"The fallen angel" and "the devil in disguise"
Two names Ares Aristo was known for, a boy who had more to him than originally met the eye. Charming the capital with his kind facade, it was only in the games did they realized just how far an angel ca...
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲.
( ghost town)
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
The train ride home was nothing like the one that had taken Ares to the Capitol. Gone were the riches and the lavish feasts, the endless array of decadent treats meant to fatten them up for the elites, who devoured them not with mouths but with ravenous eyes and tasteless wagers.
Now, the train felt dead. The opulence was still there, of course, ingrained into the very metal and air, but it felt hollow, stripped of meaning. There were no hopeful children to be jealous of a false future dangling at the tips of their fingers anymore—just Victor, sitting quietly alone.
A Victor who didn't care about being impressed anymore.
Nothing good came from winning. It was high time Ares realized that. The luxury surrounding him was only a smokescreen. His victory was just another one for the books, eventually forgotten by the fresher-inked names that were soon to come.
But some small, stupid part of him still clung to the idea that maybe there'd be something waiting for him—a light at the end of the dark tunnel, whatever that might be. He could imagine President Snow's head on a silver platter all he wanted, and make that the end goal, but he needed something to tide him over until then.
He'd won. He said he'd win, and now he'd done it. There had to be more to this fate. He couldn't have done all that for nothing. He couldn't have played along like some pawn, and killed all those people, and sold his soul in front of the entirety of Panem, and ruined himself for the people watching back home to see, like his—
Ah, yes. His family.
They were supposed to be the light, the reason for it all. He did this all for them. For his father. For his grandmother.
How could he forget?
And he did this for himself, too. He didn't want to die, did he? That much was true, wasn't it? He just needed to remind himself. This prophecy wasn't something someone gave him—it was his. He'd written it long before anyone decided to see him as something golden. He'dwanted it from the moment he first stepped onto that train, shoulders back, ambitions aimed high. And now, he was going to live it, all the way to the end, wherever that might take him.
Besides, the hardest part was over now, right?
Well, soon. It would be over soon.
Ares for some reason thought that the Victory Tour would start right away, that they'd whisk him off to distract him with more shiny things and cameras. But he was told that it didn't. Not for a couple of months, apparently. They needed time to build suspense, to get the districts salivating over the Capitol's new showpiece. And while they looked forward to having a glimpse of him, for Ares it was a cruel delay. It meant more time to sit in silence, staring at the void and trying not to fall into it.
