Maybe It Is Real, 7
I wake up at 3 AM this time. I try to keep myself quiet. I know my mother and Prim haven't really gotten much sleep since I came home from the games. I pace around my room for a little bit, not knowing what to do. I can't go back to sleep, I couldn't take it anymore.
I grab a soft fleece blanket from a basket in my room and curl up my the window seal. How long is this gonna go on?" I wonder.
Forever, because there isn't any escape. I'm forever trapped in a life of sleepless nights. I sigh, running my hands through my brown hair. Typical, this will be. Every early morning spent by the window seal starring at the stars, praying for freedom.
The victory tour will be here in four months. I'll have to go the the capitol again, and see those horrible, horrible people. Cheering my name, so happy for my victory. A victory achieved by killing innocent children. I burry my head in my hands. It never goes away. The pain of knowing you took a life of someone, an innocent someone. And not just one. Marvel, Cato. Glimmer and the District 4 girl. Might as well count Rue's death as my fault, I should have protected her. She should have won, not me. She should be living in these big houses, eating all the food she could ever want, wearing all the beautiful clothes. Hell, anyone but me should have won.
But Peeta won, too. That's one saving grace, instead of 23 other life's lost, it was only 22. Still doesn't seattle right with me.
It's not right when a person can't see that sending 24 children somewhere to kill each other is wrong. It's not good entertainment. It's horrible. I can't understand how they can cheer for it.
I wonder if they cheered when Rue died.
I wonder if they cheered when I shot Marvel.
I wonder if they cheered when they said there could only be one victor.
I wonder if they cheered when we were going to eat the berries. Is it good entertainment to watch two kids try to kill themselves because they don't want to kill each other? I wouldn't know, I'm not from the capitol. I clearly don't know the difference between right and wrong, obviously it's okay.
I get up and pace around my room again. I'll have to mentor the kids until I die, unless some other girl wins. Which is unlikely. This has to end. It can't go on. But what can I do? I'm a sixteen year old girl who won the hunger games. I'm not the first. What can I do to change things? I slump down on the floor and sigh. Nothing. Not alone anyway. I need help. Where in God's name do you get help around this place?
Haymitch.
/Bakers/Gonna/Bake/Bake/Bake/Bake/Bake/
Two thirty in the afternoon, the man should be awake already, right?
No.
I open his unlocked door and almost vomit at the smell. God, how can he stand it? I guess because he is always asleep.
"Haymitch," I mutter shaking the old drunk awake. I don't even know what I'm going to say. 'Hey, let's go kill Snow!'?
He's obviously not waking up. I get a pitcher of cold water and pour it on him.
"Gawwwwwh!" Haymitch jumps up waving his knife around. I jump back.
"What are you doing?" He barks.
"We need to talk," I say in all seriousness. He looks at me for a minute and nods. He heads towards the door. "What are you doing?" I ask. "We're going to take a walk Sweetheart," he responds. I follow him.
/Players/Gonna/Play/Play/Play/Play/Play/
"So, what is it you want to talk about?"
We, Haymitch and I, sit in the meadow where the capitol doesn't have bugs everywhere. No guarantee of it, but it's the safest place we know of.
"I don't know," I mutter picking a flower.
"You don't know? So you dragged me out here for nothing?"
"Technically, you dragged me out here."
"Because I figured you had something important to talk about. Like, bugs in your house, that annoying mother of yours, thinking about sleeping with the boy, government-" I cut him off.
"Haymitch!"
"What?"
"Sleeping with the boy? Seriously?" I say.
"Yeah. It happens Sweetheart. Now, let's talk about what you really want to talk about," he says.
"What was the last thing you were saying?" I ask.
"Government issues. You realizing you don't like the capitol ways and you have to mentor innocent children every year? Welcome to my life."
"Sounds lovely," I say.
"It's not. You have to realize that this is it though. There's nothing you can do. See what happened to District 13? We're hopeless. Think you can get this bloody district to start an uprising? You're kidding yourself. Just give up and face the facts Sweetheart."
I nod and twirl the flower in my hand. Haymitch doesn't even have faith. We're hopeless.
