Shark Plushy (Enobaria X F.OC)

-Victor-

One tree, two trees, no tree, three trees.

That was all Bera was thinking about each time one passed in front of the train window.

Silence filled the room as she sat on the couch and looked out that window.

She doesn't know how she survived as the Capitol doesn't either. She was told it had sliced into her temporal lobe, which was a part of her brain as she learned.

No tree, two trees.

Well, she had already suffered from it, though, feeling more clumsy, like she easily forgot things, like she struggled with reading, like she confused someone for Cecelia when they didn't look alike next to each other.

They had effectively scrambled her brain like an egg and she needed to live with it and work out something around it.

Four trees, no tree, one tree.

The eyepatch that covered up the remaining scar and socket felt worse than the injury itself; she just wanted to scratch her face open and tear off the skin there, which did nothing but remind her of that.

The victory tours were always six months after the game so that every six months, people were reminded of the games that took place earlier in the year... She didn't look forward to it.

And she'd need to live with both the missing eye and the coming tour, not knowing which consequence she'd accept if she could get rid of the other one.

The mentors, Cecelia mostly, did try to speak to her, but she dismissed them, wanting to see no one.

Her head rested against the window with her eyes closed, a hand under her chin, resting on the back of it.

She couldn't forget.

She couldn't forget them at all.

She wanted to...

But they all stayed with her.

She wanted to curse out Valerius. He was the cause of her survival, yet she could find no ill will in her body when she thought of the man.

She wondered about how much pain he had felt. She wonders how her mother felt.

She stood, walking away and out of the wagon.

Bera found a peacekeeper; despite no other tributes on the train anymore, she still couldn't get into those carts. She didn't care; she just requested something.

After that, she headed to her room.

Her limbs felt heavy.

Valerius had seen his daughter die in there, and Bera felt like she had been killed in there.

Was there truly a time she rolled her eyes at the terrified tributes? Was there really a moment when she scoffed at their ally choices? Was there just a moment she truly felt sorry for them?

She hates it. She hates it so much.

She locked the door behind her and walked to the TV, a finger through the CD's hole before dropping it on the tray that came out of the old machine pushing it in.

She has her roots in 2, and she never hated that idea more than she did at this moment.

She clicked start and looked on, bile rising in her throat but swallowing, disgusted by the words appearing on the screen.

'51st Hunger Games.'

These bastards published reruns of the games, but still, she clicked start once again after selecting District 8 and sat back.

She watched with a blank face, the side of the screen wavering a bit and darker than the rest, but she didn't care as the reaping was happening.

She could feel herself back on that day. Did Cecelia or Woof feel the same thing at each reaping?

"--is Andrea Helfir."

She sighed, watching the camera zoom in on a shocked girl.

Bera had her father's eyes... Those terrified eyes on the screen were so blue like someone had taken the sky and put them in her eyes.

She tilted her head to the side, watching her walk on the stage, already shaking in fear. She had gone in there older than Bera herself had... She wished she was older, to have lived more without the consequences of the games.

And she sat there, deep into the night, watching the excruciating details the CD provided. It was the only way to get to know her mother.

And now, of any time, she really needed her here.

-----------------------------------

Getting out of the train was surreal.

Cecelia and Woof showed her to the victors village, it felt like a cold tomb.

Instead of waiting for them to find Valerius and bring him here like they said, Bera walked out and away.

People whispered and muttered, stepping out of her way as she just stared ahead, hands in her pockets.

In the mayor's office she got what she wanted from him right away, that's the perk of being a victor, she can do anything she wants... But she doesn't want too.

She walk through dusty streets and she might have walked off near midday, she didn't arrive at her destination before the sun was setting.

Bera didn't care for the ache in her legs, she didn't as she lifted her hand and rasped her fingers in a weak knock on the door.

All felt heavy.

So heavy.

She heard noise behind the door before a tall and surprisingly muscular man opened the door, his bear and eyebrows thick, even slightly curly, but she could see James' in him.

They just stared at each other, neither having the correct words in this moment.

Slowly but surely all strength left his body, slowly sinking down onto his knees, grabbing his face in his hands.

A tear escaped Bera's eye as the man in front of her started crying into his hands, it was almost as if he has believed James had survived until he saw her there.

She looked up, only seeing a staircase but hearing anguished scream from the  floor above now that the door was open and she could hear it, she couldn't see up there but whoever was there could probably see her or the man and understood that it was true, that James' death was not trickery.

She wanted to apologize.

She wanted to beg for forgiveness.

She wanted to take all their pain.

She wanted to tell them how much he was missed.

She wanted to let them know how guilty she felt.

But all her body could do was stand there motionless.

And then turn away.

Walk away from the family she just hurt all over.

"I'm sorry." She thought, too weak to utter it out loud.