Everything and Nothing
I tip my head back to catch the last drops of cloudy alcohol from the bottle in my hand. My tongue dances at the lip of the bottle, searching for some burning liquid to numb me, but nothing comes. No relief.
I sigh heavily and set the bottle back on the table. There's never any relief. Almost twenty-five years have passed since my terrifying time in the Hunger Games and I've still not recovered from the trauma. Not one tiny bit.
My weary elbows come up to rest on the table and I lower my head onto them, resting my forehead in my palms. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to let the ringing in my ears overpower the dismal thoughts swarming my head. It doesn't. But when has it ever? No matter how much liquor I down, the pain never wanes, the darkness never recedes. There hasn't been any sunshine in my life since the Games.
I had a future before my name was called at the Reaping at the last Quarter Quell. At least, I thought I had. Now that I think about it, the only thing I was ever destined for was a life slowly suffocating in District 12's mines. That was the only thing the Capitol allowed anyone to do here. But instead, I'm chained to this wretched existence, watching tribute after tribute I'm supposedly mentoring get slaughtered in the arena, feeling wholly responsible yet failing to care. Those bastards in the Capitol took away any hope for a decent future I ever had. Or maybe I never had one at all. They'd taken away any chance any of us ever had with their absolute control over all the districts. We never had a choice. About anything.
My feet lift me from my seat, my hand finds the neck of the empty bottle before me, and before I can get a handle on my emotions it's smashing to the filthy floor, shattering into a thousand pieces with a crash that doesn't even register in my pounding ears.
After the initial shock of my involuntary reaction passes, I'm overwhelmed with anger. The Capitol! It's taken so much from me. My happiness. My freedom. My will to live. God, I don't want to live! Not like this. I stagger around my kitchen, covering my wet eyes with my hands. These hands! I throw them away from my face roughly, tears flying off them and my face into empty space. These despicable hands that have slaughtered the children in the arena with me quarter of a century ago, or stood idly by while so many more perished. I hate them!
It's more than the Capitol that I hate. I hate myself. I despise myself more than words can say. I kick a chair away from the table and send my fist through a wall, but nothing can tame this wild revulsion I feel. Nothing can dull the ache of my broken heart.
How could I let the Capitol use me like this? How could I let them do this to me, and to everyone? How could I never fight back? I never even tried. I never lifted a finger against the Capitol. In the arena, all I cared about was myself. I let my only ally walk away, to her death. Once I escaped with my life, I was still as self-centered as ever. I didn't share anything I had, though I had won plenty and could have spared anything. Lives in the Seam could have been saved, at least from starvation. I had everything, and yet I had nothing. I still have everything. I still have nothing. I am nothing.
Surviving to be the victor of the Hunger Games is not winning. We never really win.