Disclaimer: I really wish I was the genius who wrote Hunger Games. Unfortunately, I'm not.

Prologue

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where law ends, tyranny begins.

-PM William Pitt the younger

I can hear it as soon as I begin to rise: the sound of a silent crowd of exactly one thousand and eleven people. They're all waiting.

Waiting for me.

My knees are weak, my palms slippery, but I can't show it. Not now. They need me to be strong. Every one of them needs me to be strong. The air around me feels thin, and I fight the urge to gasp. They will see it if I do. I straighten my shoulders and set my eyes straight ahead. This is it.

Slowly, My head rises out of the hole. Then my neck, my shoulders, my chest, my hips, my legs. The platform becomes level with the ground, and there is an audible click. I know what that click means. It means I'm stuck here. The way back is sealed now in a tangible, irrevocable way. That click means I'm here until I kill, or until I die. That click means I'm here until they kill, or until they die.

I can see them now. One thousand faces stare up at me. Eleven figures stand just behind me.

Their lives are in my hands.

One thousand and eleven people.

One thousand and eleven children.

One thousand and eleven lives.

I am the last. I am the first.

I am the one thousand and twelfth.

I curse the Capitol.

I curse the Rebels.

I curse the people from the old world, who destroyed earth and made us resort to this thing that we call Panem.

How did it ever come to this?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the beginning shall we?