There was no way to escape the Games. It was like an axe looming all of their necks, or a snarling beast led around on a flimsy rope. Ready to snap, and devour Panem's children in a heartbeat. Even when the Games weren't going on, there were still constant reminders of the annual festival of carnage. There were Victory Tours, constant reruns of past Games. Even more fresh and painful was the sight of a family without their daughter or son.
District Three in particular had a steady amount of tributes that left every year and never came back. At the moment, there were only two victors alive, both in their thirties. One was Damara Megido, a small and sullen woman who had won with an amount of force and intimidation uncharacteristic to her District. Mituna Captor was the other. He set land mines and intricate traps for the other tributes, convincing a Career that he was useful and then coaxing them into running onto a landmine-rigged field at the last minute.
The Victor's Village was lonely, with only the two of them to occupy some of the only grand-looking houses in the entire District. District Three was no Eleven or Twelve, but it was still struck by abject poverty. Most of the inhabitants sported ashen skin and dark crescent-moon bruises under their eyes.
It was no place to live. But then again, not a lot of Panem's districts were much better.
The annual Hunger Games was about to begin, again. And the victors would have no choice but to participate, but thankfully only as spectators this time. Damara is standing at her kitchen counter, her back pressing against the linoleum as she yanked her near-unmanageable hair into a bun. The sky over their District is a grayish-black with only the most vague hint of blue, as always. This will be the twenty-fourth year that she's been a mentor. The carnage was long since routine to her, now.
She hears a rapping knock on wood, and turns to see her front door open. Mituna's standing there, looking as rumpled and haggard as ever. (His hair was a mess and his shirt was backwards and not even buttoned. Their stylist Jasmine had long since given up on making him look presentable.) Damara's known the man since childhood, when being three years his senior had actually mattered. In his youth, he'd been clever beyond his years, as perfectly demonstrated by his performance during his Games. Nowadays, he was a little more…scatterbrained. Something about the Hunger Games had hurt him in some deep, primal way. The way it had for all of the victors. And he handled this by drowning in his own mind.
Mituna blinks, greets Damara in that muddled, incoherent way that only a select few could really understand. Damara ignores how the empty, confused look in his eyes made something near her lungs twist painfully. "The Reaping is today.", she says matter-of-factly, and he nods just as flatly.
They're going to come once again; camera crews and stylists ready to take their new lambs to the slaughter. The two victors would have to try their best to train the new tributes, knowing that they'll almost certainly die. They'd have to watch it, too. They'd come home eventually and have to see their grieving families on the streets.
She's not sure what to feel, anymore.
In a rare show of lucidity, Mituna smiles and Damara can see a familiar spark of sarcasm reach his eyes. "It'll be fine. Everyone knows the odds are ever in our favor."
A/N: I'm sorry, I just can't get the entire concept of Hungerstuck out of my head.