The names of the tributes scroll down and I look at every one of them, Anvike Tall, Daphne Shoe, Cecil Rees, Jasper Knot, Sara Bolts, Dralakone Hurling, Suzie Thread, Butch Johnto, Marie Tyler, Vladimir Butcher, Martha-Rose Fall, Alan String, June Caper, Vivian Hall, Kara Jaymond, Rip Knead, Tara Dessin, Jon Cave, Naomi Jones, Alvin Smith, Maya Horton, Leon Ripe, Tamsen Heart. Then the screen goes blank and Caesar turns to me. Little have I noticed, I have tears welling in my eyes so I wipe them ferociously with the back of my hand, let's get this over and done with shall we? Caesar smile encouragingly and looks me in the eye, but I'm not looking at him, I'm staring at the face of Zap in the audience, his smile encouraging and his face happy in such a desperation I am unsure whether it is true or not. I don't care, I just don't care.
"How did you find that?"
I look around to see who Caesar is talking to and then remember it's me, he's always talking to me. How did I find it? No amount of buttered lies could disclose the truth of repulsion evident on my face. The look I am giving the Capitol is one of pure hatred, pure loathing. I hate them, I really do. This is monstrous. But I don't say that. I just wipe the look of hatred off my face and replace it with a small, cautious smile.
"Give my praise to the editors, they did a very good job." I murmur. And they did, it was a very good film, or it would have been if those deaths that I saw hadn't been real, if the reality show hadn't just stared me in the face. It was real, it was all real. I was there.
"Now Kara, what do you feel when I say that you killed the most tributes in the arena?" Caesar asks. I know what I should say, overjoyed, surprised, ecstatic, shocked, amazed. But no, I just open my mouth and blurt out the word before I can hold it back.
"Repulsed."
The audience stare at me, shocked, as does Caesar, but he just lets out a small smile and tries to cover it up, but he can only do so by me covering it up. And I don't want to do that, I want to yell and scream and kick about how these games have ruined my life, about how they are monstrous and cruel. But no, instead I can only murmur a single word of rebellion, and not even a very strong one. I just hope someone is braver then me in the future.
"How so?" Asks Caesar.
"I didn't want to kill, but I had to. But still I feel that every death is a burden on my shoulders, a burden I do not want to bear. But I killed and I live Caesar, I killed and I live."
"So how did you get in with the careers?" Caesar asks, trying to carry on and succeeding quite well.
"The careers? Oh, it was easy. My training score speaks for it, doesn't it?" And then I'm gone and Clara has butted in, taken over. And I'm glad. Throughout these games they've only seen glimpses of me, the real me. So as I automatically flirt and gossip and chat I am actually thinking, waiting, watching. And somehow I know Zap senses it, somehow I know I do too. Finally Caesar comes to his last question.
"So, last of all Kara, here's the big question, why do you think you won these games?"
I shiver, it's now or never, I can speak out or stay back, but I decide to tell the truth, honestly. "I think I won this year's hunger games because of Precious, because of Vivian, Suzie, Dral, June and Precious. My allies have all helped me through and saved my life times over. But really it was Precious. It was her action in the final fight, the final struggle. She flung down that knife, she flung it to the ground, and if she hadn't done that act of fairness then she would be here today and I would be dead."
I feel quite shocked about what I have said and evidently so does the audience but I look up at the camera, "It's the truth."
Then slowly someone starts clapping in the audience, a solitary single beat and then it grows until the whole of the audience is roaring in approval. What did I say? Has no-one ever said that before? Then I notice, no, they haven't. They always talk about them and how certain actions they did saved themselves, but I just talked about other tributes saving me which is the truth.
"Thank you Kara! Now I know you think this is the end of the interview, but we have a special surprise for you!"
I freeze at Caesar's words, a surprise? What sort of a surprise?
"We've shipped someone over to see you all the way from district eight!"
I look up at Caesar's words and then see him, my father, smiling awkwardly at me from the corner of the room. The whole world seems to slow down, Caesar's words just a brief humming in my ears and the audience surrounding me a blur of colours and shapes. My eyes are transfixed at my father in front of me and I leap to my feet, springing out of my chair. I ignore the cameras, they don't matter, nothing matters apart from my father.
But what will he think of me? I am a murderer and I have pretended, I am no longer his daughter, in these few weeks he has seen me undergo so much and by the look of him he has been through the same but ten times worse. His hair, previously having just streaks of grey, is now a steady dull colour. His eyes are drooped and it looks like he hasn't slept at all since I last saw him. His face is weathered, eroded and beaten like the rest of his body. But he looks happy, a smile brightens up his depressed face and his arms stretch out, beckoning me into a hug. Before I can stop and think I charge across the stage and leap off it in one giant bound, landing right next to my father.
I only pause for a second before letting him wrap his hands around me and burying my face in h8is shoulder. It's alright, I'm safe, I'm fine. And I find myself repeating the same phrase again and again and again, repetitively,
"I love you, I love you dad. Oh dad I love you, I love you so much."
And for that moment there is no Capitol or districts or audience or hunger games, there is just me and my father and my words, stinging the air around us and drawing a protective bubble.
I love you.
It's almost over, just one more chapter, the epilogue and then it is the end of Gnawing Hunger! Though I have decided that I will do a sequel to it, I am unsure what I should call it. The epilogue for this will double up as all of or part of the prologue for the sequel. Any ideas of what to call it are really welcome!
Thinking about it, I have written this, well, this book, in half a term, which is basically a sixth of a year. In just a few, I don't know how many weeks, this has been written by me in record time! But I'll blab on about that in the author's note at the end!
