Perhaps once upon a time she could have been considered something close to 'beautiful', cursed with a girlish sort of innocence that brought too much attention and so much trouble. A sort of innocence that promised an impish grin and two wide eyes. Wide naive eyes. So stupidly naive.
Not a fighter, but an angel, a daughter; a dancing girl with flowers in her hair.
Panem will love that about her; that was what everyone had said. Panem will eat that up, they promised, Panem will eat you up and spit you out.
No, there was nothing remotely beautiful about her now.
She laid in the pit of her own grave, dull eyes staring up at the starless sky.
There was blood matted within her hair, flesh that was not her own caked beneath her fingernails, the stench of death rancid in the air.
Bodies laid in a heap nearby. One atop the other. Their blood had dripped and flowed, and it was still warm as it encircled her, forming a halo, a halo of red. No more dancing, no more flowers. No more naivety. No more innocence.
She was red. It was all just red.
Her chest rose. And fell. She became acutely aware she was dying.
For a moment, she almost thought her death would mean something if it convinced the world that she was someone, real, not just a piece in their Games. If it convinced those who stood still all those years ago to act; her parents among them. Her parents... they were red now, too.
A tear slipped down her cheek, slicing through the blood crusted on her face.
She found she wasn't sad despite. She had been so scared she would be. So scared to be sad at the end. But death had been an old friend, and an enemy. He cocooned her, wrapped her within his velvet wings and promised to lift her above the smoke and beyond the borders of the arena like a friend, and away from all that she loved below - like an enemy.
The truth is this: everyone knew she could never win. It wasn't that she was weaker, or slower, or less skilled than the others. It was that she was better than the rest. She was better than all of them. Her only problem was, she had a soul. No one with a soul ever wins the Games.
There are only losers, and survivors.
Still, while no one really thought she would survive, they had wanted a glorious death; something golden to cherish in their hearts as they watched her murder play out on millions of screens across the nation. Complacent witnesses to the massacre displayed in their own homes. Replayed over and over as if one death wasn't enough, as if the first time they killed her would not do it justice.
The Capitol's Angel whose hands got dirty before they sent her to Hell.
Some authors of old theorized that Hell is not a place; it is other people, it is a torment we carry around inside of us.
As she laid there dying, she thought she could not be sure. All she knew was that Hell had found a home in her. My name is Willow Mellark, and I let the devil in.
She had been an angel, an angel sent to die in the pit of Hell.
Her eyes slid closed, and she finally understood what it was like to die.
The human side had to lose, eventually.
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