Chapter One - Katniss - Unchanging

"Retribution," President Hawthorne intoned. "The people of the districts seek retribution against the Capitol's repression. Despite the execution of the old president, Snow, we find the suffering inflicted on our children unacceptable. Despite the stripping of the Capitols' citizens' special rights, we seek justice. Despite our new nation, the New Panem, we need to wash away the ills of the past. And the past will be washed away with blood." He paused to let the sentiment sink in. These words were obviously not Gale's. He had speech writers. But the hate behind them was obviously all his. His intense gaze raked across the assembled crowd in the Capitol city, people in their finery who were used to being on the other side of this situation. They stood cowed and afraid, hanging on and dreading the president's every word. "It is a time for celebration and a time for penance." That was a clever turn-around of the usual Hunger Games line, said since the first Games. No need to change tradition in order to change the country, perhaps.

"Let the first Justice Games begin." He stepped off the podium, returning to his seat on the stage. The New Panem seal was displayed right behind him.

"A new country, same old violence," muttered Peeta. He was seated beside me, in the front row, along with all the other former Hunger Games tributes. I, personally, had voted against holding the Justice Games. I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I'd sit here, seeing retribution come, and knowing I had been part of it coming about - in fact, I'd been the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion. And yet, here I was, trying to talk myself into living with my past deeds. Negotiating with my consience to be able to watch this. After all, I had been the spark that had cast Panem into these flames - and I'm not sure what who got burnt more, the Capitol system or the people of Panem. They had followed us, Peeta and I, they had followed me, into the fire and had come out not much better off. Sure, now it wasn't them that were at risk of death in the Arena, or abuse by Peacekeepers, but this was so far from the idea of liberty and of peace that I had wished for. So far from what I had hoped for. Some things never change, a lesson I had learned from Coin: the Justice Games were her idea, but after her death - at my hands - Gale had become President Hawthorne, and of course the trapper in my old friend couldn't resist setting the most effective and poetic trap he could possibly build I hadn't spoken to him since his inaugeration, last month: I couldn't bring myself to speak to him. Not after Prim. Anyhow, war crimes or no war crimes, he had been elected in New Panem's first election. Everyone had been thrilled to vote, and anyone over eighteen was allowed to - except citizens of the Capitol. Gale won in a landslide.

In Capitol Square, the dust of the rebel war was still settling. The shops and streets still showed clear evidence of gunfire, traps, and death.

The pavement was still scorched where a bomb had killed my sister.

A rug on the stage barely concealed the stain from Coin's blood, shed by my arrow. Some things just don't wash out.

Mechanically, I rose and left. I just couldn't listen to the new rules of the Justice Games. They'd be the same as the rules of the Hunger Games: murder each other brutally untill only one contestant is left. Oh yeah, and the participants are all randomly-chosen kids, from twelve to eighteen years old.

New government, same amorality, as Peeta would say. Essentially, people are all the same: Now that the long-suffering people of the Districts had the power, they voted to bring to violence back, to let Gale's revenge and fire rule. They would do the same thing to the Capitol's children that had been done to them. An eye for an eye, Gale called it.

Peeta followed me out of the crowded square. He was the only one who could calm me down. I couldn't sit there amidst the crowd of faces, those who would soon see their children die in the Games' new incarnation. An all-too familiar kind of panic was setting in. I don't even know whether I walked or ran out.

Behind me, a cry echoed form the stage: "Happy Justice Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour!"