Three ✧・゚: *✧・゚:*

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"Reaper"

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"Reaper"

✧・゚: *✧・゚:*

(this chapter briefly touches on the topic of su!cide but will not go into detail)

✧・゚: *✧・゚:*

The circumstances surrounding Gaia Highbottom's death had been fabricated and warped to keep the affluent family from scandal.

The people of the Capitol were informed that the woman had been fighting a quiet illness and had passed peacefully in her sleep, loved, protected, and happy. Although they would miss her terribly, they were glad she was finally at peace. It hadn't been the truth, the reality of the woman's passing was a safely guarded secret that only Winter, her father and Dr Gaul knew. 

Gaia hadn't died of an illness, but by her own hand...

After two years of the Hunger Games, two years of begging her husband to stop them, of drowning in the guilt and grief she carried it had become too much for her to bear, she could no longer keep her head above water. She had become hopeless, desperate, a shell of her former self. Knowing that there would be nothing she could ever do to stop them, knowing that no matter how many times she spoke out against them she could never be the spark that was needed to put a stop to the horrors had slowly driven her to breaking point.

She had died on the eve of the third annual Hunger Games and it had changed Winter's life forever.

Her mother had kept her from the Games, shielded her from the thing her father had created and when she died there was no one left to look out for her. Winter was thrust into a world overnight that she had never experienced before. The young girl had no choice but to sit with her father and Dr Gaul as they watched the third Games commence the next morning, clutching her favorite stuffed bear tightly to her chest, watching through tear-filled eyes as children slaughtered each other. It had matured her instantly, the combination of her mother's passing and the sport had been the cause.

That's why Winter hated the Hunger Games. They were cruel, inhumane, and they had taken her mother from her...

Winter studied her paler-than-normal face in the mirror in one of the many bathrooms of her grand home, trying her best to make herself presentable for the day ahead. All attempts failed. She had been awake most of the night, crying, sobbing out to her mother for forgiveness, flashing to bursts of anger, cursing the woman for being so selfish, for dumping everything on her and then leaving her to drown alone which would then spike guilt in her and the circle would repeat, begging her mother for forgiveness again for the things she said. When she finally did manage to find sleep she was jolted awake from dreams of Reaper, of her attempting to help him and his massive hands coming up to crush her throat. She knew to help him she'd have to do her best to come across as understanding. She was understanding but it wasn't up to her whether or not he bought it.

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