating her father's words. Marietta smiles for a second, but then shakes her head sadly. Before she has a chance to say anything, District Seven's escort, a woman with green hair, walks onstage and demands silence.
A few minutes later, the only sound that can be heard is the click-clack of the escort's heels as she makes her way to the female bowl of names. Everyone draws in a collective breath as her slender fingers grasp onto a slip of paper. "The female tribute is . . . Marietta Simpson!"
Marietta lets out a shriek. Johanna squeezes her hand tightly. Her lips try to form words but she is incapable of saying anything. Her father was wrong. Twelve year olds do get chosen. If it happened to her beset friend this year, it could happen to her next year. And as Johanna grows older, her name will be in that horrible bowl more and more times, and her chance of being chosen would be greater.
Johanna blinks back tears as she realizes that no one is safe, not even the twelve year olds.
-x-
(Marietta dies in the bloodbath and Johanna cries for ages. But life moves on, and soon Marietta is forgotten. She is just another large mass star who went out too quickly.)
-x-
Johanna first learns that she has a real talent for using the axe when she's fourteen. She has been throwing around axes since she was a toddler, but then again, everyone in District Seven has. Her father takes her to the woods for the first time since she was twelve.
Her parents have wanted to protect her for the past two years; they kept her away from all weapons. Marietta had been decapitated by an axe, which was really sad, since she was from District Seven of all places. They thought that seeing axes would make Johanna remember Marietta's death and trigger tears and maybe drive her to insanity. Little did they know that Johanna was pretty strong, mentally. She wouldn't do that.
Her father lets her hold an axe again and it's love at first touch. Johanna swings it around effortlessly, then throws it into the trunk of a nearby tree. It sticks. Johanna runs over and pulls it out, only to throw it at the tree again. She repeats this about fifty times with her father watching and beaming down at her.
They stay in the woods until the moon comes up and the stars come out from hiding. The beauty of the stars is captivating, really. On that night, Johanna glows brighter than ever, like the stars in the sky. She's finally found something she's good at, something she loves.
-x-
Her fifth Reaping when she is sixteen doesn't seem like anything special. She's forced into that old yellow sundress that she wore to her first Reaping four years ago. It's way too tight but it's become a tradition. It's like her good luck charm - Johanna likes to pretend that as long as she wears it, she won't get Reaped.
It's worked for four years already. None of her friends have been Reaped. Last year, when Joey had become eligible to be Reaped, he hadn't been Reaped either.
Johanna feels itchy in the dress. It's not the best thing to wear if you want comfort, but it's still pretty and makes her feel fearless and like a star. It's perfect, at least to her.
She repeats the process she's gone through four times already. She stands in the sixteen year old section alone, without Marietta. She hasn't been doing anything with Marietta for four years. Johanna tries to pretend it doesn't hurt. But year after year, two kids from District Seven are sent into the arena. They don't usually come back. At least, they haven't for the last four years.
The escort's hair is yellow this year. It's a bright yellow that matches the yellow of Johanna's dress perfectly. Johanna thinks that maybe this is a sign, but shoves that thought aside. It was probably just a coincidence.
"The female tribute for District Seven is . . . Johanna Mason!" the escort states cheerfully.
For a second, everything stops. Johanna's dreams and hopes for the future shatter into a million tiny little pieces, and there's nothing she can do about it. Her breathing becomes heavy and all she wants to do is turn around and run. But the Peacekeepers grab her arms and suddenly, Johanna has a strategy. She's going to play pretend again. Except this time, the stakes are higher than ever.
Johanna looks back at the worried faces of her parents. They've done so much to try and protect her from the Hunger Games. But in the end, Johanna had found her talent for using the axe and wasn't a little girl anymore. She catches her father's eye and mouths, I'm coming back.
Then she pretends she's a little girl again and starts to bawl. All those times she could've cried, all those tears she's kept inside - they all come falling out as Johanna screams and kicks and thrashes.
But she it's all just a cover. She plans on being a medium mass star in a swarm of high mass stars. She's going to outlive them all. She's going to come back.
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iv. red giant.
Stars become red giants when the outward force of energy is less than the inward force of gravity. It's when they start to die out a little and lose their outer layers and every remnant of their childhood. Because once you're in the arena, you experience horrors that you've never known before. Innocence completely fades away once you kill someone, or see someone getting killed.
-x-
Johanna Mason is fairly good at keeping up her pretend game. Whenever anyone talks to her, she thinks of the saddest things possible. She imagines her possible death, Marietta's death, even that huge blizzard from back when she was four. She imagines all of her most painful moments, all the times she wanted to break down but didn't.
