After

There was a beeping when Darian finally came to. Unconsciousness clung to him, bringing him back into the depths, but at the very last second, something would surge through him and he would rise to the surface again. This pattern continued on until his detached will to be awake won out, and Darian opened his eyes.

The room was dark with nothing but a soft yellow light fighting to illuminate it. At first, it was peaceful. His body wasn't in pain, he wasn't surrounded by death, it was just him in a room.

He and two others.

The first was a medical worker of sorts. He stood a step away from Darian's bedside, but said nothing. He was holding a syringe and the sight of it struck a fear in Darian. Where the fear had come from, he wasn't sure, but it was apparent.

The second was none other than President Cross in the flesh.

Darian shot up and scrambled off the bed. The unconsciousness that held onto him made his movements sluggish and he ended up face down on the cold floor. It didn't stop his drive, however, and in a few slow seconds, he was on his feet once more. Dizziness swarmed his head and he leaned a hand on the bed for support.

His arm was covered in wires and tubes. Everything seemed to have an entrance point. He screamed, raspy and pathetic, and ripped everything off his arm in brash, terrified motions before taking off towards the door.

A foot crossed his path and Darian sprawled to the floor again, and that time, it was much harder to get up. His energy was spent already.

Cross stepped beside him and bent down. Upon getting a closer look, Darian saw specks of dried blood on his face, and the start of a purple bruise. Cross smirked wickedly and pulled Darian's head back.

"Your doing… if you were wondering." He voice was smooth, almost digital as he spoke. It hardly sounded human. "When they told me they were waking you up today, I couldn't miss it. My first victor. The violent rage in which you awoke was… enticing."

Darian was hoisted to his feet by the other man in the room, his body limp. Clearly, this was on purpose.

Cross continued, the two of them now face to face. "Third time's a charm, I see. You know, I wasn't sure about you when this all started. But I must say, you are quite the killer, Mr. Hale."

Maybe it was the silky sweet tone of Cross' voice or the shit they had pumped into him, but a swarming sensation of nausea overtook Darian and he lost control of the contents of his stomach.

Cross chuckled. "It will pass, Darian. All of it. But the legacy we have birthed… that will be eternal. I, the genius puppeteer, and you, my deadly puppet."

An involuntary grunt slipped from Darian's lips to which Cross smiled again. "Get him some food, a shower, handcuffs, perhaps? I need him ready in two days."

A foul hand swept through Darian's hair, Darian unable to turn away from it, and Cross was gone. The man who held him gently placed him back on the bed.

"I'll have a nurse come in and help with your fresh wounds." The man said and pointed to his arm. Darian hadn't even noticed the line of blood that was trickling from his inner elbow.

He nodded. The man didn't seem like he wanted to harm Darian, but after what he had recently gone through, he was wary of everyone. Pocketing the syringe, the man took his leave and was quickly replaced by half a dozen nurses.

He didn't feel ready to face the world only two days after resurfacing into it. It was overwhelming in the least to be surrounded by people… to be congratulated… all while each and every person seemed to tiptoe around him.

Even Bristol left her snark at home.

"Darian," She said when she saw him in the lobby of some Capitol building in which he had been 'recovering'. "It's nice to see you."

Darian was no master at reading expression, but he could tell from her demeanor that she thought he would try and stab her right there. He kept still and merely looked at her. Part of him wanted to scare her, the other just wanted her to walk away. He was already surrounded by peacekeepers every waking and sleeping moment, Darian didn't need Bristol around him too.

The handcuffs were tight on his suit and that was purposeful. Darian had learned that he had been put in a coma for a couple weeks upon the ending of the games. Not only had he attacked everyone who tried to touch him, but he had become a danger to himself as well. It had taken them three attempts to properly bring him out of it, each time he had to be more sedated.

People were convinced that the games had turned him into a monster. Some thought he was a monster to begin with. Darian hadn't decided, yet, which team he was on.

His reawakening had sparked something in the Capitol. He was going to be paraded out in front of the citizens for them to catch a glimpse of the brutal winner of their precious games, and the whole city was buzzing. They had given him a makeover. Every scar and blemish covered or masked, he had a nice haircut, was in a suit. He barely recognized himself in the window's reflection.

A camera flashed outside the window, and suddenly Darian was in the spotlight. A load of Capitol citizens swarmed the lobby windows and began taking pictures of him. He shied away from them, but was soon joined by President Cross and Bristol who only fueled the frenzy. They posed briefly before having Darian hauled off to a train.

