Disclaimer: I do not own the Hungar Games, all rights are to go to their respectful owners.
It's been twenty five years since the beginning and end of the Second Rebellion. They did try, I'd give them that much. The Capitol told us their version of what happened. After Katniss Everdeen shot her arrow into the force field when it was at its weakest, the cameras shut off. No feed came through anywhere. The Districts were struck without power, no one knew what was going to happen, who was dead, who was alive.
Snow says that in killing the arena, Katniss killed everyone in it, and over it. This included Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker and Traitor. Haymitch Abernathy, Victor, Traitor. Effie Trinket, Escort, Traitor. Beetee, Victor, Traitor. Finnick Odair, Victor, Traitor. Johanna Mason, Victor, Traitor. Enobaria, Victor, unknown if Traitor or not. Brutus, Victor, unknown if Traitor or not. Peeta Mellark, Victor, Traitor. Katniss Everdeen, Victor, Traitor, a Symbol…Of Death.
That's what Snow drilled into everyone's mind. Katniss killed all those people, Katniss knew what she was doing, she sacrificed everyone just to make a statement. Katniss murdered them. It's her fault. All her fault. The Capitol had nothing to do with it. But no one believed him.
In every District, there was chaos. Every District fought, fought for the thousands upon thousands that had been killed because of the Games, because of Snow's need for power. They fought, there were uprisings. But it wasn't enough.
The Capitol started sending firebombs down on all the Districts. Not just Twelve. All of us. Twelve was gone. Eleven followed. Soon Ten and Nine, Eight and Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two and One. None of the Districts remained.
No more Districts, no more Rebellion.
But what the Capitol didn't realize was that they needed the Districts. They soon figured this out, of course.
Without Twelve, no one had any coal for their fires. With Seven went the wood, no more fires at all. Of course, they could get on without; all they had to do was reboot Air Conditioning from the centuries earlier.
But there was no Three to do this for them.
No one had any meat, because with Ten went the cattle, the pigs. With Eleven went all the orchards. No food.
But they could get by with the fish for Four and grains for bread from Nine. Except there was no Four, and all the fish in the water died from the nuclear attacks there. The farmlands incinerated. No food at all.
With One and Eight went their extravagant clothing and jewels. They were forced to wear last season. The horror!
With Five went their power. They were forced to huddle in the cold, the children to sleep with the night, no light anywhere, if there is no day. No power, no nothing.
With Six went their means of transportation. The trains had been forced to stop wherever they were, due to the loose of power. Without Six, when the cars and trucks and hovercrafts started to malfunction, they had nowhere to turn to and were forced to walk everywhere they went.
And soon, their roods and sidewalks and bridges, everything started to fall. And there was no Two to fix this for them, nor was there a Two too supply them with Peacekeepers, who all started to retire, or simply stop showing up at work to be found dead in their homes, glass of water by them, sometimes spilled, to reveal the slight traces of purple. All these are deemed suicides, while the authorities try to cut the water supply off, which they cannot do, because if they do, then the Capitol really dies out, with no hope at all.
So the Capitol has fallen. Snow has been forced from office, and his daughter instated, who promised new life soon. But she, along with her entire family, died while taking a swim in the Mansion Pools. While an election goes underway, more and more Peacekeepers and Capitol citizens winding up dead, and it's getting harder for the authorities to convince everyone that they are just suicides, because how long can everyone believe that their entire society is suicidal?
I know this, because I am with the rebels.
What President Snow said was a lie. There is life in the Districts. It is not strong, but it is there. Slowly, we began to rebuild ourselves, and Snow knew this. The Peacekeepers knew this. The new authorities know this.
But no one stops us.
Why?
Because they need us.
They do not offer us help, because that would mean admitting defeat, admitting that they were wrong. But they let us rebuild, regroup. They let us wander, under their noses. And soon, everyone that survived found each other.
We stay in what used to be Districts Eleven and Ten. Twelve got the worst of what happened, even after all this years' smoke will rise when a structure falls. There aren't many of us, maybe a thousand. We're more than the Capitol, though. The majority there was the Peacekeepers, and they mysterious wind up dead in the middle of the night. There, there's only a couple hundred, maybe six, seven hundred, but they're all dying too. Not from 'suicide' but from their own foolishness. Children getting too cold during the winter, people not being able to stop eating ten times their weight, now starving because there is no more food left for them. We're binding our time now, waiting. Soon, all our enemies will be dead, and we can rebuild ourselves a healthy government.
We have plenty of food, fish that find their way into the old Northern Lakes and Beaches, because no one in the Capitol is smart enough to realize that there is other means of water that isn't in Four. We find what is left of the rebellion in Thirteen and steal the food that is there, planting seeds and growing back orchards and grain fields, coaxing the few remaining livestock to health, and breeding them. We teardown trees and build cabins, the survivors of Three finding ways to coax bits of electricity with Five. Twelve finds much safer mines and brings us coal, while Seven takes the trees that we don't build homes with and chops them down for fire wood and other things we may need. Eleven and Nine take special care with our food, ensuring it all survives winter. Ten now has almost a hundred cattle and other livestock, but we can hardly afford to start killing them for food now. So we eat the rabbit food, it's better than nothing.
We find out that not everyone was killed in the Exploding Arena. The Rebel Hovercraft survived, and with it, Plutarch, Haymitch, and Effie. As far as the Arena…Katniss died for her cause, and she is honored for what she did. Peeta only just survives, and we're lucky Capitol Hovercrafts didn't take him. He killed himself not a month after, though. He truly did mean it when he said he had nothing but Katniss to live for. Finnick was killed, as was Beetee. They, along with Katniss, were the closest to the Tree, ensuring their deaths. Enobaria and Brutus were killed in the Raid of the Capitol. Johanna made it, the only one that is still alive today, but no. She survived, but she is not alive. She lost her right leg in the fight with Enobaria and Brutus, and her mind is completely gone. She stays in her house now, only the apothecaries see her, for treatment. She never talks, and she never moves. They give her nutrition shots, to keep her going, for when she's ready to enter our society again, but I think she'd rather we just let her die, suffer and die, like everyone else did.
Haymitch is completely sober now. He doesn't have his alcohol, so he can't exactly drink away his sorrows anymore. Sometimes I sit with him, let him talk, or not talk at all. Effie stays with him a lot. I think they help each other, though neither would ever admit it. Or maybe they would, when they're both fully healed. Plutarch is our…I guess you could say mayor, and I'm willing to bet that he's also going to be our President when the Capitol completely dies out, be it foolishness or the NightLock we've slipped into the water system.
We are moving slowly, but we are moving. We are building. We are living.
I smile as I help Rue's family pick apples and pears, and Annie Cresta fish whilst rebuilding her mind. I smile as I bring lunch to Gale and Rory and all the other miners in the mines. I smile as I take care of my mother. I smile as I move through our society, learning the horrors others faced, learning what Plutarch has in store for us once we can fully move again, once we can invade the Capitol and build ourselves again.
I am Primrose Everdeen, and I am now thirty eight years old. I have hope for a new society; I have hope for a world not plagued by death.
Because if there was one thing that Snow got right, it was that hope was stronger than fear. And with my hope, I fear nothing.
A/N: So I just watched The Hungar Games: Catching Fire for the first time and good God, I loved it. So, yeah, this was slightly inspired by that. I've wanted to do a THG fic for a while, but I never could get a good solid idea, so when this came, I had to write it. Thank you for reading, and I hope you like it!
Ok, byee!
-Mattie xx