Happy Valentine's Day Eve! This lovely little Cato one-shot is my V-Day gift to you guys :3 I hope you like it, I've been working on it for awhile. Although it includes the other Careers, it's mostly my take on Cato's past and what happened to him during the Games. The song in this one-shot was originally in Japanese, so the lyrics in here are a version of the translated, English lyrics. The song is Alice Human Sacrifice, which is honestly one of my favorite songs. Remember, I don't own anything! I hope you enjoy! Love y'all 3
-Rose
There once was a little dream
When I was little, I used to play with my sister in our backyard. Wooden sword met wooden sword as we went round and round, time and time again, neither of us ever seeming to completely beat the other. It was an ongoing game, one that went on for such a long time. We'd begin every morning at sunrise, bowing to each other before one of us made the first move. It was almost always her, swiping her blade straight at my neck. She wasn't one to beat around the bush. I'd block her with a clang, and it would go from there. We'd go for hours, our father sometimes coming outside and sitting on the back porch to watch us. Then mother would call for lunch and we'd glance at each other.
"I'll beat your sorry behind tomorrow, Cato." She'd warn with a mischievous grin before racing inside, her blonde hair whipping out behind her. I'd follow quickly, but never as fast as she was. Sometimes when she ran I could have sworn she was like a blur, zipping across my vision and out of sight.
No one knows who dreamt it
We'd eat lunch and listen to our parents talk. It would start out with things like how good a cook my mother was or how my father's friends were doing, but somehow the conversation would end up in the same place. Hunger Games. It was this way from the day I was born, and it never failed to end with someone standing up angrily and storming away, sometimes sending a glass shattering against the wall or stabbing a knife into the table… but it was always the same.
"Don't listen to what your father says, Cato." My mother told me one night before I went to sleep. "When you turn eighteen you stay quiet, you hear? Don't volunteer, don't even say a word. I need you here too much for you to die. Promise me, Cato!"
"I promise, Mom…" I whispered. She smiled and gave me a kiss on the forehead, flicking off the lights. The next time I saw her was at her funeral lying in her casket, her lifeless eyes closed forever and her brown hair spread out like a fan behind her head.
Such a truly small dream it was
It wasn't much. Dad didn't even go. Me and sis, we were the only ones there, crying over our dead mother. The people who put her in the casket and did her makeup did their best to hide the stab mark, but I don't blame them for not entirely being able to. It was in her neck after all.
This made the little dream think
We couldn't find Dad when we went home that night. The next morning, however, when we were out playing soldier in the yard, he showed up and sat on the porch just like he always did, as if nothing had happened. I know how bad he felt about what he did, and he should. He killed my mother.
I could see the cemetery from my bedroom window. Sometimes I'd sit and watch people drifting in and out of its boundaries, mortuary mourners with nothing better to do except weep and bring flowers to the long dead. I found it odd how they'd leave the bouquets there. They'd all wilt after a few days, anyway, or get blown away in the harsh winter winds. What was the point?
I used to watch every night at eleven o' clock exactly as my dad snuck out of the house, thinking my sister and I were asleep, to go and visit Mom's grave. I'm not sure what he did there, but I know he didn't take flowers. In a way I felt angry that the person who killed her was tormenting her even after she died… but I felt sad about it all the same.
'I don't want to disappear… how do I get people to dream me?'
I saw her when I would sleep sometimes, her wavy brown hair flowing over her shoulders and her green eyes glittering in the light, very much alive. She'd be standing at the kitchen counter, washing the dishes as I came down stairs. She'd turn and smile. Her neck would always be shown, and it would be so flawless, so unharmed. Sissy would come down with me and we'd sit at the table where breakfast was laid out. Dad would never be there, his seat not even present at the table. Mother would sit down across from us and we'd all eat, and though none of us said anything, we didn't need to. We were happy, there together. That's what mattered.
Then I would wake up and stretch, walking downstairs with a small smile on my face, expecting to see my mother standing at the counter, drying off the plates from the night before. But she never would be, and the smile would slowly fall from my face as I remembered that she wasn't there. I insisted on doing the dishes ever since she died.
