a glass half full } justice one-shot

[brad bradford ★ d5b [arx]]

JUSTICE

F R A Y

Half. Fifty percent. Two out of four chances. "The odds sure are in District One's favor," they said. I said. I thought. The fights started and still I thought... What's a stupid man like me doing using his brain? Thinking. Wondering, wishing, hoping. Boasting, bragging. Thinking. I can't believe I let myself think either of them was coming home. I can't believe they're--

"What's it like?" they ask.

To lose? It sucks, but I'm used to it. To see death? It sucks, but I'm used to it. To be helpless? It sucks, but I'm used to it. To have a chunk of my humanity disappear? It sucks, but I'm used to it. To attend a funeral? It sucks, but I'm used it. To have a chance to apologize ripped away from me? It sucks, but I'm used to it. To lose the hope of becoming a better person?

"To see another one of your sisters killed by a Mortuus girl?"

His eyes are bulging from his skull. Just offstage I see fans in tears because Asha Lumiere and Pillar Fray, the chosen favorites of the 74th Hunger Games, are dead. I try to summon some form of sadness, try to force my throat to close, my heart to stop, my eyes to gloss over with tears, but all I can feel is a monster swallowing what's left of my heart.

My voice comes out low: "What's it like?"

---

What's it like?

I pick up the axe and whip it over my shoulder, letting it soar end over end into the skull of a mannequin across the room. It lands squarely, the blade digging deep into the artificial flesh. I spin, rip another axe from the rack and bury it into the shoulder of the dummy behind me.

I've never liked fighting. I told Scout as much as I chopped her apart into tiny pieces. So maybe it seemed like a lie when I won. How could a boy who hates fighting win the Hunger Games? But it's the truth. I hate fighting. I hate swinging axes, throwing knives, shooting arrows, dodging fists, breaking bones, spilling blood. Everything about the art of battle makes me want to vomit. But--

I rip the axe from the dummy and plunge it into it's skull with as much force as I can muster. The fake skull nearly splits in half. Half. I rip the blade free again and swing so that the pieces of the head fall away from the body. The two pieces clatter against the ground, but--

I scream because it's not working. I scream until my lungs give out and force me to take a breath. And then I stay silent, breathing heavily and swinging my axe wildly until the dummy is nothing more than a pile of broken limbs and scattered pieces. The more I swing the more my muscles grow heavy with exhaustion. And when I can't raise the axe from the floor again, I simply let it carry me down.

I fall to my knees, toss the axe angrily aside, scream, "FUCK!" Because she's still dead and I... well, I'm still a monster.


('What's it like?')

    ('I dare her to come home.')

('I'm gonna make that bitch wish she'd died!')

I'm the worst kind of man. They've all told me, they all said so. I begged and pleaded, 'Please, no, I can change, I want to change, I want to be something else, someone else.' I tried to make amends. With them, with myself. I wrote letters, I let it all out, but all of that means nothing now. Because the new me was being built around the certainty that Pillar would come home with the crown.

Now she wears a crown of blood. Just as I saw her on reaping day as she walked towards me-- she's a ghost with a halo of blood. Dead. She's dead.

And the good man I always wanted to be?

He died with her.

She was the beginning of a new me. Now? Now I'm a the same old boy. I'm angry, hateful, spiteful. I spit venom and breathe fire and I wish death upon people I do not even know. Hyacinth Mortuus, Ansgar Todd—I'd love to see them rot in hell. I don't cry for my dead sister. Because I didn't know her. Because I always hated her.

The good man inside would've cried for her. The piece of my heart with feelings and kindness and compassion would've forgiven, would've understood, would've loved not hated. If I was a good man, I would miss my sister and honor her memory. Instead I mourn selfishly for myself and the man I could've been.

Half of me is gone.

I laugh, cynically. Press my head harder into the ground until my head stops pulsing.

But I suppose that means I still have half a chance to become a whole man, doesn't it?

("The odds sure are in your favor.")

Yeah. Some bullshit that is.