the princess diaries viii ♔ diana

Dear sponsor,

There's only two of us left now. Only two—it's almost hard to believe that there were once twenty-four people in this arena. Twenty-four people all with an equal chance of success, all with an equal chance of failure. The playing field was level for a second, albeit only a second, for as soon as the countdown ended and the chaos began, everything changed.

It started with the death of Myrcella Hudson; she was the type of girl who people were more than happy to place their bets on. I think that many people forget how that moment of equality can throw anyone off their game. It gives people the opportunity to hit hard, fall harder, think fast but run faster. And of course, if a person finds themselves facing perhaps the greatest competition in the arena—they would not hesitate to make their journey home just that small bit easier.

She was the start, and I suppose that her death made me realise that this was not a nightmare or a dream, it was the real thing. That cannon sounding in my ear and ringing with me as I went to sleep, ringing as I woke up—it is completely real, utterly and truly. The Hunger Games had started to harness that dark energy within us all that I have suppressed to the best of my ability; I have kept it under lock and key, chained to the pits of my stomach because I simply know far better than to fall into the routine of being violent for the sake of violence.

And even though that is what they want from me, maybe you want it from me too—I am my own free spirit and to go against expectations, to break unwritten rules seems to be a part of that. I think that it is a case of staying true to myself and not giving myself up to fit a pushed narrative; I do not want to become a tragedy like Ronan did, I do not want to momentarily become a comedy like Ambrosia. I am Diana, my own person entirely, and when this world is the only world you get to live, I do not believe there is time to let others dictate the ending of your story.

Perhaps that is why I cherish this diary so much. Initially, I saw it something to keep me sane and I think it has done that to the best of its ability. Obviously it would be impossible to stay wholly sane in a place like this and I can feel parts of myself fragmenting with trauma, with the sights and sounds of death as fresh as it comes, but I think I am sane enough. And being sane enough is better than falling into a state of disrepair like Ambrosia; he was broken into far too many pieces to find and put back together. I think it is quite sad how that can happen to a person, it almost transforms them into an object of extreme value that is treated with no respect, complete disregard.

Now this journal has become something deeper than scribbles. It is every thought I have ever thought for the past eight days, everything I didn't want to say but wanted to write, every explanation and every justification. You probably think I am crazy for treasuring something that is made by the thousands—in the Capitol, they probably have millions of little books exactly like this, so much so that they aren't even worth pennies. But this is something more, it was sponsored to me. You believed in me and wanted to give me something, anything to show that in a big, wide world like the Capitol, someone was rooting for me. Someone was listening.

And that is priceless. An act of heart, if you will, for caring for someone by giving them the means to care for themselves is a very loving thing to do.

You know, with Ambrosia dead and the other cannon that sounded tonight, this could be the last time I write to you. I just had to pause for a moment because I don't want the moments like the one I am sat in right now to end—it's peaceful here, just me and the pen, trying to filter my thoughts through to the ink of a fountain pen. I do not want to think about how it really is only life or death from here on out because it is still rather scary. And I don't know who is going to be on the other side of that battlefield tomorrow, which is scary too, but one thing is for sure: I do not want to die.

I'm sure you can see it through the screen. I have done things I did not want to do for the sake of my cause; I have killed in the name of love. To think about how that could all be washed away so simply makes me feel cold, as if everything I did was not worth anything at all, because Seven will have another body to visit at the graveyard and nothing will change. Everything will stay the same: grey and dull, sad, no sense of peace and no love in the air. Tongues will still be tied because everyone will still be scared to speak their mind—I don't want to think about Seven unless it is under the best circumstances.

I know what the best circumstances are, it's easy when there are only two left. I am not going to expect because expectations can get a person inside their head. I am not going to hope either, because this arena has shown that a glint of hope in someone's eye can be so easily snatched by darkness. Silently, I will pray to whatever is in the world, I will fall back on love and pray that it is there to catch me.

Safe in the knowledge that the love I have put into the world will come around, safe in myself and in my heart.

Reflecting upon a time that has been so bad and good at the same time is awfully strange. Of all the people and lessons I have learned: my father, Angel, Lex, Mackenzie, Zion, the air, Berlin, the sunflowers, Jessica, Hisidro, Francisco, Ronan, Ambrosia, being a killer clown and a killer queen—nothing has taught me more about life, and death, than love.

I just spent... who knows how long trying to think of a way to close this in a way that has a nice ending. I suppose you will know how long if they are showing this on the screen, though, I do not think watching me sit here and stare blankly onto a page is sufficient entertainment for Capitol folk.

But then I realised, this is my story—and I am not making it a tragedy.

I shall leave this an open book with no real ending, for it is quite similar to how I imagine love, and it is quite similar to how I imagine myself.