The little dream thought and thought…
When I was fourteen my older sister volunteered for the Hunger Games. Sis wasn't one to break promises… so I suppose Mom never made her promise like I did. I watched her on the interviews, coming onto the stage in a beautiful red gown laden with roses… just like the ones the mourners would take to the graves of those long past. That was the moment I knew she wouldn't make it back.
When you know something bad is going to happen, though, it doesn't stop the pain. A pain, that sends your whole soul into shock. For days I didn't sleep, didn't eat. But I'd sit there for hours staring at those wooden swords, hearing her laughter echoing in my mind like a broken record.
"Well, sis," I said one night as a sob caught in my throat. "Guess we'll never find out who won our little game."
And then it came up with an idea so great!
By the time my sixteenth birthday rolled around, I killed my father. It was, in truth, an accident… but if I had the opportunity to change it I don't think I would. It was a simple training exercise. I thought I was using the blunt sword. I wasn't. I like to think I did him a favor, killing him. He didn't have anything to live for, anyway.
The thing is that once he was dead… I didn't really have anything to live for, either. I walked downstairs one morning and realized that everything I had was gone. Mother wasn't standing at the sink, Dad wasn't sitting at the table and Sis wasn't walking down the stairs behind me, joking about my ruffled up hair and how I must've had a good night's sleep. No, the house was so empty. I knew I needed to find something else. Anything.
That's when I saw the wooden swords, lying there at the bottom of the stairs, with the smallest drop of blood next to them on the ground. I never found out how they got there, but I didn't care. I knew what I had to do, and I did it well.
"I volunteer!" I shouted as our escort, dressed up all in white, pulled a young boy from the crowd. He ran back to his older brother and I gave him a proud smirk as I made my way past them up onto the stage.
'I shall allow people to wonder into me and they can create my world'
I know what I promised Mom all those nights ago, the night she died. Most people would have rather died than to break a promise like that, and I knew that if Sis could see me then she wouldn't be happy. The voices in their minds would have kept most up at night, but you have to understand, I didn't have a conscience anymore. Not since Dad died.
When you have nothing left you change. What once mattered to you, like honesty, doesn't seem important anymore. It doesn't even seem real. It's like a foreign concept, one you don't have the energy or courage to learn or follow.
The first Alice was a red woman of the spade
Clove was so dangerous, yet so happy. She told me her past, about her eight other sisters and her parents who were never home. Clove had trained herself for the Games in secret, sneaking into the Center at night through the air vents so that no one knew what she was going to do. Imagine the surprise on their faces when she volunteered! As far as they all knew, she was just another District One girl.
"And would you look at me now…" She smiled faintly as we rode in the train to the Capitol, looking out the window at the world as it flashed by. She looked over at me from where she sat next to me. "I'm going to kill people, Cato. I'm going to make people remember me."
Courageously she held a sharpened blade within her hand
The first time I saw her pick up a knife I knew what she could do. She sent daggers flying through the air faster then the eye could follow. She never looked more deadly then when she had a knife in her hand. The way she ran her fingers over the steal of the blade and the way that she looked at the targets with such a hunger in her eyes, as if she expected blood to flow from them wherever she struck, was terrifying. When she went to throw them her body flowed through the movements like she had lived her entire life throwing the weapons. Maybe she had. It looked so natural, each movement after another in a perfect sequence, like a dance. Watching her was like looking at a work of art. And she never missed.
Never hesitating to slay all within her way
You could see what Clove wanted just by looking in her eyes. She wanted blood. She wanted it to flow over her fingers and pool around her feet. She wanted to be drowning in it. And once the Games began it was exactly what she got. She was fast, one of the first to the Cornucopia, flying across the grass on light feet, a demented grin spreading across her face the moment she laid her hands on those knives. And the second she did, she whirled around and sent a dagger into a boy's skull. It hit him right between the eyes, and I watched as he fell onto the ground, blood dripping down his face and staining the earth. Clove tugged her knife out with some difficulty, and licked the blood off the blade like it was a treat.
"It's my favorite part." She told me after the bloodbath, looking rather bored as some of the others took inventory of what was left from the Cornucopia. She balanced a knife between her two middle fingers absent-mindedly, her eyes not leaving the dagger. "Drinking the blood of the others… it makes me happy."
