Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games. The italicised text is directly taken out of 'Mockingjay' and it does not belong to me.
But I don't know what to tell him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you.
He's responsible for the death of thousands of people. He knows it. He's not sorry. These people watched, even enjoyed watching, kids getting killed each year. They did nothing to stop it. It was their form of entertainment. He doesn't forgive them for that. The fire raging inside him, fuelling his anger, won't be put out. They did nothing. They deserved to die.
He's responsible for the death of thousands of people. He knows it. But they don't visit him in his sleep. These nameless, faceless people that he's killed don't haunt him (not like she said they would). They went and left him almost immediately after he killed them. It was necessary for the rebellion to kill these people. If he didn't kill them then more people would get shot. Starve to death. More kids would be sentenced to death for nothing. Just as a form of entertainment. Just for misfortune of having their name pulled out of a glass ball. He had to do something. He couldn't just sit there. He doesn't regret killing thousands if it meant that in the future would be a better place. These faces don't haunt him at all.
There's only one face that haunts Gale Hawthorne.
She follows him everywhere he goes. He can't escape her. She's there every time he closes his eyes. She's there when he lets his mind wander. She's there when he remembers the war. And she's always always present in the nightmares that plague him almost every night.
Her plated blonde hair and her shirt sticking out like a duck's bill. Her smiling face and sparkling blue eyes, filled to the brim with compassion. Sometimes she's laughing her melodic laugh and it pains him, because when he closes his eyes she's laughing, smiling, crying, talking...she's alive.
Primrose Everdeen's young, fresh face never leaves him. Will never leave him.
Whether it's a memory of him with the Everdeens (which is painful for more than one reason) or a nightmare of him murdering her; she's always always there. An ever present reminder what he did. Of what he created. Of what was his fault. Of her death. She never leaves.
It was those bombs. Those fucking bombs. If he could take them back, he would. He's not even sure that there's his, but he'd take them back anyway. Maybe then he could have a peaceful night's sleep. Maybe then he could forget the war. Maybe then he could be free.
It doesn't matter that he's not sure the bombs are his. It doesn't matter that he didn't know they were going to be dropped. He made them, or ones just like it. As far as he's concerned, they're his bombs. And because of them Prim's dead. Because of them his hands will forever be stained with her scarlet blood. There's nothing, nothing in the world he can do about it.
Because he's her murderer.
Yes he's responsible for the death of thousands. He doesn't care. He wouldn't take it back for anything in the world. In wars, you need to make sacrifices. And what were a few lives anyway? If they could be spared for entertainment, then surely they could be spared for the benefit of Panem. Surely they could be spared to make a better future. Yes, in a war, killing was something that was going to be done. He couldn't be sorry for killing people that were going to die anyway. If he didn't kill them, someone else would. He's not sorry. No, a few thousand lives lost at his hands mean nothing to Gale Hawthorne. Only one does.
Primrose Everdeen.
It's different when it's her. Because he knew her. He saw her laugh when he tickled her; he heard her soft, rhythmic breaths as he hugged her. He saw her crying when her sister was took her place in her Games. He held her back when she screamed heart shattering screams. He felt her body squirming beneath his arms as she tried to break free. He'd seen her smile, the smile that could make anyone believe that there was something good in the world. That the was the thing. She was so young, so innocent, so pure. He knew her. And out everyone he's ever known to have existed, the person that deserved to die the least was her.
But the fire inside of him burnt everything its path. Never stopping to understand the full consequences of its actions. It just kept going on and on. Flames big, bold and bright. Burning everything up until it was all too late, until it was all gone, until everything was burnt black and...dead.
Just like Prim. And it was all his fault.