For SneverusSnapers's One-Shot Contest/Challenge/Thingee
I AM NO HERO
"You killed him."
Blood, curdling with betrayal, tearing through my veins, ripping out my heart...
"They say you've gone crazy."
I have to clean this up; I have to prove them wrong; he has to die! They all have to die!
"Do you even remember?"
No, no, this isn't me. I have to relax; I have to calm down; I have to stop. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to go down as a murderess.
"You don't, do you? It doesn't make a difference to you."
"No one will know. Not even the game-makers. The cameras only pick up what matters. They'll be watching the big feast and the battle there, I promise." –no, no, you're not a killer, you're not going to kill anyone, no!- My voice, foreign to my ears... My lips are moving, but- no, I am not a killer- I feel like an Avox, and yet I speak...
"You thought they weren't watching, hm? You just think you're oh-so-clever."
"Die."
"But they can split the screen to show us two views, can't they? No one else cared about one heartless murderer when there's a war to be seen, do they? You obviously don't care about anyone, or their lives, but I do. I care. I care!"
The knife- no, my knife- whistling through the icy air, slicing into the center of an oversized snowflake which clearly was manufactured in the Capitol, his sharp intake of breath when it made contact with skin, the sickening crunch when the blade hit bone...
"It wasn't fair. He wasn't ready. But you have no sense of honor. You never did."
"Lily! What are you doing? Help me!"
"He should've called you by your real name. Not the one your parents gave you. They were close, though. Switching two letters was their second worst mistake, the first being having you."
The look in his eyes, such sadness, and somehow, pity. He pitied me. After lying to me, selling me out, and, in the end, trying to save my life, he pitied me. Now he's dead. He's dead because I killed him. I am a killer. This is who I am now, and my subconscious had better shut up.
"Villain."
"I'm sorry." But I'm really not...
"Are you ignoring me? Really?"
The knife, colder than my pale hands; the screaming. Who is screaming?
"You sure do know how to pick your moments, don't you?"
Silence. The silence is screaming.
"You didn't even stop with Max, did you? You killed the rest of them."
After the feast, they'll all come running. They won't expect it, not after the danger seems to have ceased. This will be easy. After all, I'm a killer now, aren't I?
"You took the damn knife back!"
Sliding the knife out; hearing my own words like a recording once again...
"You had the nerve to talk to him!"
"I'll be needing this."
"And then you killed them. No one would suspect, would they? The hovercrafts couldn't move fast enough."
One slit throat, another stabbed heart... Only one left. A hand on my throat, the pain, no air...
"That guy from 2 almost got you, didn't he? I wish you'd died then."
Fight or flight; different instincts kicking in, different influences... fight.
"But no. You had to survive. Resilient, that's what they said you were. That's a lie. You just have no conscience."
My hands, smaller than his, reaching out, scrabbling at his stomach, shredding his skin with my nails, biting the flesh of his palm, my leg twisting around to kick him in the face. How did I even do that? How am I alive? Is he dead? Disbelief striking me to the core, the agony of others becoming mine...
"I looked up your last name. It means liar, at least in some dead language called 'Latin.' Villain. Liar. Death. Fits you perfectly, doesn't it?"
Cannons like gunfire... I'm alive. I won. I'm a victor.
"They called you the hero of District 11."
And yet, deep in my heart, I know I have not won anything. Through these entire games, all that has happened to anyone is loss. I am not alive, not like I used to be. I am not a winner. I am not a victor. But most importantly...
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for killing your brother, even though he told me he'd keep my location secret when he didn't, even though he told the Careers where I was, even though he saved me from them. I'm sorry. By the way, my name is Villian. Vill-EE-an. I am not a villain, I am not a liar, and I am not a killer. But most importantly..."
Max's sister, Ashie, seems a bit taken a back. My words are true, and still, she does not believe me. She cannot come to terms with death. I can't, either. No one can, not really.
"I am no hero."