"You're a vampire." I said, smiling.
Clove thought for a moment, and then said seriously, "Perhaps."
She left trails of red all through Wonderland
The first time I saw Clove go to her full potential was when we found the girl from Eight. She pinned her to the ground in seconds, stabbing daggers through each of her arms to hold her down while she cut into her neck, just below her jaw, eventually, with no warning, stabbing the blade through the underside of her chin and into her mouth. Clove pulled the jagged blade out with a yank and licked the blood off the blade, her eyes temporarily flickering shut.
"Come on," I said impatiently, snapping Clove out of whatever sort of trance she was in. "We've got to move on."
Deeper into the forest Alice wandered
As the Games went along, Clove got more bored with it all. The only time she was smiling was when we were on the hunt, chasing after tributes, our feet thundering against the ground and her hair whipping out wildly behind her, a terrifying glint in her eyes. She would howl and yelp with joy like an animal as the terrified tribute raced away from us, panting heavily and eyes wide in terror. And that just made Clove go faster.
It was at times like those that I wondered if Clove could smell fear. It sure seemed like she could. It excited her, the thought that people were afraid of her. It made her hungry to hear their screams, their cries for mercy. She loved them just as much as the blood. It was something she longed to hear. It was like music to her, something she no longer wanted to go a day without listening to.
Until she was locked in as a sinner
I wasn't there when Clove died, and I really should have been. Maybe I could have saved her if I'd been there, or we could have killed Katniss and Thresh right then. Things would have been easy that way. All we'd have had to do was hunt down Lover Boy and the ginger girl from Five, after that, and we'd have been home.
But that isn't what happened. Her head got pounded in with a rock and I arrived just in time to see Thresh leaving the clearing, still holding the rock with her blood splattered across it.
I wouldn't call Clove a friend, exactly. It was more like she intrigued me. She reminded me of myself, in a way, in that she had nothing left for her, either. But she had never had anything. Not really. She had grown up all alone in the world, and that makes me wonder that if I had grown up the same if I would have ended up like her, desperate to feel blood stain my hands and flow over my fingers.
If it weren't for the red trails left behind
Clove was, in a way, paper thin. There wasn't much to the violent little girl. She was exactly what she seemed. Life had left her with nothing but narrowed eyes and battle scars. Her desires and dreams stopped and ended with violence. Battle after battle, she had nothing to think of except her next kill.
No one would know she had even existed
The Capitol loved her, though. Not as much as Katniss or Lover Boy or even the little girl from Eleven, but they loved her nonetheless. Maybe it was the way she walked, with such purpose and pride, or maybe it was the way she slowly killed those she came across, but they loved her. It was a sponsor, in fact, that had sent her that wicked knife with the curved blade, the one she cared for so much. The sad part was that Clove had nothing more to her then the violence, and the gore, and when you look back on her you realize what a hopeless little girl she really was, because if you took the fight out of her, she had nothing left.
The second Alice was a blue man of diamond
Lover Boy was the one that didn't entirely fit. Not with us. You could tell there was something different about him, even though he denied it. He said that he had faked liking the Katniss girl to get sponsors and that he couldn't care less whether she died or not. He just wanted to survive.
Singing his melodies to all in Wonderland
Peeta was a skilled liar, and I never saw it coming. The way he could warp the words and the way he said them, it was enough to make one believe whatever he told them, no matter what the words were. You'd really have thought he was telling the truth about not caring if Katniss was dead, if you'd been there.
Filling regions with so many false created notes
When I first told Peeta we'd keep him around, it didn't go over to smoothly with the others. Marvel was alright with him, sure, but Marvel was alright with everyone. It was the girls that didn't agree. Glimmer didn't trust him from the start, saying she thought he was just around to murder us in our sleep, and Clove had a deep desire to slice Lover Boy into a thousand tiny pieces.
"I know she wants to kill me." He said, falling in beside me, as we made our way through the forest. I glanced at him expressionlessly, not really wanting to talk to him at all but slightly curious as to what he was going to say. "But I don't care."
"You should be afraid of her." I warned.