The train ride was quiet. Cross caused a tension in Darian that nearly suffocated him and he was truly glad to be escorted out of the train and away from the vile man. Darian was led to the base of the arena and there stood one single chariot. It was gold, fit for a champion. As much as Darian had been denying it, he had won.

There was a fear in him that he would have to recount the events of the games for the audience. Would he be able to tell them exactly what happened? Did they actually know what the games were? The more Darian thought about it, the less he knew about the Capitol's hand in it.

Why did he even care?

Darian was placed in the chariot and handcuffed to it. Cross stepped in next to him and the woman from before the games was on his other side. She patted Darian on the shoulder like they were old friends and the chariot took off into the arena.

Like before, the arena was packed, but this time, there was not an open space in the whole place. While the roar of the crowd nearly burst his eardrum, there was something different in the air. The crowd was wild. Maybe they were anxious for what was the come… anxious for Darian's side of the story.

Twenty-four went in. Darian came out.

It was then that Darian noticed the large screens at the end of the arena. It was hard for him to register what was playing on it, but as the pictures, the videos, flashed from clip to the clip, he was smacked with the realization.

The screens were playing the games, specifically Darian's kills, over and over. It started with the large circle, Branwen dying, and moved on from there. He watched in utter horror as the many people he faced fell. He couldn't tear his eyes away from it. The entire time he was struggling to keep the people he loved alive, they were filming him.

His knees buckled when the screen showed Kelsa in his arms. The Capitol was seeing this. All of them were getting a playback of his worst moments. Cross and the woman lifted him so he was standing, but the tightening in his chest, the jelly in his legs, only worsened when they touched him.

"You filmed it." He managed, and it took all his strength to do just that.

Cross waved, his brilliant smile ever present. "We didn't mention you were being watched?" The woman next to him chuckled as she lifted Darian's chin for the crowd.

He couldn't resist, he couldn't fight, he couldn't do anything. The screen replayed the 'final battle' (as it read on the bottom of the screen) and Darian grit his teeth. He wanted to face it, but there was nothing but weakness left. His eyes closed and he did everything he could to escape that moment.

The roar of the crowd made more sense now. They weren't welcoming their victor ready to hear about his experiences, they were screaming at a murderer… one they had been with since the very fucking beginning. Sick fucks.

Bristol clapped for him when he was returned to the isolation of his room. It was different than where he was kept before the games, less of a cell, but a prison nonetheless. She had been waiting for him at the dining table with a plethora of foods.

"Wonderful performance." She started. He didn't know why, but he sat. "I was impressed."

A servant came by and made a plate for him, but he wouldn't touch it. There was too much on his mind. Clearing his throat, he faced Bristol. "Who all has seen it?"

"Everyone."

"The districts?"

She nodded. He sat back in his chair. When life doled out punishment, Darian seemed to be getting extra doses.

"My mother…"

"She, especially."

The room was spinning. He knew it would come eventually, but he was hardly prepared for the onset of guilt and shame. He was trapped in his body, then. He couldn't escape what he'd done, what he was forced to… chose to do. Darian would have given anything to leave his body and go someplace else.

He rested a hand on the table to steady himself. The sedation was gone at that point. His instability was his body rejecting his soul…. Rejecting the thing he had become. "I want to see it." His voice cracked as he spoke.

She clarified, "The Games?"

The movements of agreement were hard for him, but he knew he would never be able to rest until he saw it all. He had to know everything that happened. He had to know what his mother saw.

Most importantly, he had to see himself.

Bristol stood and walked over to the television screen. It didn't take her long to bring up the footage. "Come here."

Her voice was a strange mix of nurturing and seductive. She was enjoying it.

Darian relocated to the sitting room. Bristol glanced back him. "You're going to want to sit for this."

She started the reel and Darian wasn't sure he could feel more defeated.

It started from the beginning and played until the bloody end. Every kill, every death, every little thing they did had been filmed. Some of the camera angles were odd, blurry even, but Darian was far more concerned with what was happening. Most people died in the freeze. It should have been a good thing that there wasn't as much outright murder as he had originally thought, but it confirmed that his game had been exceptionally different from the others.

It was poetic that Marcus and Darian had been the last ones standing. They had killed the most people. Their body counts were the highest.

When it was over, Darian barely knew which way was up.

Bristol offered a guiding hand to help him sit on the couch but he shoved her away. "Don't touch me…"

Her expression was unreadable, as was everything else. Darian had killed people. He had tried to save everyone, lost them all, killed those who stood in his way. That was how he handled it. He had played right into their hands.

"Rest up, Darian. Tomorrow, we send you back to the rotting wasteland from which you came."