A/N: Hey guys! This is my first fanfic, ever, and I'm pretty excited about it. The prologue is pretty boring, but I hope you'll give it a shot. Sorry in advance if there are any mistakes; I don't have a beta. That and it's 2 a.m. Please review! Criticism is welcome as long as you don't kill it. :)
It was uncontrollable. My hands, my arms, my legs; I was shaking. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this would end somehow, but somehow seemed so far away and I was beginning to wonder if it would ever come at all.
Snap out of it, Katniss.
I shook my head and reminded myself that I was still playing this game. It wasn't over yet. There was still the boy in front of me, bloody and smiling as if there was nothing wrong with this whole picture.
Anyone with their sanity intact would've sent their arrow flying right away. But I was slowly going mad, because all that I knew was blurring into a mess. I had a reason that would justify killing him.
He killed Peeta.
He killed Peeta.
He killed Peeta.
I let myself close my eyes, thinking back to the boy with the bread, the wound on his leg becoming incurable, even with what I had gotten from the feast. The last moment as he looked at me and told me, Katniss, it's not your fault. Remember, I love you, okay? Win, win for me, for Rue, for Prim. And I watched helplessly as he took his last breath.
I opened my eyes. This was reason enough and, with my fingers numb from the wind rushing at me on the cornucopia, I slowly pulled my arm back, prepared to release my last arrow. Across from me, Cato stood. He knew there was no way he could win, but knowing he had took away something so precious, was what gave him victory after all.
I stood for a moment, studying this boy.
From the outside, I could've just been searching for the best place to aim, the sweet spot that assured immediate death. I was really doing something far worse.
What if he has a family? What if somewhere out there, there's a little girl waiting for him to come back home… Just like me?
It only took two questions for my actions to falter and come to a pause. It only took one moment for me to glance down at the Capitol-bred mutations. It only took one moment for me to look into the dark chocolate eyes of Rue, the warm blue eyes of Peeta, to realize that nothing here was sacred.
Out here in the arena, it didn't matter if there were starved, bony children pitted against fierecely trained young men and women wired to kill. All that mattered to the sickeningly wealthy Capitol citizens and their ever loyal districts, were the soundings of death that came after every demise of yet another life.
And it was almost true.
To finally be set out of the cage, just to be given two options: kill or be killed.
Here, trained killers and frightful victims merged into one. In the end, we all became a part of just another long list of game pieces; toys to be jerked back and forth to the wishes and demands of the watchful audience. Even the most dedicated Career couldn't make it out in one piece, should the audience ask for it.
And it took me that moment of looking into Rue's eyes that weren't really her eyes, to see that it didn't matter who the hell each of us were before, we were all puppets; playthings with strings just waiting to be tugged at this way and that. How we were raised to think didn't count anymore because a killer's mindset replaced all we knew anyway.
We were made into game pieces.
And in that moment, I wanted to be the dysfunctional piece that could never work right. I so desperately did not want to follow in the footsteps of so many others before me.
How could I, when I knew that all twenty-three other tributes were just like me?
It only took a second for me to drop my bow, hear it clatter at my feet in defeat, to faintly feel myself cave in, falling to my knees in complete vulnerability.
I never cried. There was never time for it, because five seconds spent on tears was five seconds too much; five seconds that could cost a life.
But something in the air had changed and I let myself be weak. I cried.
I cried for myself, and I cried for Cato and Peeta and Rue, for Thresh and Foxface and Clove, and even for Glimmer and Marvel. I cried for all of us because we would never be the same, we would never be given the chance to. I cried because we grew up too fast and came to realizations too slow and with all our strength combined would never be strong enough.
And there was nothing that could be done to help it, nothing at all.
My tears became sobs and my body was shaking now more than ever. When I looked up from my stiff hands, I was still stuck on that damn cornucopia, and for the first time since I was eleven, I wished I could die. So I shut my eyes tight and waited for the blow to come and cried, to make up for all those years I lacked. I waited for that searing pain that now seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel that would grant me the gift of death, but it never came.
Too invested in my tears, I could barely make out the sound of someone walking towards me, step by step, slowly, as if not to let me slip away perenially. Suddenly, my bow was shoved back into my lap, an arrow plucked from my quiver and dropped inches away from my knees, as a hoarse voice spoke out.
"Well? What're you waiting for, Fire Girl? Kill me already."
And that was enough for another round of tears to erupt, to know that my biggest competitor, my biggest threat, had given up already and was awaiting his fate, too tired for even his taunts to sound venomous any longer.
"I can't."
I barely whispered those two words and wasn't even sure if I'd really said them or not. It seemed that I had, because Cato had heard me after all. And my response seemed adequate to him.
Everything else was blurred as a new torrent of tears crashed into me, chest aching with a pain I never knew I'd allow myself to feel. I could already feel myself slipping into nothing.
My bow; taken away. Arms, cold but comforting, wrapping around me. My tears, absorbed by a battered T-shirt. Three small drops on my forehead. The mutts, fading away. Trumpets, blaring a tune not fit for this moment. Arms, getting tighter.
Ladies and gentlemen, the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Cato Hendrix!