And in the next week, Johanna cries like she's never cried before. She assumes the role of the weak girl pretty well. Whenever she talks, it's to tell people to "go away" or say that she wants to go home. Those are actually true. Johanna doesn't want anyone near her. Everyone is a stranger to her. She knows that if she wants to win, she needs to keep her eyes on the prize. (But her brown eyes are usually hidden under her hair and a stream of tears.)
Johanna wants to go home. The strong girl inside of her just wants the Hunger Games to be over and to make it out of the arena alive, but the weak girl she's pretending to be wants to turn around, run, and hop on the next train back to District Seven.
But she doesn't do anything except cry, push people away, and complain. Even though she's playing her own pretend game, she's also part of a bigger game - President Snow's game. Panem's game of torture.
Her mentor, Blight, gives up on her after the first day. He thinks that she's probably not going to last very long anyway, and end up like her best friend. Johanna is very happy with this. Everyone else starts ignoring her, too, after giving her a single glance. The other tributes think that she'll probably just die by herself and could be killed off easily. She hears the Careers whispering to each other; they say that she'll probably be stupid enough to step off her plate early and get blown up.
The strong girl inside Johanna wants to scream and sink her nails into the pretty District One girl's throat, but all the weak girl does is avoid all the training stations. She avoids everyone, and people avoid her.
The nice part of being ignored is that you can watch people without them noticing. Johanna learns everyone's strengths and weaknesses. For example, the District Two girl is very sensitive about her family. The District One boy can use every weapon except for the bow & arrow. The District Two boy isn't any good at climbing trees. Johanna could go on forever.
And you know what the best part is? None of them knew anything about her, except that she liked to cry. She liked to cry a lot.
She watches Blight during meals and in the evening. He seems broken. All the victors seem empty and hollow. Haymitch Abernathy, the only living victor from District Twelve, likes to drink. The District Six victors resort to morphling.
Johanna sometimes hears Blight screaming in the middle of the night. She doesn't know that victors have nightmares. They are supposed to be the strongest. She doesn't understand how victors become this broken.
But she doesn't ask any questions, or even talk to Blight at all.
She gets a 2 as her training score. Johanna is very happy with this. Hopefully, people would overlook her even more and count her out already. Blight's reaction to this is a sigh and a shake of the head. Her district partner, who she can't remember the name of, scores an 8 and as Blight high-fives him, it's quite obvious who his favorite tribute is.
She cries throughout her entire interview and answers Caesar Flickerman's questions with small squeaks. She mumbles something along the lines of "Please, I just want to go home. I just want my family!" before running off the stage.
Blight just sighs, exasperated. It seems like he, and everyone else, have lost all hope in her.
The day of the Games, Johanna thinks that everything is just perfect. When she's standing in the tribute tube, she runs over her plan again in her head. Lay low. Run from the bloodbath. Find a tree, preferably near water. Stay alive. Don't show them your skills until the Final Eight.
As her tube rises and the arena is unveiled, she doesn't even bother to scan the area and just puts on her best scared face.
It's showtime.
-x-
Johanna's strategy ends up working perfectly. She doesn't blow herself up and runs from the bloodbath, which probably messes up everyone's bets on her already. She picks a tree near the Careers camp, which is in a position so that she can observe what they are doing and still be concealed from their eyes.
She still cries, but silently. When she sees the tributes' faces in the sky, the tears are real. Innocent lives, taken just like that. Even though she never really got to know them - Johanna never got to know anybody in this arena - she is still sad. They probably had families back home and lives to return to.
The sound of the cannon makes her jump every time. Johanna wants to scream, not because she's acting, but because the strong girl inside of her is actually scared. Even though each death means that she is closer to victory, it also means that a life has just ended. Someone will never be able to see the stars again, to hug their family, to laugh, to cry . . . everything's over for them, and people just move on with their lives like nothing happened at all. Except for one family, whose lives will never be the same ever again. Johanna thinks of all the horrible things the Capitol is doing and she just feels this intense hatred. But there's nothing she can do about it except play their game while playing one of her own.
Every time someone dies, Johanna imagines that a star dies. She remembers what her father said seven years ago. Everyone is just like the stars. When her district partner's face appears in the night sky, she feels a pang in her heart. Even though he never paid any attention her, he was from home.
The sky doesn't have any stars at all. Johanna knows that it isn't real; it's probably just some projected image. The real stars are hidden, and the only way to see them again is to get out of this arena. Johanna can't even connect herself to the stars anymore.
