Artificial Snowflakes

Prologue Pt 1: The Beginning of Ignorance

You may look badly upon me; you may think that I'm an evil person and in truth, I am.

I'm one of the villains of this story. I'm one of the oppressors. I've spent my life comfortably viewing the suffering of others and have never done a damn thing about it. All my life, I've been an ignorant person from a vacuous society.

When I was a child, I didn't know there were other settlements outside of the Capitol. It wasn't until I watched The Hunger Games for the first time one night. My parents sat me down with them in front our tv and within twenty minutes of the broadcast, I was sobbing. I clung to my mother as a boy was decapitated in front of my eyes. His body writhed around in the mud even after the head had been removed.

It was utterly shocking for a child to witness something like that. I didn't understand at all what was happening or why. Never before had I been exposed to violence in my perfect little world. Yet, my parents were untroubled by the violent images and more alarmed by my reaction to them.

My father threw me a look of disapproval. In his eyes, I saw an unmistakable flicker of fear but he covered it quickly and said to me in his usual chirpy voice,

"You shouldn't shed tears over them, darling,"

I clawed on to mother's arm tightly. She sighed and tried to loosen my grip.

"Calm down, Aura. It's time you learned about the importance of accepting the way things are," added Mother uncomfortably.

"But mother this is…"

She quickly grew fed up with my crying and pulled away from me.

"Listen to me, " said Father.

I scooted away from them both, but I was shaking while wearing a look of betrayal like the way, my cat, Mr. Pink did when I bathed him on a chilly morning. Father lowered his voice as if he was afraid to be overheard. I thought this was silly considering we were inside our own home but I didn't say anything.

"There are uncultured people who live outside the Capitol. These people betrayed the Capitol in the past and so as punishment they were banished away. They are simple folk; they live simple lives and they don't have any great aspirations. It's understandable, dear, why you may take pity on them but don't ever forget that they're sneaky and greedy people. If one of them got a hold of you, he'd do away with you, claim all of our good things right out from under u. Do you want that?"

Father's words terrified me, but that was entirely the point.

I shook my head and wiped my runny nose on my sleeve. Images flashed up on the tv screen of the surviving players. One girl who was so small that she looked liked a kitten to my young eyes was curled up on the ground. She wasn't moving but her eyes were open as she lay there, in the pouring rain. Her eyes looked sad and defeated.

"But why can't we share all the good things, Daddy?"

My parents seemed troubled by what I had said and they sent me to bed without supper. It became clear that it was not in my best interest to be questioning the Capitol's actions in any way. From that moment on, I understood this unspoken rule about The Hunger Games. I learned never to cry for the district children.

Eventually, I did build up detachment toward the never-ending supply of tributes. I admit that I even laughed and gasped dramatically along with everyone else. The tributes became actors in a tv show. Surely the blood and violence were all staged or stylized somehow.

As the years passed, one persistent reoccurring thought began to nag at me. I began to concentrate on the faces of the ones who had died during the battles more than the victors. I observed the faces of the ones who lay maimed, face down in the dirt, waiting for the hovercraft to retrieve them. The show would continue on without them and they would be forgotten about forever. I secretly agonized repeatedly over a persistent string of questions: what is it that separates a victor from just another casualty? Is it luck or destiny? Are the fallen just minor characters in someone else's heroic story?

After a while I started to see myself in the dirt, lying there, as people trampled over my body in a desperate attempt to reach the Cornucopia first. I'm not sure what made me think this way but I started to get a gut feeling that my own destiny would be nothing more than a short chapter in someone else's heroic story.

This thought made my stomach run cold but somehow I always felt it would be the truth.

I don't have a right to make you feel sympathy for me, but I must say that you have no idea how it feels to be the villain, to be obstructing good from triumphing. Or how it feels to have finally realised you've spent your whole life doing something that has subtracted from the well-being of others. Well...

Tonight I'm going to stare directly at the ugliness within me and acknowledge it. There is nothing I can say to defend myself so watch me as I pay for my ignorance. Retribution has come for us all.

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AN: Thanks to don'tlikehugs18 for Beta-ing this story!