Eternal Winter // finnick odair

5- mutts

They were coming. The mutts. They were whispering my name tauntingly. I could hear them getting louder, closer. I run faster when I hear the footsteps that don't belong to me, but they don't belong to an animal either. The boy from 2. He's chasing me now I run as fast as I can to the cornucopia. He picks me up and throws me to the wall at the cornucopia. I can feel my head gat damp and sticky with blood from my head. He takes my trident and is about to finish me off when the mutts break through the Forrest surrounding the cornucopia. He lets go and I clamber up the wall but the boy isn't fast enough. The mutts begin to tear him apart limb from limb, feasting on his flesh. My strangled cry echoes thro-
"Ria wake up!"

Finnick is standing above me with concern written all over his beautiful features. I pant heavily and it doesn't take me long to realise that I've been screaming in real life.
"It's ok, it was just a nightmare finnick"

I know it's not just a nightmare and so does Finnick. These are very real events, memories brought to life by my mind. Night is my least favourite time of the day, so many horrors hide in the dark. Waiting for you to sleep before they pounce and invade your mind. My worst memories were in the dark.

Finnick moves towards the bed silently and climbs in to lie with me. I know he understands, he gets nightmares too. People like us would have nightmares even if we never went in the arena. So many people have died and left us. We were breaking before the arena. On the edge of being broken and the games destroyed us. They hacked at the already large cracks and when we were broken and in pieces they smashes those pieces in to small shards. It would be impossible to even try and put us back together. I can only hope Finnick doesn't leave like everyone else but when I wake he is still there. He hasn't left just yet.

I start thinking of how I never want him to leave in mornings like these. Like how when he hugs me I want to stay in his warm arms forever. How I want to wake up to him every morning. How I might even be falling for him. These thoughts terrify me, more than the games. I jump out of bed and push a very confused looking finnick out the door.

Deciding to drown out these thoughts with a shower I step in to the bathroom. The showers here are very complex and I still have no idea how to work them. After pushing multiple buttons I find a nice temperature and pressure. I wash my hair with products made in district four, they smell like home. Home. The thought of home makes me sit down in the shower and cry for ages.

Home means a completely different thing to me now than it did a few years ago. I'm completely torn in two and have no idea what home is anymore. I've always believed that home isn't the place, it's the people but that's extremely hard to live by. When someone's says home I think of three very different things but they all mean home to me. The first is district four with its beaches and tanned skinned people, the place where I grew up. The next two aren't places but people. Haymitch. When Haymitch hugs me I'm completely home, I don't need anyone else. Then there's Finnick. I feel so at ease with him, when I fall asleep in his arms I'm home and I know it. I grew up with him and shared my greatest challenges with him, I feel safe around him. I would struggle so much to leave four for Haymitch in twelve. I don't know why, the only thing holding me to four is finnick, and we only just became friends again. A friend is all he will ever think of me as, and I know that I like him in a different way. The other reason to stay in four would be Mags and Annie who i care for dearly, but Haymitch is my father (almost) and I would want to live with him. To be at home.

I realise that I'm late for breakfast and quickly dress in my training outfit. I join everyone at the table and they have already begun eating. When finnick looks at me I can see all the questions hovering in his eyes. My eyes are puffy and you can tell that I've been crying, I already know this he doesn't need to tell me. I'm so nervous for today that I can't eat. I force down a piece of toast that tastes like cardboard. It feels like cardboard too.
"I'm done eating"

My voice is quiet and tired, very unlike how I normally sound. I stand up and leave to start training early. I head to the knives first. I grab a belt and throw them at the dummies. I use the entire belt that held 25 knives. Each dummy would be dead, each with a knife in the stomach, heart or head. Perfect. My aim is still good. By now most of the tributes have arrived so I move over to the spear section. I throw some aiming to intimidate the others, I want them to know not to mess with me.

Next I go to the trident area and enter the simulation room. I stab all the simulations and throw the trident a couple of times. I look over and see a crowd of tributes standing outside looking very intimidated. Some look jealous. All except for Johanna and Finnick of course, they know I would never hurt them.

In my games I was scary to all my fellow tributes but that was when I was young and not trained to kill. The first time I decided to show of to them was also the last. I used a trident and all of the dummies were stabbed, some mangled and torn from where I dragged the spokes of the trident down the front. Everyone was terrified but they figured they were safe for the bloodbath, maybe even the whole games. If I didn't have enough money from sponsors I couldn't get a trident because they never have them. Ever.

When the bloodbath began they realised that they were wrong to think I could only use a trident. I killed three people in the bloodbath, not many but enough. Enough to get blood on my hands. Enough to ruin my innocence. Enough to transform night from a time of the day to an unknown horror that brought terror with it. Enough to make me a murderer. Enough to tear me apart on the inside and break the already broken pieces of my soul. Enough to kill me inside.

I leave the simulation room and go back to my floor. I'll go back to training later. I can feel the panic rise up in me as I lock the bathroom door. I breathe heavily and collapse on the cold, tiled floor. I concentrate on trying to calm and control my breathing.

Every has become real. I have to have new blood stains marking my hand and put up with the smell of fake air that the arena seems to come with. I have to spend my nights running from Capitol creations that want to tear me apart, limb from limb, with their baring teeth. I have to spend my days running from Capitol creations of a different kind that also wish to slaughter me, the other victors. I have to worry about what I say because the whole world will be watching. I will have to be torn apart again, from the inside out.

I will have to die in order to bring Finnick home because at least Finnick knows where home is.