The Odds Were Never In Our Favor Chapter 1: Prologue, a hunger games fanfic

First Hunger Games fanfiction. My thoughts on how the 76th Games would be, from the point of view of semi-OC Nieve Snow. Enjoy.

This is more of an introduction, a prologue if you want. Kind of boring, but it does give some information that might end up being useful.

My life has never been meaningful.

I was born here in the Capitol, raised here in the Capitol. I don't know my mother; she left long before I could speak or move around. My father was a distant figure to me, important in stature. He has always made sure there was someone to educate me, someone to dress me, feed me, cater to my every whim. I've lived a spoiled existence, sheltered by one of the finest and largest homes in all of Panem. I've never been to a public school before, and the few people I'd met who are my age are all the sons and daughters of other important people. We never really got along; they were always on their guard around me, trying to impress me or (more likely) flat-out unimpressed by me. It's easy for me to say that I've never really had any friends.

Even though I know hardly anyone, the entire country has at some point known of me. I'm not stupid. They either hated, mocked, or blindly adored my grandfather, and so by extension they either hated, mocked, or blindly adored me. I know that the first two by far represent the feelings of the country at the moment. I am just as guilty as he is in everything that has been done. His crimes are my own. And I know of the rumors about me, because no one has tried to hide them.

There are a few inconveniences in being the granddaughter of President Snow.

A few whispers here and there go a long way. By now, everyone who doesn't live under a rock knows of the decision made by the remaining victors behind closed doors. The one about the seventy-sixth Games.

Whispers aren't really an understatement. They've really tried to keep it a more or less quiet thing. A last surprise for those who feel entertainment-deprived, a joke at our expense for the pleasure of the Districts. A way for them to fully revel in their new freedom.

I don't blame them. The fact is, the Capitol blames me. Some of them share the opinion that I am the catalyst of these particular games. Of course, Nieve Snow provides the perfect excuse. I am of age. I am ex-president Snow's flesh and blood. The ideal way to get their revenge, to get the Capitol to tick. To get my family to tick. My grandfather caused this mess, and now I am somehow causing a new kind of horror that the Capitol has never had to consider facing so far. Because it will be their children who will be dying alongside of me. The fact is, they think that if I didn't exist, there wouldn't be a need for these games. And so they hate me. They need someone to hate.

Sometimes it makes me want to scream. They don't seem to understand that these people aren't only punishing my family. My grandfather is dead; at this point, they just want to make sure that the entire Capitol has gotten the point. What better way than the mark the end of the so-called Hunger Games by hosting a final one. Featuring the children of the ones who killed their children. I'm only a lucky bonus.

But sometimes, I can't help but agree with them. It is my fault. I can't erase the things that my family has done. I can't even begin to understand them. I've never been anywhere but within the limits of the Capitol; I've never had a reason to be. I've never seen the conditions of District 11, or questioned from where my food came. It's not something people do around here.

I used to like to sit by my window and draw. I'd draw anything and everything I could see from there; a few brightly colored housing units, the grey sky, the trees. I once spent a long month of stolen moments and patient waiting observing some bird I still don't know the name of, committing each aspect to memory and sketching it painstakingly. I can sketch every small detail of a plant, dozens of different plants. And yet, I don't know what each of them are. I don't know what they do. I never asked. In my own defense, I probably wouldn't have been answered. I doubt anyone around me knew.

I could go into every single detail of my life, if I wanted to. I could describe the way my fays seemed to blend fluidly together, the way routine never changed, how I learned about so many things I knew I'd never have the opportunity to do; flying a kite, or playing hide-and-seek, tasting a snowflake. I've never even seen snow. Irony is cruel.

It wouldn't even take me long. As I first said, my life has meaningless. It has been dull, simplistic, a wave of etiquette and specific behaviors to be observed. It is not the life I would have chosen for myself. But I can't choose my life any more than I can chose my family.

My name is Nieve. I am sixteen years old. Two weeks ago, I was taken away from everything I have ever known. I can't even tell you exactly where I am, because they haven't told me anything. When I first asked, they look at me contemptuously, or smiled with some sort of sick satisfaction. I now know that they are Avox, and they cannot speak. Another idea by the people who, just a few short months ago, were ruling Panem.

They still show me no sympathy. I don't expect them to.

In the weeks that followed the Mockinjay's assassination of "President" Coin, mass confusion reigned. These particular Games, already in the early planning stages, were put on hold. There was the Mockingjay trial, and then nothing. A brief interlude of emptiness. We didn't know what to do, or expect. We were afraid. We knew it wasn't the end. Of course, that's when the Games rumors started up, after it became apparent that they weren't just going to wipe us out. That's when people really started hating me. It was already safer to hate me than it was to hate anyone from the "other side".

It's been a few month, and I'm now going to die soon. I am going to die because I am the central target of the people here. The target of my competitors. They more than likely all hate me.

Besides. I don't know how to fight, let alone kill anyone. I, just like anyone else around here, never really grasped the concept. We, spoiled people of the Capitol, far out of the reach of the Games, somehow failed to realize that they were real. That they actually happened; that real people died.

That someday, we might be the pawns, that ones that others would raptly watch as we eradicated each other.

Nieve Snow is not a name I've even been proud of. Even though I never knew much about my grandfathers politics, I never really agreed with them. But I never hated him. I hate these people that have put me here, because they are no better. I don't know what's going on. I don't know who's running Panem now. I don't know what's become of the Mockingjay. But just as once upon a time, the Capitol sentenced her to death, she has now sentenced me to death. It is a never-ending cycle.

I find myself craving the life I never really knew I had. A life where important events are not just marked by the changing of the color of your hair or skin or modifying your face, but rather on family and love. I find myself desperately wishing I had known more about places that wouldn't think me odd for wanting these things.

Soon, the seventy-sixth Hunger Games will begin. The fact is, we, the spoiled offspring of the Capitol are far more ill-equipped than almost any of the District children ever were. The odds were never in our favor.

They had never needed to be until now.