Ceasar & the Games - Hunger Games Fan Fic

11. Ceremony

Didn't expect him to live? Haha. Well, surprise surprise! I'm sorry I had to kill of Leia, but the ONLY games in which both victors were crowned is, as you know, the 74th Hunger Games. Sooo, I didn't want to kind of... change the wonderful work of Suzanne Collins and defy the Capitol, so only one could win. Comment, fan and vote!! You know where they are!

"Congratulations, dear!" Genie embraces me once I'm safely inside the hovercraft. "I knew you could do it!" 

"Well done." Dexter mutters. He's probably slightly annoyed that I won by default. Probably wanted Leia to win, and I don't blame him.

"Out of the way!" Capitol doctors shove their way through the doors and push Genie and Dexter to the side. "How do you feel, dear?" One of them asks, wielding a huge needle. I gulp.

"Fine. I'm sure I don't need that."

"Oh, this is nothing. You've been out in the wilderness for days, dear, you're not quite well enough to embrace the Capitol crowd yet. This is a sedative, so it'll help you sleep and recover.

"Uhm..." I glance at her with a sick smile. "Do I have to have the needle? Isn't there such a thing as pills?" She laughs, then shakes her head and plunges the needle into my arm. It doesn't really hurt that much, mainly because my mind is back on Leia.

"Have they taken her out of the arena yet?" I ask, startling the doctor that's brushing my hair.

"Who, dear?" She asks, not pausing in her brushing, ripping the tangles out of my hair.

"Leia. District 2." I say, wincing as she tugs again.

"I don't know, dear. I'm just a doctor. I hardly know what I'm doing here." She gives my shoulder a friendly punch and laughs. "I'm just kidding, dear, of course I know what I'm doing."

*****

"Please welcome the victor for the 49th Hunger Games - Ceasar Flickerman!" The Capitol crowd goes crazy. Cornelius bustles over to me, slapping my back and beaming.

"Well, how do you do, sir?!" He pushes me towards the victor's chair. "Folks, we have a full show just for you tonight! First, we'll go through the footage of the games. And then we'll get to talk to our own victor before he's whisked back to district 2. We'll miss him, won't we folks?" The crowd roars its approval and Cornelius flicks the remote. 

There's a lump in my throat as we watch the games, consisting mostly of the gruesome deaths. The careers are a deadly pack, hunting down and brutally killing most of the tributes who died in the first day, and then surprise surprise, it follows my journey to the cornucopia, and then when I'm attacked the camera angles around to show my shocked face, and then Leia jumps out and heroically saves me. It  doesn't cut off our conversation on the cave, even though the Hunger Games isn't known for its quiet moments. Then I finally get to see what the flying skunks were caused by. The careers were exploring a cave in the forest when they upset the nest and the animals turned on them. They run past our tree, and I watch Leia and I jump to the ground. Then I turn my head and get the acid in my face while Leia drags us both on. We're at the lake when she's almost killed. The camera seems to linger on the girl's dead body that I almost killed, before it moves off to follow the death of Ken, and then Genus' escape. He runs into the forest, where he broods for a few days until we come hunting him. Then the cameras basically play every moment, from Genus' firery words to me, and Leia's 2 failed attempts at killing him. I shudder when he throws her against the tree. I hit the ground and then crawl over to her, and the branch cuts off about 1 millisecond of our kiss, before the camera angles around the other way and pokes its greedy face in our faces.

"So Ceasar." Cornelius turns to me. My mind hears his question, but the memory of Leia and the games, and all I've been through seems to daze me through his barrage of questions. "Did you ever think you could win?" He repeats.

"No, never."

"Why?"

I give a funny, strangled sort of laugh. "I was more into fashion than killing people."

It's the audience's turn to laugh with me for once, instead of against me.

"Your friend Leia - how did you still like her when she treated you like that?" Her persists.

"I..." I swallow the tears. "She was beautiful."

"She was a beautiful young lady. So young. Unfortunate that she had to go that way. Still, pity really, but you had to be the victor, didn't you?"

His next saying sparks something in me - strikes a chord. It's like his saying - I wanted her gone.

He immediately notices this and then smirks and pushes the topic further. "Well, I meant - of course you wanted her gone, right? She was... your enemy. The snobbish, stuck up teenager that hated you. You wanted to win the hunger games, right?"

"I didn't want her gone!" I say, controlling my voice. "I would have rather died. You heard me - at the end it... I would have taken my own life to see her win."

"Of course, an act for the cameras." Cornelius smirks. This has gone far enough. Cornelius Census has taken one step further than he should have. I jump up out of my chair and fly at him, gripping him hard. 

Before the peacekeepers can even react, I've shoved him to the floor. I'm not strong normally, but anger pluses through me.

"I DID NOT WANT HER GONE!" I say, tears of anger streaming from my eyes. "I... I loved her. She was the only thing that I had in this world, apart from my mother."

"Help!" Cornelius squeaks.

"I'm SO sick of your prying ways your... pretend sympathy. It's fake. FAKE!" I shake him, anger overriding sense. "I hate you! Why can't you be nice to the tribute instead of berating them and... making them feel ashamed." The Peacekeeprs are dragging me off him.

"Can't you at least understand what it's like for us to..." I dissolve into tears, not even caring that I'm probably going to die in like, 3 seconds once President Snow hears. But this is for every tribute that has ever faced Cornelius, trembling in their boots.

"Cornelius... you're nothing but a fake pretender and a hypocrite! And..." The Peacekeeper slams his hand over my throat, cutting off my next insult. I let them transport me out.

Until they shove me into the cell, I don't shed another tear. And then, inside, I sink to the ground and sob. For the injustice of everything. The tributes.

It's inexplainable, the feeling I have right now. It's anger, surely, but absolute desolation. One doesn't simply go into the Hunger Games and come out unchanged.