He stabbed her. I shot him. I killed him. He killed her.
My arrow was just one small piece of that equation. It seemed so factual, so basic. So right.
But it wasn't at all. Of course not.
I killed him.
He had a life, family and friends back in District One. He had an identity. He had a name.
Marvel.
But looking at the empty husk on the TV screen as they replay the "highlights" of my games, that doesn't seem like much of a name for him. This isn't him, after all. He doesn't exist anymore. I brought him to an end.
I killed Marvel of District One.
He wasn't the only one to go down, of course. I shot Cato too. But that was different. That was like killing an animal, an animal caught in one of Gale's snares without dying instantly- the life seeping out of it slowly, so much more painfully than it should. I was just putting him out of his misery.
Besides, he was so mangled you couldn't tell he was human anymore.
During the Games, I felt nothing. My few kills were facts of life, means of survival, methods everyone had applied at least once during their time in the Arena. Only now, when I have the excess of time and the luxury of emotion, do I register this guilt. And once I felt the sensation, it spiraled out of control, first a tight knot in my chest and then a wave of tingling, terrible remorse. I was grateful that the cameras were long gone, but even then I was careful about where I shed my tears.
If I have learned anything, it is that the Capitol is always watching.
I can't help but compare the thoughtless impulse of letting an arrow fly to the endless pain and rage that would be on the other end. How can I let loose that shallow peal of laughter, knowing the families that would be shattered at the twang of a bowstring? How can I watch it over and over as if it was a golden moment in my life, knowing the blackness that has descended over a mother who knew her son would not be coming home?
I don't know. But I do.
Because I, like all of us selfish, foolish people, want to survive.
As long as the Capitol has this control, as long as they can make us laugh and celebrate killing and being killed, they have won. Is there a way to make the other Districts see? No amount of guns and courage will help us here.
The Capitol's power is, quite simply, the Hunger Games.
I don't know what I can do, or what difference I can make. I don't know if there will be a difference made in my lifetime, or if there ever will be.
For now, all we can do is hope. But hope is useless when children kill each other for the entertainment of their superiors.
They may think this is a game. But it's not, not to us. Those games change us.
Forever.
I didn't miss it at first. I didn't even notice. But looking back on it, I have realized that I can never trust or love or dream on the same level as I once could. It was that first kill, Marvel, that did it.
On that day, a part of me died that will never come back again.
wow, i gotta stop with these morbid oneshots XD don't worry, i promise to upload something happier soon. read and review please!