private thoughts ➴ not on the network
Adstringendum. It sounds like something else I've heard: panem et circenses. But I could be wrong. Either way, it's real. This isn't my nightmare of something the Capitol could look like after this war, or worse, what District 12 currently looks like. I can't be dead, either. Nobody knew where we were. The Capitol woman didn't have time to call out for help.
I'm shooting unarmed civilians now, apparently. It's survival. It's-
No. But it was the easiest way out and I wasn't interested in dying right then and there. The rest of my squad didn't complain either. Why would they, after seeing what happened to Finnick and the others?
I'm the one that's going to have to tell Annie Cresta that he died on my made-up suicidal mission. And it is suicidal. I realize this now. I can count the deaths on my fingers, working through them methodically as if sifting through a dream because it doesn't seem real. Finnick, Boggs, Mitchell, Messalla, Leeg 1, Jackson, Castor, Homes. I run the names under my breath, trying to feel something, but there's only numbness and the panic that comes from wanting to stay alive. Like an animal, running away from the hunter.
The human feelings are going to come back, soon. Eventually. When my body catches up to what my brain knows is true - that I'm no longer in Panem, and there's no war here. I'm not arrogant enough to think that it can't go on without me. Actually, this is probably what Coin would think best. I'm expendable. What I want is selfish and I know it.
What I want, more than anything, is to kill President Snow. I'm running on hatred right now. When it runs out, I'm not sure there's going to be anything left. But that's fine. As long as he dies first.
Prim. I'd give anything to see her, but I don't want her to come here. She's safer in District 13, anyways. So I'll just have to bear it.