to die

"How to die, how to kill … it's all I know!" Cato shouts, crimson tears caressing the curves of his pale features. His blue eyes, once so cold and calculating, shine with the madness felt when death finally catches up with you – your death, and the deaths you've made with your own stained hands. He begs for it to be over, because, though he didn't know it until now, he was born to die. Not to live, not to bring glory to his District – just to die.

Please, he almost whispers, and though his gruesome smile never wavers, his eyes are pleading. Please, let me die. Please, just kill me, let it be done, allow me to die. Please.

She hears his unspoken cries, the screams he shouts only in this echoing head between images of snapped necks and bloody wounds, and she makes sure it happens. Cato himself watches as things unfold, slowly, and the insanity clouding his mind finally unveils the truth: I am going to die. For the first time in the entirety of the Games, fear pierces the Career's heart.

And then he is falling, tumbling off shining silver planes, and there are teeth ripping into his flesh. Cato feels every second of it, and his mouth is screaming, but in his head all he can hear is an endless melody.

I was born to die, born to die, to die … to die …

And then he was dead.