A/N: Why, hello there! I finished Mockingjay, and that's all I have to say about that. No spoilers and all that. Although I have to admit, telling friends who haven't read it yet random characters and saying they die is rather amusing. The looks on their faces! And then when they scream "YOU JUST RUINED IT FOR ME!"Anyway, enough about that.

Well, this is most likely the last chapter. I put up a poll for the 'to sequel or not to sequel' dilemma, so if you guys could vote on that, it would be awesome.

Anyway, onwards with the chapter.


The first thing I did was head straight for the bed in my room. I know, I know, it was a bit pathetic, and I was probably supposed to be somewhere else, but I was so tired I didn't really care anymore. I was through with caring.

As soon as my head thumped against the soft pillow my eyes drooped, and before I knew it, I was sound asleep and dreaming.

Actually, sound asleep was a lie. I think I had the worst night mare anyone could ever have.

It started with me lying face down in grass. The fresh smell filled my head, but there was something off about it. A slight trace of something else hanging in the atmosphere. I flipped myself over and took in the scene that surrounded me.

Bodies lay ringed around me in perfect circles. Closest to me were the people I'd killed in the arena. Ryne. Telemachus. Goliath. The next ring was the other tributes. Fabian. Then my family and friends from back home. The rings of bodies seemed endless, further than my eyes could comprehend. Standing by my side was a man from the Capitol – the same man I'd been in my dream back in the arena.

"We're proud of you Shadow," he said. "You've proven worthy to the Capitol."

He looked at me up and down, his posture radiating superiority. His graying hair was combed perfectly, and his suit was a solid black with the occasional glimpse of a crisp white shirt.

Then he just suddenly left. No warning – Just turned around and paced calmly from the spot where I stood, dumbfounded. Only in the company of dead bodies, as if he wanted me to make conversation with them.

"I'm not your slave, you know!" I called out.

"Oh, Shadow, I think you are," he said, his dark eyes boring into mine with a harsh intensity.

I woke with a start, the man's parting words ringing in my ears.

I think you are.

I swung myself out of bed and prepared for the day, not actually knowing how it would be spent. I showered, scrubbing the unnatural makeup from last night from my face. I dressed and sauntered down the hall for breakfast. As it turned out, I had missed the recap of my interview. I didn't particularly care, but someone – I was hard-pressed to remember who – practically dragged me with them to watch a recording of it.

They said something about.. "It will be good for you."

As I watched the recording, I wondered, how did I win these Games?

In the past, Victors had normally been cocky, arrogant and genuinely happy that they had won, with a few exceptions. But I had been as scared as a mouse. I was surprised people had actually congratulated me on such a horrible performance.

Though, I supposed in the Capitol's eyes, the Victor can do no wrong.

Nothing interesting really happened on the way home, apart from one conversation with Drake after dinner.

"How are you coping?" he asked, concern touching his voice.

"I'm fine. Why?" I replied cautiously. Ever since the arena I'd been careful with people, never knowing who was my friend and who would stab me in the back without a second thought. I guessed the paranoia never really went away.

"I remember when I first won the Games. I was terribly confused. I still am. Who am I? What have I done? What will it be like when I get home?" he said, firing the rhetorical questions at me carelessly, not realizing they were exactly the questions I wanted the answers to. "I tried to focus on the positives, but all the negatives kept coming back and flooding my mind."

"I know what you mean," I said. "And I think I'll be confused for a while."

He nodded. "I can understand that. Hell, I haven't even sorted it out yet. But I've been told it gets better after a few years. They focus on the more recent Victors."

"Fresh meat," I muttered, and Drake nodded again.

"Personally, I can't wait until all the publicity is over," Drake said. Sometimes, It was hard to forget he was still only seventeen. He seemed abnormally mature for his age, and I was sure it was the Games that had done it.

What he'd said had been true. I just wanted this whole thing to be over. The publicity, everything. I wanted to just crawl into the deepest hole imaginable and wait out the 'the-crowd-is-in-love-with-you' period.

But no, I never get what I want. I get what others think I want.

By the time we arrived back in District Eleven, I was so homesick it was all I could do not to barge through the crowds and sprint home.

Instead, I stepped from the train in a rather orderly fashion and plastered a fake smile on for the cameras.

But the smile wasn't fake when Sun crushed me in a hug the moment I set foot on the platform. She mumbled things I couldn't hear, and I could've sworn she was crying.

"I missed you," I told her, holding her tightly. I scanned the rest of the platform for people I knew. My father was there, along with my friend Skye. Some other kids from school. A camera crew which took up half the platform. To my disgust, Markus.

And as much as I searched and searched, the only other people I could see were Fabian & Fynn's parents, with their younger siblings, Storm and Theon.

But no Fynn.


A/N: Okay, so I know it's a cliffhanger ending. If I don't do a sequel, I might add an epilogue to this. But anyway, vote on my poll!

Oh, and I got asked what my idea was for the sequel, if I wrote it.

Well, basically, it would be the Victory Tour and the next Games, where Shadow is a mentor. And the Fynn thing at the end there would be explained.

Anyway, review? Please?