Velvet Tek, District Six female
I ran from what hunted me. Even the first part of the Games hadn't prepared me for this. I'd come to know hunger and violence. I'd still have no idea the Games could turn someone into something worse than a murderer.
It was still so vivid in my head how it had happened. Bambi had been shy ever since I met him but as the Games went on he spoke less and less and seemed to fade into himself. His face went quiet and it was like he was just somewhere else. I didn't know then that he wasn't withdrawing. He was disappearing. The Capitol was bleeding him away and filling something else into its place.
The girl crashed through the grass almost on top of us. When she saw us her eyes went wide. I held out my arm to greet her but she'd already whirled around and was disappearing back into the stalks. I was knocked sideways as Bambi bowled after her. I was just about to call after him in confusion when I heard the sounds of a struggle. When I found them the girl was already almost dead. Bambi was holding the bleeding knife.
I hadn't known what to say. He'd said she would have come back for us, that she was going to try to kill us. Even worse than him not believing it, it seemed like he did. His mind was gone and he'd become some paranoid and violent echo of himself. I spent the first night trying to reach him and the second night glancing over my shoulder making sure he hadn't followed me. I never wanted to see Bambi Kirkland again. The Capitol had killed him.
Strange noises came from behind me. They came from a human but weren't human. When I last saw Bambi he'd had the look of a predator about him. I didn't want to know what he looked like now. For four days we'd been the final two. I didn't know how any of them happened. Since the Bloodbath I'd only been with Bambi. The last two weeks of the Games I'd spent hiding from him. I didn't know where all the cannons came from but I knew some of them were him.
"Velvet!"
It was worse than him not being able to talk. Bambi and I hadn't had much time to know each other but we'd already done so much, trying to make up for lost time. Beside me in bed Bambi had whispered my name like it was the most beautiful word on Earth. I hated the monster behind me for perverting it.
I didn't recognize him when I saw him. Nothing in Bambi's appearance had changed but he was so much more than his face. It was his posture that gave him away, and the bloodstains on his shirt, and the emptiness in his eyes. Bambi had talked about having a "dark side". He'd always been so ashamed of it and tried to shove it far down inside himself. I didn't believe it ever would have gotten anywhere near this point if it hadn't been for the Games. Bambi would have lived the good and gentle life he chose for himself, no matter what nature put in him. But all the dark side he'd been afraid of, all the things he'd been running from… I was seeing every one of them come to life.
I flew backwards into the grass as Bambi kicked me off him when I tried to scramble out from under him and run. I sat up, some tragic part of me still hoping I'd see recognition on his face. When I saw nothing but rage I reached to my side and snapped off a jagged stalk of grass. I jumped forward to kill what should have been killed weeks ago.