Characters courtesy of the amazing Suzanne Collins.I do not own The Hunger Games!!
A/N
First time I've written any story surrounding the Hunger Games trilogy. ANY constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Please read and enjoy. Think this will have 2/3 parts and then I'll make another Altenate Scenario from another crucial moment in the Trilogy.
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“Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed,” he says. “Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.”
The voice booms and sends vibrations through me. Peeta's tourniquet has been undone and his leg is seeping with blood. I've already loaded my bow, and its aimed straight at it's heart before I realise.
He starts off on a spiel about how "they have to have a victor" and they never really intended both of us to be victorious. I don't have to kill him. I certainly don't want to kill him either. Do I? Prim's fragile voice repeats itself like a Mockingjay in my brain, and it almost begs me to come home. How can I come home when I have to kill someone who saved me all those years ago? Someone who I will owe for all eternity?
But I promised Prim. My death would send my mother into another relapse, and Gale wouldn't be there to support her forever. He has 6 other members of his own family to sustain. I need to be there for her. She has no one else if I'm not there.
I look into his ocean-blue eyes, shining like a sapphire even through the dirt and caked blood and scars that paint themselves upon his face.
They appear glassy with tears and washed with understanding for what I'm about to do. There's sombreity blanketed behind the tears, also.
I pull back the arrow, and look straight into his eyes, and whisper a "I'm so sorry" quickly under my unreliable voice. A fraction of a second before i let my arrow sink itself into his chest he looks at me with tenderness and he proclaims "I love you, I always did. And I always will".
He falls and there's no sound except the genetically modified woodland around me and the unsteady beat of my heart. "BOOM"! Sounds the cannon shocking me out of my...shock.
The hovercraft flies down to me, and all I can think about it what I'd done. I'd killed him,killed the boy with the bread. The other half of the star-crossed lovers. The person I know I'll never really stop owing.
He'd vowed to want to die being himself. And I'd taken that away from him, even in death. I'd used him like a chess piece, a pawn so the Capitol could morph him into what they thought appropriate to him. Just another child lost as a victim the the Games.
I collapse onto the floor of the hovercraft as soon as it's armless grip on me loosens. I'm shaking like a leaf and am hyperventilating. I put it down to the coldness of the white-tiled room I'm lying in. My hairs stand on end. My skin feels and sticky with shame and disgust at my blood-lust.
I only know that they'll never truly accept me back home when I return, like with all the other victors, welcomed with acceptance and admiration, but there's loathing and fearing simmering under the surface. I'll have to walk past his family in my day-to-day life, knowing the hate they have for me, even though I can finally afford what they sell, not just stare and gaze from behind the window.
I'm a monster. A killer. A mutt they've created to suit their purpose. I should be the one lying motionless by the man-made river.
I feel a sharp searing burning sensation inside my left elbow. I realise i'm still clutching onto the bloodied shirtsleeve I'd given Peeta only minutes ago; when I'd been trying to prolong his life, and not make him a victim under my hand. The drugs seep into my system as I begin to lose consciousness, being sucked into the harsh world of mutt-induced nightmares that would wait for me, relentless, every night until I died.