"Oh, I am," He chuckled and then looked over at me seriously. "I just know she wants to kill Katniss more."
As time went on, though, we got used to having him there. It was simple enough to believe we were using him, after all, and not the other way around. I was so confident that I knew what I was doing and he didn't know what he had coming. I was going to stab him through the heart the second Clove had his little girlfriend pinned to the ground, I was going to walk away with my head held high as he bled out on the forest floor.
That were of a strange blue world
"The Districts farthest from the Capitol are the farthest from civilization." My mother once told me. "It's best not to think of how life would be like should we live there."
I've never been to Twelve, but I've seen pictures. The muck that lies outside every door, and the coal dust that coats everything, it's sickening. I'd hate the live out there, in the slums. I've heard how life is for them out there, having to go behind the backs of the Peacekeepers, hunting in the forests and stealing from the rich. I could never quite understand how things are, so, in every Game, the tributes from the outlying Districts were always the strangest. Those with so much less then me, yet often so much more. It shouldn't have been possible, it's almost a paradox, and that's what might have caused me to develop such a loathing for them over the years.
A voice so deadly, yet beautiful like a rose
I never saw it coming. The way he said things, made you think he was honest, was almost transfixing. Even for me, with my distaste for words instead of action, had to stop and listen to him. It was scary that any one person could demand so much attention just by speaking. Anytime he opened his mouth, we would all fell silent. Now, we didn't do what he said, but you can bet we listened.
But he was shot down by a madman
"You lied." I hissed through gritted teeth. "You let her go!"
"I love her." He shot back, standing tall. I couldn't help but wonder if he even feared me at all, towering over him with a silver machete held tight in my hand. Well, I'd make him afraid of me. I struck out with a ferociousness that caught him off guard, and though he tried to dodge, my blade sliced a clean cut down his leg and blood began to flow from the wound.
In the wake of his death bloomed a single rose
There's a saying back in District One. Once a Career, always a Career. I suppose there's some truth to it. Once you're tainted, you can't ever become pure again. You can't escape. It is true, no matter who you are, or why you became a Career. Even if you're Lover Boy.
And he was loved by all as he breathed his last breathe
And it was then that I could see his gaze darken, his soul becoming one of us. He hadn't been one of us until that moment just then, that moment when you live for the sake of living and kill for the sake of death. You become part animal. And he did. He fought back hard, somehow he slipping through my fingers, and I watched as he escaped into the shadows of the forest.
The third Alice was a green girl of the club
You can imagine my surprise when I saw a doll like Glimmer had volunteered. She appeared so prissy and stuck up, like she'd get along well with the escorts. But she wasn't. Glimmer, though not bloodthirsty like Clove, was skilled and agile. She's strong, and surprisingly adaptable.
She was the most beautiful in all of Wonderland
Glimmer was truly breathtaking. The first time I truly saw her was in training. I was already waiting for the other tributes to arrive in the Training Center, and I turned around to see her walking towards me, her gorgeous blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and green eyes, so much like my mother's had been, shining in the light. No, I didn't like her like that, but that doesn't change the fact that she was absolutely beautiful.
Charming people to her every beck and call
I think it's safe to say that almost everyone liked Glimmer. She was beautiful, and if that wasn't enough, words flowed from her mouth gentle and sweet, reminding me of honey. She wasn't full of herself, wasn't one to put herself before everyone else, but she was full of confidence and she always made sure her voice was heard.
"I like people to be equal." She said in her interview. "I mean… if you don't listen to me, then why should I listen to you?"
She had made a strange green country
Some might say that being in the Career alliance means a constant struggle for control. They would be right. Some might say that I was in charge, it was how it appeared at least, but it wasn't how it had been. We talked down to Peeta until he started talking back, and then we listen. We raced after Clove as she chased tributes like it was a game of Hide-And-Seek.
Glimmer didn't even have to speak to be influential. She was contagious. Once you start looking at her, watching her, you couldn't stop. Somehow there was beauty in everything she did, gorgeousness glittering behind emerald eyes. You could tell how she felt just by the way she stood, the way she breathed. And if that wasn't enough, her voice would ring out across the land, powerful and demanding.
