ODDS

ᴛʀᴀɢɪᴄ ꜰɪɴᴀʟᴇ

It was chaotic after.

How could it not have been? A revolution didn't die overnight. It took years for a semblance of peace to rule the land once more.

And yet...

It wasn't real.

That much we knew for certain. We'd never known what peace had looked like, or felt like for that matter. And everything felt more or less the same. Different horrors mixed in with what we'd always known.

What to do after your world flipped the world upside down and shook it up? There was no handbook for it.

We did what we could. We did our best.

We continued on. We held on to as many people as we were able to, as many as we were allowed. We coped with what was versus what could have been.

We survived.

But over the years, we had learned that survival was just that. There was no living, no enjoyment that came from it. It was a chore, a fragile concept that was torn into fragments when we so much as looked at it, let alone messed with it.

Where did we go from here?

It was prayed that the Capitol would be rid of.

We didn't realize one crucial aspect.

When something is overcome, and nothing takes its place, it returns ten times worse.

We'd only angered the beast.

We didn't know.

We didn't know.

If only we had known.

Would we done anything differently?

If we'd known the outcome, how much worse our lives could be, would we have taken the opportunity anyway, that hopeful sliver of a life we craved taunting us? Or would we have cowered into the shadows and let the horrors of our world reign supreme.

But perhaps that would've been better.

Because we would've been there, instead of here.

We grew up.

We'd only been hopeful children, trying to right the wrongs of our ancestors. But we had failed.

And now our children would suffer the consequences of our hope.

How stupid we were to believe in hope.

Never again.

We could never again fall for what seemed to be dazzling in our eyes, because it only fooled us in the end. It always fooled us.

***

The boy with the sea green eyes clung to me, just as I clung to him. We became each other's home, and started a family of our own. Despite our fears, we still had them.

The girl came first.

Her father cried when she was born. Our little miracle. Our little darling. She brought us happiness when we thought that there never could be, not in our predicament.

And then the boy followed.

I'd vowed the day he was born to protect him. The sweet, innocent boy, full of kindness I had never seen in anyone else, a blind kindness I'd never experienced or expected until he came along. I'd fight for him until the end of the ages.

But the girl and the boy could not escape the world forever, and I hated myself for ruining it more than it already had been. Because of me, they were subject to worse trials than I had been.

Their father told me not to be too harsh on myself.

I didn't listen.

Because I knew he hated himself just as much.

We all did, every single one of us who had the audacity to believe.

We only had one tragic question left to answer.

What happens after you lose a war?

END OF BOOK ONE