No one speaks. Ever breath seems to be agony as the president presents herself on the stage. She smiles brightly, her pale pink hair falling into her bright orange lip gloss. "Welcome, welcome, Panem. This year is the year of the one-hundredth Annual Hunger Games!"
The crowd cheers excitedly. The president pulls out a card labeled 100. She extracts it torturously slowly. "This year, to remind the Districts that no one is safe," she says slowly, "the tributes will be ages four to eleven." The sea of Capitolites cheer and clap. Some laugh, the nerve of them. "In addition," the president adds suddenly. The crowd gasps. "There will be two victors, which symbolize that the Capitol has sympathy."
Scattered clapping comes, but mostly groans.
At home, a little boy looks at his mother. The mother is crying, tears practically cascading down her cheeks. "This isn't fair, mommy! I don't want to die!" He pounds his fists on the floor.
"It isn't fair, honey, I know that." She kisses him on the cheek, then mutters to herself, "What really isn't fair is that little children know they're going to die already."
In the Capitol, the president smiles, her golden teeth shining on the light. She takes a swig of wine and lays back across the couch. "Janus, get me the escorts for this year. I want to change them around." Janus nods.
In a moment, eight women and four men come in, all clad in ridiculously feathered outfits. They line up by district assignment order. The president seizes a woman in bright gold's shoulder and places her at the far left. "District One," the president announces.
"Thank you, Miss Erudite!" the escort beams at her.
President Erudite shoves others out of line. She places a rather drab one at the end. She has to choose for the worst district. By the look on her face, the escort is thoroughly horrified. "You are District One," Erudite says, pointing to the golden woman. "And you are District Twelve," she says, gesturing loosely to the drab escort on the far right. "You are dismissed."
They all walk calmly out of the room except for the Twelve escort, whose tears smudge her heavy mascara. She runs for the door, whimpering. President Erudite sticks up her nose and folds her arms over her chest.
And she's done it. Eleven Erudite has established herself as enemy. And that's the way she likes it; it's the easiest way of living as president of a country that honors killing and obscenity.