AN: I MOVED THIS FROM MY MAIN PROFILE TO HERE. NO PLAGERISM HAS TAKEN PLACE.

ALTERNATE PROFILE: UNTIL WE HAVE FACES

~0~

I can't believe it took me this long to realize it.

The entire time I thought the enemies were the other tributes, but it was the Capitol. The people that put me here—that put all of us here. To what? To fight in their Games? Is that it? Is there really pride in any of this?

Every time I murdered a tribute, I didn't feel that sense of pride the victors from my District talk about. I just felt like a coldblooded predator.

Back home in District 2, it was an honor to be selected as tribute for the Hunger Games. They said winning gives you honor, they said winning gives you pride. But does it really?

No. Being crowned victor gives honor to their District, not the winner.

Winning the Hunger Games gives you pride.

That's just something they tell tributes so they become fearsome monsters in the arena.

And that's what I've become.

I'm just like one of those mutts howling and snarling below me. They were engineered to be vicious and thirst for blood. I was engineered the same way.

I'm a mutt. I was molded and shifted by the Capitol to become a bloodthirsty beast.

I think the District 12 tributes knew that all along. That's why they're still alive. They knew the opponent to fear throughout the Games—probably even before this all started.

The Capitol is the enemy. Not the growling creatures that long for a taste of my flesh, not Lover Boy shaking and bleeding in my arms, not even the girl with the arrow aimed right between my eyes.

The blood in my mouth is becoming thicker as it drips down my chin, and suddenly, I want to die.

I don't want to be crowned the victor of the 74th Hunger Games. I don't want to bring pride to my District by winning.

I want to bring honor to myself by dying at the hands of two people that I know will change this cruel world we live in, two people that have had a sense of pride that wasn't brought on by brutally slaughtering another tribute.

The Capitol doesn't own me.

Peeta gasps for air and I tighten my grip around his neck, which I know will push Katniss over the edge. Instead of shooting me in the head, she shoots my hand, making me let go of Peeta who punches me in the nose. I stagger on the edge of the Cornucopia, trying to blink away the stars that have swarmed my vision, and eventually lose my footing.

My back slams into the earth before I realize what's happening. The ravenous mutts are looming over me within a second, saliva dripping from their fang.

I know this is my end. And I'm okay with it.

As their teeth gnaw and devour my flesh, I feel something in the pit of my stomach that I have never felt before—pride.