Reputation (Finnick Odair)

Chapter 3

     Atlas used to love the capital. With their golden rooms and bright clothing, it was everything she had never gotten but always wanted for in the districts. For the first year, it lived up to her expectations. Every time she visited she was treated like a queen and she chose to overcome her guilty feelings and enjoyed it. The haze of loving glances and the shiny objects had infected the girl. The fog had flowed through her lungs, glazing over her eyes and blinding her to the oncoming storm of misconstrued intentions. But eventually, the place lost the halo that had surrounded it. The rose-coloured lenses had broken and she was seeing properly for the first time. The gentle touch of the capitol had become rougher. The city that used to pray to her had started praying for her instead, grasping at anything they could. Atlas used to think that the look in the citizen's eyes was one of sympathy and adoration. But after Snow's first visit, she realized it had never been that. It had been desire. The once-golden rooms became dark corners, bright clothes were stripped away and the city stood naked before her. The girl's ivory sword had been painted red and along with it, so had she. Of course, this was all a coincidence that it all happened the day she turned 16.

     As the girl stood above the city she had once ruled, she realized that all things end, especially the things we sit and wait to end. If you sit and wait for something you love to be stripped away, you'll be all the more devastated when it is. The city had become her nightmare, the devil in disguise. The city had killed her sister and in the process, had killed Atlas herself. Her body might still be here, awaiting its imminent death but Atlas had died the day she turned 16.

     But there was a boy who had started to resurrect her. To her, he was a god, capable of bringing her back to life. If the grim reaper was death, he was an angel who had found her lost soul and shepherded it back to life. Of course, before the girl could truly live, the grim reaper had come back and taken her soul again, caging it in his bony hands and deceitful city. Along with the soul of her sister.

     She had never even gotten the chance to love the boy. They only had occasional meetings but somehow, they got their secret moments when the time of year came along. To distract from the deaths of the children they had taken in as their own, they would find solace in each other. There were unspoken feelings from the girl, ones she had never even acted on. The only intention between the two was comfort. They just held each other in the dark corners of the bright city.

     For Atlas, this had shone a light into the very same dark corners where she lost pieces of herself every day. It had started to heal her, even if not being allowed to love him was weighing on her just as much. She assumed Snow knew, he had eyes everywhere. When he brought it up to her she just responded that he was a friend and Snow made it clear to her that he was not to become more than that for the sake of her ... business. Of course, the clients needed to stay happy because they had power. They had enough money to destroy her entire family and she had already lost enough. So it was a constant cycle of business and no pleasure. Her hands had quickly become quite adept at undoing buttons.

     Despite the situation, it was nice to have someone with the same scars as her. They could feel the same pain and carry the same weight. They were both healing. But the scars were insignificant in comparison to her upcoming death. Maybe he could win. She had faith in him to do it. She was going to fight until the end but something in the back of her mind kept reminding her that the god of the games would most likely kill her. He would probably kill anyone from a rebelling district and let a career win. It was his safest option.

     Finnick Odair was a lighthouse in Atlas' raging sea but the light would soon be put out, and the sea would become unrestful once again, pulling in anyone who dared try to navigate it.

     Atlas stares out at the city below her, mentally preparing for the show she was about to put on for the citizens. She had pretended to be the capitol's darling for years now, she could keep it up for a few more days.