Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
❆
TO MANY PEOPLE in the Districts, death was an escape. Death was a welcome friend, a hero, and for many, their salvation. It was a means to get out of this sick world for good, finally free from the shackles that bound them to the Capitol. It's inevitability was many people's motivation - despite the constant hardships they faced, their suffering would eventually come to an end. The chapter would close, their life would stop, and everything would be still, giving them the much needed peace they had been waiting for.
But for Cora, it is her worst nightmare.
Call it a fear of the unknown, of being sent to a place that she has no idea about, where no amount of preparation could ever help her. Or call it years worth of her mothers crippling fear influencing her, Kaina raising Cora constantly afraid that someone would be sent from the Capitol to kill them both, slaughtering them in their own home. Or maybe call it her natural instincts, the primal need as a prey in this world to survive and escape the predator at all costs. Whatever it ended up boiling down to, Cora could say that at least this fear ended up turning her into a fighter.
She would fight until her very last breath, fight for her right to remain and live in this world, however twisted or cruel it may be. Fuck, after everything she's been through, Cora very well thinks she deserves to. Yet an existence of peace and freedom seem like such a far away dream here in the Capitol.
When Cora had woken up this morning and peered out her bedroom window, the beautiful view that faced her was only a harsh reminder of what a prisoner she really was. The glittering buildings that shone like diamonds encrusted in the blue sky only served to whisper a truth that Cora tried so hard to ignore: wherever she was, whether it be in the Capitol, District 7, the Arena, or even her grave, Cora is stuck in Panem and nothing she does will ever change that.
Whether her prison cell was decorated in the riches and jewels of the Capitol or the dreary grey of her home back in District 7, Cora is stuck in this hellhole of a country, a hell which she loathes, but a hell which she sacrificed her humanity and dignity for. A sacrifice which she would be willing to make again.
Her grandfathers deal only solidified it all. His promise of favours, negotiating an alliance with the Careers and who knows what else to come, only exposed the true unfairness of the world. Because no matter how hard Cora, or even anyone else, fought, all their effort was for nothing in the face of corruption and power.
But maybe Cora is no better, because it's not like she exactly rejected her grandfathers offer either. She had spent all night tossing and turning about it, wondering if it was reallyworth to be under the protection of the Careers just so she could live long enough to make an impact on screen before one of them inevitably killed her anyways.
