They promised it would be easier after the Games. They assured me that if I looked good on camera, said the right things, told everyone how grateful I was to have the odds sway in my favour- everyone would come to accept me.
But how can they do that when even I can't look myself in the eye?
It feels good, to lie in the bathtub of an empty house. This was the house that belonged to my mentor. He told me to kill or be killed; never any alternative. Maybe that's why I killed him. Like I killed that sobbing girl from 7, or that unconscious boy from 3, or that poor, poor 12 year old from 9. Because I convinced myself that they were the ones who had turned me into this monster.
But deep down, I know that the true monster was of my own creation. In the end, I suppose I let my own fear consume my soul in the Arena. I guess I feared Death too much.
"I don't fear it now," I say grimly, even though no-one is there to hear it. My eyes fall once again on the knife in my hand, glistening in the pale slither of moonlight with the blood of the innocent; the ones who never saw home again. Thanks to me.
The Peacekeepers will surely know by now. They'll know that I've cracked. That's the thing about winning the Games: you always know when someone is coming for you. They'll find me here, and they'll take me to a nice, padded cell, where I'll sit it out, listening to all the other mad ones scream, still locked in the Games, until Death comes to take me away. I'd laugh about this- if it was funny.
"I don't want that," I tell the knife. Obviously, it doesn't respond. My only companion in this war against what is right and what is easy chooses to ignore me. Never mind. I'm used to it.
The almighty crash of splintering wood reaches my ears from downstairs, followed by angry shouts and the fall of heavy boots. They're here. They know. And I don't even think. I just plunge the weapon into my stomach; burying it deep in one, graceful, downward stroke, as easily as I did when I murdered my district partner in his sleep. It hurts, but not for long. If anything, I'm surprised that a life can be ended this easily. Just another, pointless life. My vision blurs, darkening as the white porcelain of the bathtub is steadily stained scarlet and the first of the Peacekeepers reach me. But I meet Death with a smile, because I finally know the truth.
They told me that everything would be easier. They promised.
How wrong they were.