This new Alice was the country's queen
"Why should I sit back and watch as everyone else gets their way?" She asked with a mischievous smile early on in the Games. "I want something, so I'm going to find a way to get it."
She had more of a presence then anyone I had every met. Whenever she walked into a room everyone would grow silent just so they could listen to the sound of her heels clicking against the ground, and they would look up as she breezed past them in a pace so effortless and smooth that you'd swear she could walk across water if she chose to.
Taken over by a distorted dream
It was true that Glimmer could be a little scared at times. It was frightening. She'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming and she'd never tell me why. It rocked her to her core and she'd sit up trembling, trying to cover it up, trying to pretend nothing happened. It never worked.
I once saw her running her fingers in circles over a small scar after one of these dreams. I didn't say anything but she looked up anyway, as if she could feel my gaze. "Why else?" She asked, not really speaking to me, but to a ghost from her past. She squeezed her eyes shut and a look of pain crossed over her face.
It was difficult to sleep with Glimmer around. Often times she'd volunteer to be the guard during the night. She wouldn't do this so not to keep us awake. She did it to escape the dreams. She was terrified of them; I could see it in her eyes. The way they wanted to dart around but she held them steadily in place, a little too steadily… it gave her away.
Now all she sees are visions of doom
It was the fear of death and pain that really did her in. She couldn't care less about other people's agony, but when it came to her own, she was mortified. She got a decent-sized cut on her arm in the bloodbath and she started screaming her head off, like she expected her limbs to fall off and her internal organs to stop functioning. And that scream was captivating. In the same way her honey-like voice sucked you in, the scream rang in your head and it haunted your dreams. It left a permanent stain on your heart.
Glimmer did everything she could to avoid pain. She'd lie and cheat, desperate to keep herself out of danger. The idea that she might die in these Games was too much for her to face. She refused to acknowledge it, stating that she knew she was going to be victor, because she simply wouldn't die.
"I refuse to," She snapped, defensively, when Clove teased her about it.
She will forever rule her country
I didn't see Glimmer die, but I heard her screams. As I ran through the trees, Tracker Jackers flying behind me, all that I could hear was the sound of her shrieking. It blotted out everything else in the world, and it became my universe, an eternal hell that devoured my soul as my feet pushed me farther away from the source. I will never forget that scream.
As this passed, two children wandered in the woods
And then there came the time in the Games when I was alone. Horribly alone. Marvel, Glimmer and even Clove were all dead and gone. When you're left to your own defenses in a Game of death and despair, things begin to make sense to you. Everything makes sense.
The way the light filtered in through the leaves, the way the wind whistled through the branches… it reminded me so much of home, of the tree in my back yard that my sister and I used to climb. It was the only tree that we'd ever found with limbs low enough to give us a boost into the branches. Once I was up there I always wanted to get down, but Sis loved it more than anything.
And when I was alone I began to hear her voice again.
"I think we all know I would have won," A voice whispered. I leapt to legs shaking from exhaustion, my machete clenched so tightly in my hand that my knuckled turned white and my fists trembled.
"Who's there?" I said loudly, eyes narrowed and darting around, looking in the darkest crevice of every shadow, looking in every location that could possibly hide another tribute.
"It's just me," The voice spoke again, this time much softer. And this time I recognized it.
"Sis?"
They had a tea party under the rose tree
I don't know how it was she got in my head, but it didn't matter to me. Her soul was still alive, and it lived inside my mind. I could hear her as clear as if she was standing next to me, and her presence gave me courage. I stopped trembling in the forest, and I started searching for Katniss and Lover Boy. Because I would find them, and I would do the thing my sister never did. I would win.
An invitation from the queen for them was the trump card of hearts
I could feel my victory on my fingertips. I could practically taste it. There was only a tiny bit left to lose before I gained everything. Katniss and Lover Boy would have to make the sacrifice, not me. I couldn't. I didn't have anything left to sacrifice.
"You can do this, Cato," I heard my older sister say to me then, just as she had so many times when I was younger. "You can win this for me."
