66th Hunger Games Victor Presentation Ceremony

"Colgate," my stylist says, her tone stern.

I don't lift up my head, pretending I didn't hear, but given that she's standing right next to me and her voice is shrill and obnoxious, my obliviousness probably isn't fooling anyone.

"COLGATE," she snaps, grabbing my chin to force my attention. "Are you listening to me?"

Being my stylist, one would think that Lepitera would be more fond of me, but even my victory hasn't made her like me any more than before. I remember, on that first day - the day we all went into the Arena - she turned to me and said, "I never expected that twelve," looking as if I were already a corpse, gross and rotting. I suppose she's seen the worst of me, after all; it was her job to scrub my skin and style my hair and make me look presentable for the Capitol's eyes, and I bet she'd never seen anyone who needed so much work in all her life. Hell, she took one look at the dirt under my nails and cringed like she'd just been punched in the gut.

Now, it's no different. She moves around me like I'm an idiot child who doesn't know right from left, unphased by the murders I committed, more demanding than ever. Then again, I suppose I brought this on myself; ever since they took me out of the Arena (screaming and running till the last) I've been all but unresponsive to everyone in the Capitol, my stylist included. Every time I look at them, all I can think is, you're the reason I'm here, you're the reason I've killed, you're the reason I was forced to do this, and every time Lepitera fixes my hair or covers a blemish on my face with a small dab of makeup, I shy away from her touch like I've been burned.

When she grabs my chin and claims my attention, I thrust my face away from her palm, jaw clenched.

Lepitera looks at me with a roll of the eyes. "You're being difficult. Sit still," she says, fidgeting with a piece of hair behind my ear. "I can't do my work if you hold your head down like that. What's that line you say.. 'chin up'? Well, look up so I can check your hair."

Huffing slightly, I do as she says and glance at the outfit I'll be wearing for the ceremony, hanging in plastic on the opposite wall. It's probably the nicest, sleekest thing I'll ever wear, even nicer than the outfit I was given for my personal interview, the night before the start of the Games. It's a neat, sophisticated suit, and each part of it is a deep black color, even the shirt below the jacket. When my stylist is done messing with the finer details of my hair, I'm told to get up and try it on.

It takes me a minute or so to figure out how to adjust everything, but when I finish I shift my gaze to my image in the mirror, and I'm struck by how polished the suit looks, perfectly fitted in all the right places like none of my clothes at home ever were. What's more, the color is so dark that it makes me look .. so powerful, so impressive.. but also, in a way, like I am about to attend a very important funeral. I'm left to wonder why my stylist and her team of makeup minions have picked this out for me, so I ask her when she re-enters the room.

"Well, just look at yourself," she says, gesturing toward the mirror.

When I look again, I don't find any new or interesting answers in my reflection, except that I look like a pompous Capitolite with my hair sticking straight up. "What is it?" I ask, turning back around.

"You don't see it, really?" she asks, surprised.

"No," I pause, and then I make up my mind to be more forceful. "Tell me."

She sighs, as if it's something she didn't want to explain.

"You don't look like the victor they wanted," she says quietly, and my eyes widen. "People prefer victors who are strong, smart, well spoken - dangerous, of course, always dangerous - but you.. " she trails off.

"Oh," I say, lowering my head. "Yeah."

"That's what I'm here for," she says quickly, nodding like she has all the answers. Her voice is almost soft now, but that doesn't mean I like hearing it. "If nothing else, you look like a victor. Now go act like one," she urges, waving me towards my platform. Even now, I can hear the buzz of the crowd above, excited to see their new victor despite whatever charisma my stylist says I lack. When the glass barrier surrounds me and the plate begins to rise, I don't feel ready for what's above, don't feel strong enough or empty enough to face the images again. Although I've spent the last three days being healed, the time away from the Arena hasn't made me numb to the memories, and I'm afraid that one glimpse of that godawful place will make me look like a child again, blubbering on stage for the whole of Panem to see.

"And now, may I present the victor of the 66th Hunger Games… Colgate O'Leary!"

As I rise up into the light of day, my heart seizes with the memory of how it felt to be moments away from the start of the Games, being lifted up by the platform and into a mystery. When I stood there, waiting for the clock to tick down to the start, there were two possibilities available:

I will die today, or I will not.

What never occurred to me was that there were other complexities beyond the black-and-white world of survival: there was good and evil, murder and innocence, attack or be attacked.

In reality, nobody makes it out of the Games with their hands clean, and if they do, it's in a wooden box.

Standing in the heart of the Capitol, my heart begins to pound as I'm greeted by thousands of smiling faces. They cheer and laugh as they interpret my look as an expression of bewilderment (which isn't quite right, because I'm terrified, above all) so I run with it and try to smile, but fear lingers behind my expression as I move to my assigned seat.

When the recap video begins, the first clip is a long shot of me standing on my platform, and I'm forced to take note of each and every detail.

That's the only time my uniform was ever truly clean, though there were a few wrinkles near the waist where the cloth crumpled when I sat down. My hair was neatly trimmed and cut, pulled out of my eyes so I wouldn't have problems seeing. And there I stood, chin up, blowing bubbles into the air as the numbers counted down with a fake, metallic ring. 46, 45, 44...

