Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties

Task Eight: Surviving Today /F - Jamilla Argentaria

It had been ten years since One had a victor.

The last one no longer recognized herself when she looked in the mirror.

She was only twenty-six,  hardly an old woman, but she could see the years etched into her face.  People often told her how beautiful she had become, as if she had ever  been ugly, but she no longer saw beauty in the person who looked back at  her. The Capitol had tried to convince her that her body was her  greatest asset and when she was young, she had believed them. They'd  told her that she was beautiful and she had let them use that against  her. She'd let them use her, they'd taken advantage of her and she had  let them. They had done terrible things to her but she allowed it, even  ten years later. Now grown and aware of what her life had become,  Jamilla was disgusted with the woman in the mirror. After all, she had  let herself fall this far.

As she stood in the  bathroom, leaning on the sink for support and trying to stop the  retching that shook her entire body, it was all her fault. It was her  fault that she was the last Victor. On this day, she had seen two more  children buried because of her. He had been the nineteenth, the  nineteenth child that she'd seen slaughtered. The second day had killed  him, something practically unheard of in District One's tributes. The  girl had lasted longer but it hadn't been enough to win the Victor's  crown. She became number twenty on the last day, destroying any hope  that One would finally win again.

Any attempt that Jamilla  had made to bring home a new champion was squandered year after year.  Nobody would admit that they blamed her for their losses but she could  feel their hatred. It burned under her skin like a fire in her veins.  After ten years of failure and loss, she was no longer sure if it was  their hatred or her own self-loathing that was eating her alive. It had  all begun to blend together in her addled mind. Another wave of nausea  crashed down on her and she vomited into the sink. She had seen too much  death in her twenty-six years. It was too much for her.

Most Victors avoided the  funerals of the fallen tributes. Some said it was an attempt to show  respect for the grieving families. Others said it was a way to show  discontent with those who hadn't been good enough to win. Still, she had  attended the burial of the fallen competitors since before she was  crowned champion and Jamilla decided long ago that her crown wouldn't  change that. She had seen twenty tributes die while in her care and had  attended every somber ceremony. People outside of One knew how they  celebrated the Games but nobody seemed to grasp that they too mourned  their losses. Some, more than others. Other Victors would poke fun at  her whenever she spoke of one of her lost trainees. Many assumed that  Career-types like her, those who lived and died for the honor of their  District, did not feel the sting that the lower few did. And they were  wrong. Jamilla had always kept a straight face when they taunted her,  perhaps even smiled in amusement, but they had always been wrong about  the grief felt on behalf of lost Careers. Even those who lived for the  Games were wounded by those who died for it. They didn't know what she  had lost.

They had never seen the  weakness that was hidden inside her. Or what that weakness had cost her.  Though ten years of living had shattered her, she had never allowed  Panem to see how far she had fallen from the grace that had been handed  to her when she was sixteen. When she was young, she had thought that  her time in the Games was over. She had been terribly wrong.

Every Victor that she'd  met was still playing in some way and winning had ruined them all in  different ways. Guilt presented itself differently in every person.  Insanity took many forms, not all of them detectable in those who had  learned to live their life as an act for a prying world. Grief did  strange things to them all. Ten years had taught Jamilla a lot and it  was those ten years that had shown her that there was no escaping the  fate that came with the Victor's crown. Winning took something from  every Victor but they all had to pretend that they were fine. It was a  game they all played.

It was a game that had  cost her more than just her sanity. Every Victor played and accepted the  cards they were dealt. When she refused to do so, they took her father  as payment for her treason. Her sweet father, a man who had never done  any wrong, paid for her rebellious refusal to give in to the Capitol's  demands. Until she learned how to follow the rules, the game beat her  over and over again. And it never played fair. Ten years of secrets and  lies and slowly falling apart had proved that. The woman in the mirror  was one who had sold more than her body to level the playing field.  Jamilla had sold her soul to the Capitol in exchange for clemency. They  would spare her family if she gave into their power. They would save  Orion if she let them take her apart and recreate her. Every year, they  reminded her of their power by killing the tributes that she'd sold  herself to protect. The Capitol owned her and she jumped through their  hoops because she had no choice. The stakes were high and if she quit,  they would destroy her life and leave her screaming in the ashes. She  had learned years before that submitting to their wishes and doing what  they asked was the only way to win. If winning was possible.

She could hear the  cannons as she slumped against the sink. Her skin was clammy and slick  with sweat, her breath came out in uneven gasps, and all she could smell  was vomit. Days like these were days that usually found her curled up  on her bathroom floor, sobbing drunkenly and laying in a puddle of gin.  Not today. The room had begun to fill with steam. In her escalating  panic, she had forgotten that she turned the shower on but she was glad  that she had. She peeled off the pajamas that clung to her skin, shaking  as she kicked them away and staggered to the shower. She couldn't  stand. Her legs were shaking and she found that they could no longer  support her.

Halfway between sliding  down to the bottom of the shower and forgetting how to breathe, she  heard somebody say her name from the other side of the door. They wanted  to be let in. They rapped their knuckles on the door and she heard  death. Cannons. She tried to tell them that she was fine but all that  came out was a strangled cry. It was pathetic, how easily she was  reminded of the Arena that she had only spent a few days in. How easily  she was thrown into a panic. It was pathetic that a few days of  bloodshed had lead her to this. Years ago, she had been strong enough to  slaughter her way through twenty-seven innocent people. Now she  couldn't even think of the Games. A few days had ruined the rest of her  life.

She was sobbing before  she could stop herself, practically screaming in her grief. It had been  building up inside of her for years. She used to pretend that she didn't  feel it, only shedding tears when she felt that she couldn't hold them  in anymore. But she was beyond the point of no return. Curled up on the  bottom of the shower, wailing and gasping for breath, she didn't see a  way out of the game that she'd found herself trapped in. There was a  razor on the side of the shower, she knew it was there. She knew it was a  way out but it was one that she'd been too proud to take. It wasn't the  first time she'd considered it. But it was the first time that she  reached for the razor, the first time that she really wanted to do it.

The door broke before  she could finish the first cut. It hurt, it hurt more than she would've  thought. But the bathroom door was opened and Orion was yelling for her  and she was sobbing, throwing the razor away from her and apologizing  frantically. She didn't care that she was in the shower or that she  looked like hell or that she'd finally broken down. He was yelling, he  was crying and so was she and it was a mess. It was all her fault. It  had always been her fault. She was sorry, so sorry.

It was her fault.