XIV. This Was My Choice

Now was not the time to be having doubts. To wonder if the right choice had been made, to wonder if there had ever been a choice at all. For whatever regret Vali did have they meant nothing now, choices cannot be unmade.

Vali gazed out of the window. As the train engine powered up, his eyes remained fixed out at the window and not at Atlanta who sat across from him. Vali thought that was sure that she was wondering why he was so focused on a place they saw every day. Why focus on distractions when the Games had already begun? But Vali would savour this view of Four as though it were his last - something that it could very well be.

Vali wondered if he had never chosen to join Golden Shore, to leave his first home to try and make one in that strange and sinister place. He would not be here. Free carry-on untouched by the Games. Free to watch his family suffer through bitter winter after bitter winter - that's if he had survived them. That was a burden he could have borne, so he made the only choice he could make - made a deal with the devil that visited his hometown each winter and bask in its infernal warmth.

When he had first set foot in Golden Shore, he did not intend to volunteer, just by entering the academy his family back home was guaranteed to have enough to get by. Golden's Shore's domain was not his home but a cage that he must endure.

But then came greater promises, a further reward for becoming a volunteer. It had been brought up at The Winter Reaping, but then it seemed like an unachievable goal, one that Vali could not reach even if he had the desire. Golden Shore had shown that it was possible and unlocked the desire that was buried deep within. Was having enough really enough? A life lived just beyond the edge of survival was no real life at all.

For a second time, Vali made the only choice he could make to dedicate himself to training so that he could become the chosen volunteer.

Through years of dedicated training, Golden Shore became his second home. One that would ultimately have to say farewell to as he had his first

As the years passed until turned eighteen and it was but a month before his final Reaping, the choice had made paid off.

For a third time, Vali made the only choice that he could make.

Was it right to even have made that choice? Perhaps the best choice was not not choose at all? Indecision was a weakness as was his regret. There was no point in dwelling on what could have been for it could never be, better or worse. For worse - Vali repeated to himself. For worse, for worse, for worse.

Vali Isur had chosen his path and he would follow it through to the end, no matter where it may lead.