As I glance upon my face, I remember how I wanted to feel that day; I wanted to be mindless, nothing, just an object moving from place to place. Not dead, but not quite alive either - just there enough to breath and wield a blade, but gone from all the troubles and agonies that were sure to face me.

Today, I wish I could be mindless still. Looking at my face on the giant screen, I don't see a mirror image as much as I do a ghost from the past, dead and gone and changed forever. On that first day, I wasn't ready to kill, but now I've been through that hell and I've done what I needed to do, and my reflection in the bathroom mirror - the way my face looks before my stylist paints over the rough spots - is covered in scars, though the dried blood has been chipped away and the worst of the wounds have been dealt with.

When I look at the video, I want so badly to move my eyes away, but I know it won't be allowed. The president of Panem wants me to suffer as I relive what I've done, so I keep my gaze glued to the screen, but I try to shift my attention elsewhere, try to think of home and warm food and hugging my family and curling up in a warm bed where absolutely nothing can hurt me.

...

The first person I killed in the Arena was a boy, stabbed in the stomach with the sword I picked up on the outer edge of the Bloodbath. I didn't even stop to look at him.

The second was a girl named Hannah, cut open with the deadly sharp edge of my first throwing axe.

(She has the same name as my youngest sister, but I don't think of that, not at all; I just drift away from my thoughts and let the recap video play on.)

On the second day, we fought desperately against the flying mutts (the announcer calls them Appa, now) and it was then that I could see the hope fading from Claude's eyes, and I gave him the only piece of advice I ever took to heart:

"Chin up, Claude. You're not gonna get anything useful done, looking like you've already died."

I didn't know him for too long, but I wish he could be here with me, alive and well. Troubled as he was, he wasn't a bad guy, and his presence beside me in the Arena was comforting.

I wish I could have done better by him, wish I could spend another day talking with him about everything. He would know what all of this felt like.

On the third day, our alliance lost some toes, but we were more or less okay. I'm missing two now, and there's nothing the fancy Capitol doctors can do for me except apologize, 'cause the mutts took whatever toes they could and gobbled them up.

The fourth day was when things started to get bad. Sav lost her arm - it's sickening to rewatch the moment it happened, and I can't stand the agonized expression on her face. All I wanna do now is heal her up and tell her no, no, it'll be fine, but I realize after a moment that this isn't real, she's gone now, and there's nothing I can do to make anything better for anyone.

That fight went on for ages.

“You walk around like you're just a bowl of sunshine, don't ya? You act like you're an angel or some shit but you ain't! You're a monster, Soap. A fuckin' monster! But I guess I am too, huh?”

My District partner said that. Magenta.

“You don't get to decide what or who I am! I'm fighting here, just like you! You know why I have to do this, why I have to fight. I told you. I told you."

Now I know that it doesn't matter what I say or do: if the world is gonna judge me for what I've done, they will, and I'll never have a say in deciding who I am. Even though it was Lyric who finally cut my District partner down, I was the one they all hated.

“No Soap, you’re not a monster. You are much worse. Even Lucifer is scared of you.”

...

On the fifth day, an Appa tore into the flesh of my arm, and I didn't see it then, but now the camera pans over Savannah's expression of complete horror.

“Soap – you're okay,” she said to me.

"Hell yeah, I am."

(Which was never true, not ever, but now I'm alive and that's as okay as I'm ever gonna be.)

I was even less okay on the sixth day, when Savannah was cut down by the boy with the blonde hair.

In the video, I'm breaking.

I'm broken.

I'm gone.

I fight and fight until her attackers turn and run, but that wasn't enough to save her.

On the screen, I'm running to her, pulling her into my arms.

"Hey there, Bubble Boy," she says, touching a hand to my jaw.

She knows. I can see it in her eyes. She knows it's over.

Savannah Carey was the most badass girl I've ever had the privilege to know. I remember that night in the dining hall, right in the heart of the training center, when we were out of our beds because we couldn't sleep, getting drunk and dancing on the tables and chairs, singing some stupid song and acting like fools just days before we were meant to fight in the Arena.

"You're amazing," she tells me. "You're bloody amazing, okay? No matter what you think or what anyone else has ever said, you're a handsome, caring, incredible person. I was lucky to have known you, Bubble Boy.”

On the screen, I'm crying like a baby.

I'm gone.

I'm so gone.

I'm so far past gone I'll never be able to make it back to normal again. Never ever.

...

On the seventh day, another ally dies in my arms, but this time it's my fault.

I tell Lyric that I have to kill her. I tell her, “I don't hate you. I just don't have the privilege of feeling sorry." And look at me now, with all the privilege in the world.

She told me that she loved me, but I don't think that's true. I think she knew that I had never truly felt loved before - not by anyone outside of my family, at least - and she meant to use it against me, meant to wield those words like a weapon to slow me down, just enough to cut my throat.

Everybody knows I'll do anything for the people that I love. Even die.





(I never said it, but I didn't love anyone in that Arena, and that's why I'm alive right now.)



...



From then on, I didn't have the privilege of feeling sorry at all, didn't have the privilege to feel anything but power steadily growing in my heart, enough to kill the boy on the eighth day, enough to pretend that I was doing something noble.




...




In the end, on the day of the finale, I became a hunter stalking its prey, no more worried about the consequences of murder than if I had squashed a bug on the windowsill.