Disclaimer: I'm not actually rich enough to own The Hunger Games or any rights to any aspects of The Hunger Games. I'm just a poor student. Bummer, right? RATED T FOR HUNGER GAMES THINGS
AN: Hello Readers! Thanks for taking the time to read this little piece of angst that has been keeping me awake at night. We all view the Careers as invincible, and never think that they might be affected by the arena. We know how Katniss and Peeta are- so I thought I'd give a little insight into one of the other remaining victors. Reviews are appreciated, and flames will be used to build a bonfire or twelve.
Much Love,
Lorinda
The blood oozed from my clenched palm, pieces of the mirror sticking out from my fist. I could hear the rapid click, click, click of Tenata's heels. She pounds on the door of the train's bathroom. Using my right, non-damaged hand, I shove open the door and look my escort coolly in the eyes. "Goodness, Enobaria, what in Panem happened?" I can see my mentor, Brutus, coming up the hall of the train. I give something between a smile and a grimace to Tenata. "Nothing. There was just a wasp on the mirror." I don't tell her the real reason, that the stains from the cherries I had just consumed suddenly transformed into the blood from the boy of District 8. The boy I had killed with less than my own two hands. And then his blood transformed into my blood, and then the blood of every tribute in my Games, and finally the blood of my family because I was stubborn and didn't listen, that my carelessness killed them all.
I see the Avoxes scurrying up the opposite hall to come clean up the mess I made. I shove past Tenata (and make a mental note to apologize, as the hiss she gives indicates I shoved her a little harder than I intended) and almost make it past Brutus when his Victor reflexes make an appearance and he grabs the upper part of my arm. "You can't expect me to believe the bullshit you gave Tenata. Follow me." His flint blue-grey-whatever eyes meet mine and he lets go of my arm (which I can feel bruising), walking down the way he came. I consider not following him, feeling a tinge of adolescent rebellion in my gut, before Common-Sense-Enobaria stomps on the flame and commands my legs to move. He is my mentor, I tell myself. He is one of the few people that cares for my mental wellbeing. He turns into a room with a round mahogany table and stacks of red and green chips, leaning his lower back against the table and crossing his muscular arms. "Spill." He commands. And so I do.
I start with the cherries. "Brutus, I looked in the mirror and all I could see was the boy's blood from the final battle. I could feel his muscles, his ligaments, in between my teeth. I could taste it, that horrible taste of the flesh of another human being. And then…" Here I give pause. How do I tell him that I saw my face in the mirror the next morning, from the first time I had been sold? How do I tell him that I can feel the man slapping me again and again? That I can feel my face swelling? That I can feel myself being violated in the one way I was innocent, the one last remaining piece of myself that the Games hadn't taken?
Something on my face must give me away, for Brutus's face softens considerably. He gets up and shuts the door, then opens his arms. This is weird for me, because since my mother and father, I haven't hugged anyone since my District partner the morning we split up. He was later killed by the pair from District four.
Finally, I walk into his cold, muscled arms. His flesh doesn't give away like my mother's does, he isn't soft like her, he is soft and hard. I immediately decide this is better, because I don't sense pity or concern like I do from her. Just understanding and acceptance.
"You're not the only one in that boat, you know. Almost all the other victors… Me, Cashmere, Gloss is too young but soon enough he'll be the same. I once heard a Mentor from ten compare us all to cattle, being shepherded towards our slaughter or being led around by the horns. At the time, I scoffed, because I was fifteen, the youngest to win, I was invincible. But when I turned seventeen, I understood what he meant. We survived the slaughter house, only to be dolled up and carted around like some sort of pet. This is the price we pay, Enobaria, for winning such an unforgivable game. I'm not going to give you false words, say that in time it gets better, that you quit feeling violated and disgusting. You don't. Every time you look in that mirror, you are going to see his blood coming from his mouth, and you are going to taste his flesh. I know…" In the entire speech he has given, this is the first time he starts to sound uncomfortable. "I know what it's like." He finally finds the words he wants, stepping back and looking in my eyes. "I know that whenever I look in the mirror, I feel my hands tightening around the neck of the girl from District Nine. I feel myself pushing my sword into the guts of the boy from District One. And I feel the hatred I have, stronger than ever, for the boy that came out of the arena."
I let my face fall into my hands. "They don't tell us about this in the Training Academy." I moan. Maybe, if I had known that I would feel like the worst human being on the entire Earth, I wouldn't have let my friends and Trainers pressure me to volunteer. Maybe I could have just been good old pretty Enobaria, the Non-Victor. The girl who grew up to become a Peacekeeper, who could be allowed to decide to what boy she lost her virginity too, or if she even wanted to at all.
But I am not that girl.
I am Enobaria, the Victor. I am the girl who bought all the lies the Capitol, and my District, fed us about glory and fame and adoration and love from the public. I am the girl responsible (directly or indirectly) for the deaths of nine people, most unable to even have a fair chance against a girl trained from birth. I am the girl who killed her competitor by ripping his throat out with her teeth. I am the girl whose virginity was sold to the highest bidder- a fat old man with a temper worse than mine.
I am the girl who pays the price every time she looks in a mirror.
I breathe in, out, in, out, deeply, several times. When I leave the temporary escape I created in my hands, I meet the face of Brutus, cold, killing Brutus, as he squats down to be on my level. I somehow ended up on the floor. I must have been out of it for quite a while, as an Avox has appeared in the game room with a bucket of water and medical supplies. Brutus cleans up the blood on my face, picks the glass out of the cuts of my left hand. As he stitches them up, he tells me he has a cream back at his house in the Victor's village that can get rid of scars. I decline, and he just nods with a tight-lipped frown, a look of understanding and something else in his eyes.
He knows that I must keep these scars in order to remind myself of the price I have paid to win these games.