Perdition
The train ride back to One was a long journey wrought with sorrow and despair. Hero had retreated to the dark confines of his room. The shadows whispered of his past mistakes, reminding him of every misstep: the day that he lost Terra, the life he took in the bloodbath, his hesitation…
The moment he volunteered.
Everything had thought he knew before the Games had been thrown into doubt and mistrust. A tangle that it would never emerge from.
The lies had to tell in his victor's interview sickened him to the depths of his soul. He was sure that lost a piece of it with each one he told. He was certain that his victory -no victory was not the right word, it made it seem something noble- that his survival was more of a punishment than anything triumphant. His allyship was twisted into a futile attempt to ease doomed one's suffering, which he realised at the attack upon his former allies' camp. His subsequent sorrow and aimless denial of that fact that was followed up by a bitter acceptance came in the finale, where he realised what truly mattered. A twisted mockery of truth. But until he was foolish to think that it would become anything else. Heroes lay in stories told to children at bedtime. In reality, most people found themselves dwelling in the shade of villainy and Hero knew that his shade was one the darkest.
The suffocation of the shadows became overwhelming. Hero needed light and to see the outside world in the hope that it would provide a brief sanctuary. He escaped to the back of the train, where looked out from the window and the end at the carriage, watching as the world filtered past behind him. The glimpses of the world did little to put his mind at rest, he had found a new environment to despair in.
Shimmer disturbed his solitude.
For a while she did not say anything and just sat next to him, sharing an uneasy silence.
"What happens now?" Hero said finally
"You return to praise and glory" Simmer answered "That's what's supposed to happen, anyway,"
"I messed up, didn't I? I didn't win how a career is supposed to win." Hero said, redirecting the conversation
"Things rarely go as intended. They that we envision them"
"But I.."
"Betrayed the career pack, ran off the girl from Five and tried to ensure that she'll win above you and then killed the remnants of your former allies, to win"
Taken aback by Shimmer's bluntness, words escaped Hero unable to find a response.
"There's no point in dancing around, what happened? Denial will get you nowhere."
"I'm not denying anything!" Hero declared
"Then why were you so startled by a quick recounting of events?"
"It's too soon too-
"Too soon to accept what happened. If it is too soon now, it will always be too soon."
"Then tell me more about what happened. Tell me more about what happened when I ran off with Terra and the final moments the games were killed where I killed Regal and Berthold. What happened on our side of things."
"Chaos. Legacy immediately wanted to give up on you and put our focus on Regal. He wanted to cut off any potential sponsor gifts. But that was Legacy, stuck in ways of tradition and how things should be. Despite the animosity between him and Regal. She was better than someone he deemed to be a traitor."
"So the gift that Terra and I got was from Cosmo?"
"It was both of us. Cosmo has always had an odd one. He favoured Terra from the start but Capitol sponsors rarely put their faith in twelve-year-olds. But with the backing of someone from a Career district, things."
"Why?" Hero questioned
"To counter Legacy and his machinations. We destroy ourselves if we do change. I thought that you understood that."
"I'm not interested in your squabbles!" Hero exclaimed
"You'll be dragged into them eventually. It may be over, but soon you'll be playing a game of a different variety. You can't just fade into oblivion." Shimmer said, before storming off
Hero wanted nothing more than to fade into oblivion. Let Shimmer and Legacy have petty battles, leave them scheming and plot against each other so that he is left alone with his sorrow. Hero knew that it was futile, but that was why it was called hope.
—
His return to District One was met with praise overlaid with the feeling that they were holding something back, that the celebrations were merely for show. He knew that the victor they truly wanted had returned in a casket. If had won how supposed to and followed the path that had been laid before him, instead of trying to forge his own things would be different. He probably would be the celebrated and beloved victor in One. It would be a continuation of the praise he had received since the beginning.
They did not love him. They loved the idea of him.
That idea had now been broken, those who idolise and look up to don't always act how you want them to.
Hero retreated into the seclusion of his residence in Victor's Village, denying any visitor. His new home was his sanctuary and his prison. It was a place where people hide from the living and are haunted by spirits of the dead.
The world outside came knocking, dragging him out for his Victory tour.
—
Cosmo had requested to talk to him alone. He was sure to berate him, blame him and call him monstrous for his actions. He probably saw the allyship with Terra as some elaborate deception that Hero spun for his amusement. Cosmo's demeanour was not what he had expected, there was no sense of overwhelming anger.
"Why have you called me here?"
"To meet you truly, away from all the theatrics."
He had come to mock him, Hero thought. The pathetic broken remnants of a Career that had been dragged out of the arena. He found himself wishing that Cosmo had come filled with anger instead.
"Sombre as the day you won," Cosmo said
"You expected me to celebrate? Come here with a demented smile painted on my face" Hero retorted
Cosmo let out a light laugh. "Most of your kind are. But I suppose you are different from most of your kin. That was clear from the Bloodbath."
Hero was perplexed by Cosmo's words. It filled him with a sense of uneasiness. Did Cosmo truly understand what he had done? That the blood of his tributes was on his hands. Cosmo seemed like he was truly off in a world of his own.
"Why do you seem so surprised?" Cosmo asked
"It's just that I didn't expect…"
"This? Few people do. I'm just a little eccentric that is all. Thought Terra would've mentioned it"
The sudden mention of Terra shocked Hero. "She says that you and we are a little odd, but meeting you in person, after everything… It just seems a bit different."
"Whatever possessed you to help out Terra, I say thank you. You may not have achieved what had indeed but did help someone in some fragment of peace in the hell that his games," Cosmo said, his demeanour tone suddenly shifted towards something more serious and genuine.
"She should be here instead of me. That is what I intended."
"They would never allow that to happen, not after Dusk."
"Why couldn't there be two Dusks?" Hero questioned
Cosmo smiled slyly "Dusks aren't meant to live. Those who emerge from the arena are those who have sacrificed pieces of their soul to do so."
"Why does it have to be this way? Survival should not come at such great cost."
"Those are dangerous ideas to speak of, Hero Sol. Very dangerous. Soon you'll mind conjuring up ones that are even more perilous." Cosmo said. It was like he was warning Hero to stray away from such ideas for the paths that might lead Hero down.
"I don't care," Hero said
"You are the most curious creature beneath all that sorrow. I was intending to deter from indulgence in such ideas. It is the most dangerous ones that often prove most enticing. Pursue them and might find something else besides anguish.
Something else besides anguish? Surely that was just wishful thinking. A futile dream. Ideas and hopes often led nowhere and amounted to nothing. There was no way out of the abyss of anguish, its walls moulded themselves around one's hand the moment you tried to grab them. Its gravity was so heavy that it pinned youtube the ground so the even slightest movement came with the most momentous effort.
That was the prison that Hero would stay and his mind was the one that deserved to languish in, sweet agonising oblivion.