Hidden Pain {Jackson/Ansgar}

Jackson had met Mace Emberstatt a few years prior, during the mayoral election of the seventy-fifth Games. The man was kind, yet he seemed as if he were trying to hide something. It was as if he was keeping his pain away from the public eye, yet Jackson could still sense it. The young man knew there was something there, whether Mr. Emberstatt wanted to show it or not. He wondered how it was possible for victors to hide their pain. How could they keep it all to themselves?

Surely they were feeling mixed emotions. Sadness for the loss of their allies would surely be present. Guilt for killing others in order to survive surely wasn’t nonexistent- or perhaps it was. It could have just been Jackson’s good conscience that made him assume that the victors felt any emotions about what had happened at all. They were human, so surely they had to feel something, right? Mr. Bellami at least hoped that that was the case. Emotionless shells wouldn’t make the strongest victors, in his opinion.

The Bellami boy hated the idea of the Games, but that didn’t mean that he hated the victors. The victors, or at least most of them, were probably hopeless in the start. It was likely that they didn’t think they could win. They probably thought that they were doomed and that death was imminent. That’s how Jackson would have felt if it were him. At least, he assumed that would be the case. He’d never been reaped for the Games, and hoped it would stay that way for the rest of his years left in the reaping.

It’s unlikely that Jackson would ever volunteer, either. He didn’t want to face death. He didn’t want to kill others, and he certainly didn’t want to be killed. Although, he knew that there were very few circumstances that might, just might make him volunteer. He didn’t yet know what those circumstances were, and hoped he’d never find out.

Thinking about the life of the victors brought chills down Jackson’s spine. He thought about it more often than he would have liked, ever since meeting Mace. Sometimes, he wondered if they stayed up at night, unable to sleep because of nightmares. Surely their nightmares would be worse than those of anyone who hadn’t been in the Games. Facing something as terrifying as death itself, murdering others to survive, would certainly not leave someone without the memories of it all.

There may have been a few moments of happiness or laughter for those that survived that Games, but Jackson assumed that they were very few in comparison to the moments of sadness, guilt and regret. Although, there was no way for him to truly know without asking a victor, and that wasn’t in his plans. He doubted he’d even encounter another victor, anyway. It appeared as if they preferred to keep to themselves, anyway. That is, unless he went looking for them himself.

Today, for some reason, Jackson’s curiosity had peaked beyond normal, and he did decide to go looking. It didn’t seem that the victors wandered the town much, and that meant he’d be headed to where he knew they would be. The Victors’ Village was where they lived, so if all else failed, they’d have to be there, he assumed. Normally, Jackson wasn’t one to go looking for someone in particular to interact with, but with the end of the current Games so close, victors were on his mind. He wasn’t sure as to why, but he felt a strange need to find out more about them. It was almost as if they were a different breed of people. Or course, he’d never tell them that.

When Jackson ventured into the Victors’ Village, it didn’t take him as long as he thought it was to find a victor to speak to. It wasn’t Mace this time, though. No, this was a more recent victor. A younger man who’d experienced it not too long ago; Ansgar Todd. Jackson had never seen Ansgar in person, but he respected him nonetheless. He’d gone through a lot. He’d gone through more difficult times than Mr. Bellami could ever imagine going through himself. Unsure of quite what to say, Jackson thought for a moment before approaching the man.

”Mr. Todd, would you mind talking for a minute?” he asked. He probably sounded like he was trying to interview him or something, but that wasn’t quite the case. This wasn’t anything professional.