Finnick Odair: Never the same
When I was a kid I always thought, the things that didn't kill you made you stronger. Being in the games made me realize that it was more to the quote then surviving. As a kid my thoughts on this were things you physically survived made you strong. That you weren't weak and you can defend yourself. Never in a million years would I think it would also mean mentally.
The afterthought of killing someone is unbearable, even if it was for your own benefit. The faces never leave you. It takes who you are to know that the innocent children in the games are just as scared as you are. That they are fighting for the same reasons, to go home, to prove they're something worthy of their district, or maybe because they hope they can help stop the sadistic games they fight in.
The children who are carelessly killed in the games are long forgotten, to the Capital people anyway. But it stays with people like me. Victors. People who killed these kids who were just like them, and had a shot of a great future if it weren't for their names that were called out during the reaping's. To know that you killed these people for the Capitols entertainment, so that you could go home.
Every night the faces enter my dreams. Of people I killed personally or people I could have helped but chose not to because it meant me one step closer to coming home. It never leaves you. Almost everything from the games lingers in your mind, memory, even dreams. I guess you could hardly call them dreams; they're nightmares. The pain feels like you're suffocating. Drowning even, like you're under water and you can see the surface but as you try to get there it pulls you down deeper.
They say time will help put me back in the right peace of mind, that I will eventually go back to normal. But the games have changed me entirely. It takes everything you are, your dignity, your mind, even your soul. But I was the one who won. Someone who had the ability to kill all of these children without a single thought. The Capitols creation, one who was brainwashed that these people are…were your enemies. That made me look like a monster that the Capitol created. And all I can think of is when I go back home and see Annie what will she think of me?
Sure we talked about it and how wrong it was before I was chosen, but will she understand that talking about it and actually being in it is different?
I hope. She is the very reason I won. My goal. To come back and make sure that she never has to come into the games and endure what I did. I hate the very thought of her entering the games. I personally would do anything to make sure she is safe even if it means my own death. For her life to replace mine. I'd give her my life so that she could live.
If she died then I wouldn't have a future. My father was taken away and killed when I was merely a young boy growing up learning the ways of fishing. As for my mother… well she died in child birth so I never met her. My dad was my only family I ever knew, until he was killed by the peace keepers. After that I was whisked away to a distant relative. She was kind and generous and I treated her like she was the worst person in the world.
She soon got sick when I was 13 and died when I was 14, the year I was reaped into the Hunger Games. She was my aunt and even though I thought the worst of her I still seemed to miss her when she was gone. That was after I had taught Annie to swim.
Of course I have a lot of friends and admirers but I don't pay much attention to them. Annie has been my best friend since my father died (me being only 9); it was her father who worked closely with him and buried him. Her and her mother had put flowers on his grave and made it memorable. After that I couldn't seem to shake her.
We spent every day at the ocean side. Her and her family was net makers, and I was a fishermen. Well one in the process trying to follow in my father's footsteps. I had no guidance except her father who was as close to a father to me as anything. He wasn't the best fisher but he taught me all he could in his spare time.
I was always in the water. Swimming trying to catch fish for dinner or just cause I was naturally drawn into the water. Annie use to say if I had the choice to id have chosen to live in the water over anything any day. At that time I might have.
Annie grew on me and I started having some sorts of feelings for her. Before that I knew she liked me but I didn't really want to bring that situation up because I liked having her around. She was one of the few people that actually liked me, besides Mags of course but I hadn't met her yet.
I always wondered why she never swam with me but for some reason I never asked. The day I pulled her in where the water was only knee height she acted as if she was going to die. I was only playing around and that's when she told me she didn't know how to swim.
So after I was reaped into the games she came to see me before I was off to the Capital and made into this sex symbol, she said that she loved me. I held her in my arms and she made me promise her that I would come back to her, that I would win for her and be with her. But that was then. And that was when I wasn't some maniac running around killing people screaming Annie's name in my sleep. She probably thinks I'm changed. Although I am but in a way I'm still me.
Now that I won I don't know what it will be like to go home. Will Annie think I'm another crazy person created by the Capitol? Will she even look at me the same? I guess I will find out when I get back. One thing for certain that I won't be the same person that I was when I get back to district four. I'm only 15 and I've seen and done things 15 year olds shouldn't see.
It scares you.