Caged | The Hunger Games AU ✓

epilogue; part 1

my hands shake so violently that the words on the card are a blur to my eyes. i can barely comprehend the ink from the paper, but it doesn't matter. i hadn't planned on reading from it anyway. it was more of pleasing effie and haymitch and for show than anything; there is no way i'm going to project my voice across the open area and speak words that haven't come from my own brain. especially not here.

i can feel matthias standing beside me, his back as rigid as mine is. our hearts thump as one in pounding thuds that thrum in my ears. my head spins as it fills up with words- words that i cannot bring myself to speak. it's as if the lipgloss on my mouth is actually glue, and i'm rendered physically speechless.

the crowd before us waits in silence for one of us to say something. blank faces stare up at us- young and old, and somewhere in the space between those categories, where they are still youthful but not quite succumbed to the lines of old age. my gaze sweeps over them until it lands on asher's face.

he stares at me, face stoic and stern as i watch him with careful eyes. a well of emotions fills me and hits my brain like the force of a storm. my legs feel like lead. i shake my head, forcing the feelings away. after all, it's just a picture.

district four waits on. the card is still in my hands, imprinted with the words i'm supposed to say, but somehow it seems wrong to stand here before asher's home district and robotically speak the words effie had forced us to say in every other place we've been to so far. the words mean nothing to me and matthias. nothing effie could type up could begin to explain what we want to say to the deceased tributes' families. nothing anyone could type up would untangle the tornado-like mess in our minds.

it's only been seconds since we've stepped on stage, and yet it feels like years. asher's face still stares at me from the screen across from the stage, where it marks the end of the main square near the justice building. i still haven't brought myself to look at bliss, the fury in her brown eyes and the image of her impossibly long curtain of hair. my side pulses with pain, though i must be imagining it because the wound has faded to a harmless scar within the past six months.

i can't imagine what the family of bliss must think of me. they hate me, surely, for i was the one to plunge my knife into her stomach and turn away before i could see her fall. were they pleased when astrid had stabbed me in the same spot on the last night of the games? had they cheered when my cannon blew, when matthias' scream broke through the night? were they glad when they thought i was dead?

i let the card flutter to the floor of the stage. out of the corner of my eye, i see matthias shaking as he stares straight ahead, lips slightly parted as if he wants to speak, but can't. i wonder what he's thinking of. what flashbacks are going through his head?

"i dropped the card," i say before i realize what i'm doing, "for one reason, and one reason only. those words on it mean absolutely nothing to me, and they mean nothing to you, the people of district four. victors come here year after year and speak in front of the families of the people they killed and feel nothing. that's not the case for us." my breath comes out trembling when i pause, and i can feel something in my stomach like a string that's trying to pull me away from admitting my faults. "i killed bliss. i did. i killed her, and now i'm going to have to live the rest of my life with her face in every single one of my dreams. i will have to endure the haunting memories of what happened in that arena, and even that isn't enough punishment for what i have done.

"i couldn't save asher. i couldn't, and i'm sorry for that. his blood is also on my hands. i hope you know that i would've let him kill me that day when his clone tackled me and held the knife to my throat. i deserved it. there was nothing i could have done to save him. he, too, will never leave my head."