Johanna manages to find a way to steal food from the Careers' camp. The Careers are actually quite stupid, really. Whenever they find tracks of a nearby tribute, they immediately desert everything and leave to kill the tribute. They compete with one another to see who can kill the most tributes and who can kill a tribute first. Johanna finds it pathetic and just wrong, but then again, she is the one playing pretend games with the Capitol.
There's a small creek nearby where the Careers get their water, as does Johanna. She always goes at nighttime and even though there's someone on watch, she slips by unnoticed. Thankfully, there's a lot of trees in the arena, which hide her from other tributes; it also helps that she has a small figure.
She stays alive like this. She stands by as tributes are killed by the Careers, and some not by the Careers. She cries a lot and sponsor packages never arrive for her. People are probably wondering how she's stayed alive this long, but everyone in the arena has probably already forgotten about her, which is just how she likes it.
-x-
It's already gotten down to the final eight. Johanna can no longer stay in her tree near the Careers' camp. There was a storm a few days ago. It was almost like the blizzard she experienced when she was a young girl, except it was with rain this time. The wind was blowing hard and many trees had fallen down, including Johanna's. She was forced out of the area and into another portion of the forest. The Gamemakers were probably just driving her and the Careers closer to the other tributes.
There are only three Careers left by this point - the two from District One, and the boy from District Two. The girls from District Two and Four had killed each other in a battle over something stupid that Johanna couldn't even be bothered to watch. The boy from District Four had been crushed by one of the falling trees.
Johanna knows that there comes a time when all pretend games have to come to an end. For her, the time is now.
The axe is strangely left unguarded by tributes. The Careers are probably too busy tearing each other apart. As for the other tributes, they are probably just hiding from the Careers and trying to survive another day.
So she does what any normal (not really, more like psychopathic killer with lots of pretend games to play) sixteen year old girl from District Seven would do. She grabs the axe.
-x-
Blood is all Johanna sees are the next few hours. She tears the image of the weak girl apart and throws it aside. There's no time for those pretend games anymore. Johanna tramps through the forest, killing anything in her way.
There's always that brief pause before she raises her axe. She still feels bad for the tributes, but really, all she wants to do is get out of this hellhole, and maybe defy the Capitol along the way. Because no one has ever done what she did before. She's going to show them that their system is messed up, and that even a sixteen year old girl from District Seven can trick everyone.
Blood. Lots of blood. It stains her shoes and the grass beneath her feet. It's on her fingertips, too. It covers her jacket and pants. It gets in her hair. Blood. Blood everywhere.
She pretends the blood is stardust. Maybe it helps her get through it.
But really, it just makes things worse by reminding her that she's killing stars.
-x-
When the trumpets blare, the game is over. Johanna's done it. She's killed off the last Career - the boy from District One.
But she doesn't feel victorious. She doesn't feel like she's won anything.
Johanna killed off stars. She stares at the stardust on her fingertips. Once the hovercraft is gone, they're the only thing left of the boy from District One, except for the stardust littering the ground. He was so close to winning, but had his life taken away from him, with one swing of Johanna's axe.
She gingerly grabs the District One boy's knife, and cuts her hair short. No more little girl braids for her. She is not a child anymore. She is a killer. No more childish games of pretend for her.
She pretends to put on a smile, pretends to be happy that she won. In reality, all she wants to do is cry, but she's already wasted all her tears when they weren't really needed. And then, Johanna finally understands why Blight and all the other victors were so broken, because she was too.
Johanna Mason, and all the other victors, did not win the Hunger Games. They simply survived, and there's a fine difference between the two.
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v. white dwarf.
All that's left of Johanna's childhood fades away in a planetary nebula, leaving her with nothing left but a cracked soul. Her light is slowly burning out. Almost all her energy has been used up. Now she's still living, but barely.
-x-
Johanna Mason is broken.
But she was broken from the minute her name was pulled out of that bowl and she started crying. And now, she officially has nothing left. She has no one left.
Johanna might've won the Hunger Games, but her losses clearly outweigh the winnings. She hasn't really won anything except for a cracked soul and years of nightmares. She thinks that she should've died in that arena. The weak girl act shouldn't have just been a pretend game, it should've been real. All those dead tributes are actually very lucky. Their pain and suffering is over, while Johanna has to endure years and years of it.
She sees the faces of the dead tributes every night when she sleeps. She killed them all. Every night, she is reminded of the deaths she caused.
The memories and the pain never go away.
