supersedure { maya }

[k!ah]

Had it already been a year?

So much had changed in one year. When I looked in the mirror I no longer recognised who I was. I think my parents would be ashamed of me. Of the girl I had become. The Capitols weapon. Where my parents had turned their weapons on the Capitol, I had turned my weapon onto the victims, for the Capitol. I and screamed and spat and cursed the Capitol with each strike. Each murder... But that didn't change the fact that I had betrayed what they believed in because I was weak. I had still killed for me, for them.

I had gone into my games truely believing that the Capitol hadn't broken me like they had promised. But they had. They had taken everything away from me and yet I still fought for them. I was weak.

I hadn't slept much last night, my dreams filled with nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes I felt like I was back in that cold damp cell, Pork Chops unhinged laughter echoing on an endless loop. It bounced around my skull, the pounding turning into physical pain in the form of a headache. And when I had finally escaped his ghost the ghost of Ruth, of Chant and Pascal and the blonde kid, refused to allow me a moments of rest. They stared at me with their lifeless accusing eyes. The spot over Ruth's heart was dark and bloody. Chants neck was torn open, his shirt saturated his blood. And Pascals neck was ringed with hand prints. My hand prints.

Each day I tried to convince myself that I was okay. That this was okay. That their deaths, their murders, didn't bother me because I had survived. Because their death brought me my life, my artificial freedom.

But...

But was it worth losing who I was?

I stand in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. The scars that looped around my wrists were bright in the morning light. My eyes travel along the rest of my body, taking in each scar I had collected, many still bright red as my body worked to heal the scar tissue. I did what I had to do, I would not apologise for it, I remind myself, clenching my fists into tight balls. Not now. I had survived. I was free.

Swallowing hard I turn away from my reflection, pulling on the clothes that Poppy had insisted I would wear the day of the reaping last time she was here. It was time
for my reign to end, and anothers to begin.