- F A L L E N -

3

My stylist was an idiot, Johannas was to. But at least she got to be a tree, I was just a sex object. I could see 99% of my skin, with the only covered parts of my body being parts everyone still looked at anyways.

Finnick didn't look any better. I mean, he looked hot, really hot, but he didn't look much like a person. I didn't look like a person.

I didn't really feel like one either.

I felt like a doll, dressed up and being played with by Capitol woman with colorful hair and Capitol men with thin rich mustaches that curled at the edges.

They didn't care if I died, not really, they just wanted to get a kick out of betting on when.

Only after they got to know me of course, a me that didn't really exist, a pretty and witty girl that didn't mind the fact that she and her boyfriend were probably about to die.

A girl who smiled and laughed at nothing as horses trodded around in an open sky she'd probably never see again.

The entirety of the parade was disgusting.

Still, I just Barbie waved and sympathetically nodded in artificial appreciation to the Capitol men shouting my name.

Finnick wrapped his hand around mine, and with one pitiful look he gave to me, I knew he knew.

Somehow, it made me feel better and worse at the same time.

I fought the urge to give a dirty look to President Snow as the horses stomped childishly in a circle around the front of the runway.

Because everything had been good, as good as it could've been in the dystopian microcosm that was Panem. It's just, it was all very good, I'd just started to be happy again.

Finnick had loved me, I'd loved Finnick, and we'd spent our days engulfed in wine, bread, and art. And each other of course.

Even with the other victors in the village, Finnick and I were pretty much alone, but we felt free nevertheless.

We thought we had escaped the life that we'd both been forced into after the games.

But with one look at the crowd around us, their never ending excitement, belying the overbearing but furtive dread and fear in my heart, I knew that I'd never really escaped. Finnick had never escaped.

We'd always been trapped.

We were caged again.

President Snow tapped lightly on his microphone ,  and it let out a loud static sigh. He smiled and nodded humbly at nobody in particular, with his hand stopped flatly in the air he licked his lips, "Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the third quarter quell of Panem, our 75th.... annual Hunger Games!"

Snows loud and malicious voice sung over the speakers, and his words rang like wistful drums in our ears.

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