𝗚𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘¹, clato [catching fire au]

iv. pondered potential

004. | pondered potential

❝𝘪 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳

𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐'𝘮 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥❞

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 ten times more agonising than being awake, and only accelerated the feeling that Clove was trapped inside her own head. Night after night, real memories blended with distorted horrors that her brain contrived to punish her even further for the murders she had committed for her crown, and the ghosts of her victims continued to haunt her. The cast list for her night terrors was rife, including all eight victims that had fallen at her hands in the games, the three allies that she had witnessed be murdered at her feet, the friend who was never truly her friend at all, who was murdering allies when her back was turned and taking Clove for a fool.

Her nightmares liked to replay the most traumatic memories from her games in slow motion, but sometimes they twisted them into something even more terrifying. She would watch her best friend slaughtered under her traitorous ally's sword, her family's bodies hanging from the wire fence alongside Blaze and her other victims, or the entire clan of dead tributes would chase her down like a pack of mutts and gnaw at her skin until she woke up screaming. Suddenly, Cato Hadley's words to her made total sense.

Winning the games isn't an escape, it's a prison sentence.

For some reason, she could not stop him from echoing inside her head, and it angered her that he had made such a distinct impression. Her brain could form his exact composition in her head, moulding the parts of his face together into a perfectly constructed picture of how he had looked standing in front of her, every precise detail down to the scar that formed on his left cheek correct.

Somehow, Cato was exactly what Clove had expected after watching him on television during his games, and yet he was also a completely different man.

The 72nd Hunger Games went down as one of the most talked about since the likes of Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason, and Cato Hadley, with his bronze stature and charismatic charm, made up the bulk of its fame. Clove remembered it vividly, from the moment he came bounding onto the stage at the reaping to the moment he returned as a victor, and every minute of it had been completely gripping.

But one picture always stood out in Clove's mind more than most - the image of Cato Hadley, stood proudly with a foot pressed against the chest of his final victim, his arms spread widely in the air as he held up his sword in a celebratory stance, covered head to toe in fallen snow that stuck to his skin like ash. It was a powerful image to say the least, and it always reminded her of an image she had read in a book when she was a child.

It was the image of a phoenix rising from the ashes, ready to be reborn into a new life of promise after so much destruction. An image that bled glory and strength.

If only she knew the true meaning that image had held when she first saw him- that Cato Hadley had not risen from the destruction for a new life of promise, but rather for a life of misery and defeat. That Cato Hadley had not risen from destruction at all; Cato Hadley was the destruction, and in his rebirth, he would have much preferred to have been dead.