The fourth Alice were the twins of hearts
I sat in a clearing, leaned up against the trunk of a tree and taking the last bite of some blackberries I found. I took extra care to make sure they actually were blackberries, and not something else. There should be less than a day left in the Games. I don't want to let my sister down because I couldn't identify berries.
"Cato," Sis said suddenly. "You're not alone."
That's when the sky grew dark and I began to hear the howls. The sound of paws tearing through the forest grew louder, and I broke into a run, the wolf mutts on my heels. I reached the cornucopia and flung myself upward, clawing to get on top of the structure. I saw Clove's crazed eyes out of my peripheral vision, and after that I refused to even look at those mutts.
Bringing curiosity to all in Wonderland
Everyone must have thought I was crazy, talking to a voice that no one else could hear. But I wasn't crazy. My sister was there, in my head. She was real and alive. She was.
I began to hear shouts as Katniss and Peeta ran into the clearing. They boosted each other up onto the cornucopia, almost being bitten by the dog in the process, and didn't even notice me, standing behind them on the metal construct and staring with narrowed eyes.
A stubborn elder sister
"Kill them!" My sister hissed. I stepped towards them, but just as I reached forward images flash in my mind of my mother lying down, the tears we shed at her funeral. The pain I felt inside when my sister was murdered in the Games. No. No more people needed to suffer by my hands. I'd already killed four. Three in the bloodbath, and the boy from Three. No more.
An intelligent younger brother
"I won't," I whisper, so only Sis can hear.
"You're weak," She whispers coldly, sending needles prickling down my spine. "Let me take over Cato."
"What?" I breathe, in shock. "No."
"Then you leave me no choice."
Were drawing closer and closer to the first Alice
I lost all control of my movements after this, and the voice that came out of my mouth I was not in charge of. My sister had taken control of my body, or at least that's what it seemed. Or maybe I really was crazy.
"Go on," I said, arm wrapped around Peeta's neck. "Shoot. Then we both go down and you win."
Katniss didn't move.
"Go on," I repeated. What I said next confirmed my suspicions. It wasn't me talking. It was Sis. "I'm dead anyway. I always was, right? I just-I didn't know that till now."
Images of the Capitol flashed through my mind, glistening cities. A utopia. I saw Clove running around in the orange dress she wore in the interviews, leaping over chairs for no apparent reason and laughing her head off at her stylist's mortified expression. Then there was Glimmer, striding on stage in the tiny pink dress. And of course there was Marvel, so confident and so sure of himself. All gone.
"Oh, is that-is that what they want, huh?!" I shout to the wolf mutts on the ground, mouths frothing with saliva and blood. Katniss pulled back on her bow, her teeth grit and her muscles tense. "No, na… I can still do this."
I remember the tears I shed when I watched my mother's casket get lowered into the ground. It reminds me now of the blood dripping down my face, burning my skin with its warmth.
"I can still do this." I repeat, my arm tightening around Lover Boy's neck. He struggles to breathe, his knuckles turning white as he tries so hard to pry my arm from around his neck. "One more kill… it's the only thing I know how to do."
My head pounds, as if something is trying to escape from my skull. Maybe it's my sanity, trying to leave me for good.
"Bring pride to my District," I say. "Not that it matters."
The arrow pierces my hand before I know it's even left her bow, shattering the bone and sending my wheeling backwards. With one powerful shove from the baker's son, I'm sent falling over the edge, right to the mouths of the wolves. They tear at my flesh, ripping my skin right down to the bone, my blood flowing freely from my veins, drenching what's left of me in the scarlet liquid.
Maybe its better this way.
They have not yet awoken from this terrifying dream
When I was little I used to play soldier with my sister in the backyard. Wooden sword met wooden sword time and time again, until the clashing of our blades became a noise I could no longer even hear. I never won that game, and I didn't win this one, either.
Every year we march into the arena, raised from birth to die one day on the battlefield, our memories blending in with the others until we are not ourselves anymore. So quick to be forgotten in life, victor after victor marching straight from our ranks, and even quicker to be forgotten in death. Though we're known for our victories, no one has ever dared count our loses, fearing what they would find. And what they would find would not be something as sweet as the taste of our victories. When each of us die, it is different than the last… but it is always the same.
Forever to walk in the Wonderland