-x-
President Snow appears at her house in the Victor's Village one day. He requests to speak with Johanna alone. They walk out into the backyard together. Maybe it's just her imagination, but Johanna swears she can smell blood on President Snow. It's not a nice smell, and it makes her want to scream. Then she smells roses, and it makes up for the smell of the blood, until she realizes that President Snow is the one wearing the rose. Then it's just horrible.
"Miss Johanna Mason," he says. His voice is rough and his breath smells of blood. Johanna almost chokes. "I have an offer for you."
Johanna has a feeling that this is not going to be good, but she nods anyway. President Snow continues, "You have now been a victor for a few months. In these few months, you have gained a lot of fans and admirers in the Capitol. You are quite popular, Miss Mason. And also extremely pretty as well. It's a shame you cut off your hair . . . we could've done so much with it."
"So what I want you to do is a special job. Your job starts on your Victory Tour, which is only in a few weeks. You will go home with a few lovely young men from the Capitol and, well, you get the point."
Upon hearing this, Johanna is very, very angry. She know understands why the handsome victor from District Four, Finnick Odair, is always surrounded by bizarre Capitol women. It isn't because he likes them, it's because he is forced to be with them.
"You think that victors are just your toys," Johanna snaps. "You think that you can do whatever you want with us. Well, you know what? News flash: I am not a toy! I am not just something for you to play with. I am not just something for Capitol men to use. I am not something to be kept around for your amusement. I am a human. I. Am. Not. A. Toy. Do you even know what you did to me? Do you even know what you did to the victors? You and your fucked up country, and it's fucked up games. No, I am not going to accept your offer. I would rather stay a virgin forever than give in to you and your demands."
Johanna doesn't believe what she's done. She's just said everything she's wanted to say for the last few months. She's exploded. But it feels nice to finally release all that pent-up anger.
President Snow sighs, and Johanna can smell the blood again. "Very well, Miss Mason. Just remember that there will be consequences."
-x-
The next day, when she walks into the kitchen, she finds her parents and Joey dead. There's a note from President Snow with a rose attached to it. It reads, Oops! Looks like Mr. and Mrs. Mason and their son accidentally ate pancakes with nightlock berries in them! I told you there'd be consequences.
Johanna turns pale. She screams. She screams for hours. Her family's dead. Her mother. Her father. Thirteen year old Joey. All dead. Because of her. She can't do anything right, can she? She killed them. Just because she stood up for herself. Just because she didn't do what President Snow wanted her to do.
White snowflake flurries appear outside her window. It's snowing. The children are probably cheering and running outside to play in the snow, like Johanna did so long ago. But she'll never look at snow the same way again. It's just President Snow's way of saying that there's no escaping him. He's always watching.
Johanna stares at her reflection in the window. She sees a girl she barely even knows, and there's a gigantic pit in her heart. Because Johanna Mason knows that she'll never be that little girl with pigtails again. She'll never be able to lie on her back in the grass and count the stars again. It's what children do, and Johanna Mason is not a child.
Three more faces appear in her nightmares at night. Three more people she killed.
-x-
Sometimes, she thinks about what would've happened if she had died in the arena. Her family would've been devastated, but at least they would be alive. They were better people than she could ever be. They deserved to live. Johanna didn't.
She's just an outspoken rebel whose only talent is pretending to be something that she isn't. (And killing people, of course.)
-x-
Gone are the days when imaginations soared and snow was just something that covered the ground in winter. Johanna knows that snow is horrible. It reminds her of President Snow, and President Snow is evil. President Snow killed her family. President Snow broke her.
No, a little voice says in the back of Johanna's head. You're just as bad as President Snow. You killed innocent children, which led to the death of your family.
Johanna throws her axe into a nearby tree. The little voice is right. President Snow didn't do the actual killing. She, and all the other Victors, did. She killed people. All President Snow did was organize this event. He manipulated the Victors and played with their minds.
But snow is still badbadbad and not at all goodgoodgood.
She still pretends that she's okay, that she's strong - pretending is the only thing that she knows how to do, anymore.
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vi. black dwarf.
Johanna Mason is still a star. But she's slowly becoming a blighted one. Her light's being put out and there's nothing she can't do to stop it. It's part of the life cycle of stars - it happens to everyone. She's never going to burn as brightly as she did before.
She knows that in the end, she's just going to be another memory, just a legend of the Hunger Games victor who wasn't as weak as she let on.
So, as Johanna's name is pulled out of the bowl a second time, she ascends the steps to the stage with a smile. They have an entire rebellion planned, and she's going to play a part in it.
If she's going to go out, she might as well go out with a bang.