As I stared out the large window, I watched the sunrise above the landscape of pastel pink buildings that sat to the east. Those buildings watched me grow from a small naïve girl to a young lady. They were where I learned how to write my ABCs, where I learned right from wrong, and where I learned that you can't trust anyone.
Will this me my last sunrise? I thought to myself. It very well could be. I pursed my lips. What an ugly sunrise to be my last. The sky was full of puffy gray clouds; all ready to pour down more snow on top of what littered the streets already. I looked down and sighed. The circle was filled with even more of them. Below me stood the homeless, the scared, the confused; those who had been driven out of their warm, comfortable apartments in the middle of winter by the Rebels. Many wore no shoes, carrying their few prized possessions. A box of jewelry here, a briefcase stuffed with who knows what there. I would not feel so bad if it weren't for the children scattered about with their parents. The children that held no part in this mess.
No, this is our mess. The ones old enough to have known better. Could it really have been only a few months ago I was going to school, enjoying my day-to-day life, back when I was ignorant to all this? And only a few weeks ago that everything had come to a head, that Katniss Everdeen, the Girl On Fire made the whole of Panem spin off its axis? Now Rebels have done something no one thought possible, they infiltrated the Capitol. They were mere blocks away at this very moment from the city circle, fighting for…for what? We had lost; there was no question to that. The day District 2 fell was the day I knew this. There is no coming back after a loss like that.
I watched as a small girl wearing a baby pink robe tugged her mom's nightdress and ask her something. Her mother nodded and picked her up. That's when I noticed the little girl wore no shoes as well. That was enough to push me to get moving. I stood from the window I had claimed since early morning. The mansion was bustling all night. Refugees were taken in, but only as many as was deemed fit. Rooms were made up, families brought in. But not enough. There were still hundreds of people out there in the cold. People thought the mansion would be safe; the city circle would be safe, but they were wrong. I wonder if they knew that yet.
I walked down my deserted hallway, turned right into the busy hallway filled with Avox and refugees alike and then turned left. I walked into the second door on the left. My room was my last safe haven. My large comfortable bed sat in the middle, its pale yellow comforter thrown about on the bed carelessly. If I were to die today what was the point of making my bed? I sighed and walked over to it and began smoothing out the comforter. Grandfather would not take kindly to a messy room. Not that I thought he would have time to swing by this end of the mansion and just pop in, he was very busy after all, but I wouldn't take that chance. I had disobeyed him enough in the last few months for an inconsequential comforter out of place to be a serious problem.
After I finished making the bed, I walked over to my bathroom. If today is my last day, I would at least like to look presentable. Grandfather would approve. In the mirror I saw a girl, eyes too big, hair too light, and skin too pale. All of my offending attributes that I am constantly reminded of either by myself or Grandfather stood outright and at attention. "Deary, couldn't you have at least gotten your fathers skin? A nice complexion it would have been on you." He would say. It was true, too. My father had a natural pigment to his skin that made him almost glow. I on the other hand was extremely pale. As far as I knew, I had my mother to thank for these qualities. She was the one with pale skin and large eyes. From pictures that I have seen of her over the years, she had dark brown hair like my father, but light hair ran in her family apparently. I had inherited my gray eyes from a distant relative too, it seemed, as both my mother and father had blue.
I knew I was pretty. My cheeks were distinguished and my nose straight. My eyes sat where they should, albeit being on the larger side, with arched eyebrows taking up the space above them. I had thick lashes and full lips. I had been told I looked a lot like my mother, but I had never met her. Not really, in any true defining way. She died during childbirth. A rare thing in the Capitol with the medicine we have available, but it was not unheard of. My father had never fully recovered from it, and though I loved him because he was my father, I never really bonded with him. He was too busy working to ever pay much attention to me. I was fine with that though. At least I was until a few months ago, when I learned so much about everything going on in the Districts and the Capitol itself. Now I didn't know what to think about Father's position.
I was ignorant of what was going on in both my own home and in the worlds away Districts. My eyes turned blind by propaganda and just plain old ignorance. I was a fool, a puppet to the Capitol. Just like every other citizen. When Finnick Odair, District 4 Victor had broken through the airways and told his stories, everything clicked into place. From the mysterious deaths of so many higher ups to the need for certain Victors to be here for every single Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games. How could I ever explain that to my children if I ever had any? To grow up around it, to be raised to celebrate it. To know nothing but to be excited about it. To cherish it. To think it was okay. It was never real to me, or to any citizen of the Capitol I think. How foolish it all was. I was brought up to revere the games and now I was disgusted with myself. The audacity of it all was the most shocking of it. I never truly put a person, a real life person who felt and heard and saw and breathed into the faces of those in the games. And now it was my turn to pay the price for that. Because it was my fault, it was every Capitol citizen's fault that this went on for so long. It was my father's fault. It was Grandfather's fault. It was his father before that's fault.
I heard a loud BOOM before the walls of the mansion shook. They're here I thought to myself. To take me away from the only life I had ever known. Good. I thought. I didn't want to be here anymore. I don't deserve it. None of us do. I was President Snow's granddaughter, and the Rebels will be sure that I know that when the time came.