Chapter One
All that was left of my grandfather remained in a cement brick yard where a garden once flourished.
It was cold to look at, the stone stained black from years of neglect. The only life that spawned there now was the crows that had taken this place as their own. Weeds crawled across the tarnished brick that at one time had been a wall of sparkling white roses, while knarled tree branches hung to low to the ground like sharpened daggers casting ugly shadows across a dead landscape.
Of course I have no memories of what once was. I only had pictures and the stories that accompanied them. My mother had made that her one duty in life. To give me memories oh what once was. From a young age, at least as far back as I can remember, I had heard the tales she spun so effortlessly. Words of a war that had ravaged the world that my grandfather had strived to lead, to protect, to ultimately aid in its ultimate time of need. Pictures of this man fell with these stories. A tall stoic person, white hair that curled under a jaw that was firm, unyeilding. His eyes were my mothers. Small, round and ice blue. Expressionless.
For the time that my grandfather lived in, he was dressed simple. A grey suit, white dress shirt and black tie. The only color was that of the red rose planted firmly on his lapel. My mother explained he was never without one. Every morning he would attend to his garden, carefully weeding out the troublesome roots that threatened his beautiful, perfected heaven of flowers. And every day, he would hand select the rose that would accompany him for that day.
My mother always sounded so lost in her words when she told me this particular story.
It wasnt until I was older that I understood the irony of them.
The war had left little for my family. My mother had escaped the day her father was murdered, leaving the Capitol for District Three where she deserted her last name, and quickly took another after meeting my father. She lived her life like the others who lived in District three, building what had been destroyed, working for the very first time in her life. But as where it would make some people humble, it only birthed animosity within her.
When I was sixteen years old, my mother had had enough of her life fiddling away with everything and anything electrical. She had come from a dynasty, and this dynasty had been taken from her.
She returned to the capitol. I returned with her.
That was when my political career began. It took years to mold me into what the people thought they needed. Years to gain trust, to gain status and to form bonds that would all begin with a handshake while cameras looked on. I grew under the watchful eye of the media, my face smeared across screens in every district, my words of unifying the districts and making for a better tommorow producing that trust and more importantly, votes.
Where I sat now, so beloved, so sought after, nobody could dispute my decisions for Panem.
" Henry..."
My focus slipped, shifting from my grandfathers dead garden, back toward where my mother sat. Her hands were folded neatly on the desk that seperated us, for a moment she almost looked relaxed. That was until I noticed the whites of her knuckles as they gripped one another.
" Have you even been listening to me at all?"
I shook my head absently, feeling my jaw strain under the presence of the woman who had been the only constant for the entirety of my life.
" You seen the broadcast this morning. It's done."
" And how are the districts reacting?" Her voice was unusually high pitched, shrill even.
I stiffened in the leather chair, feeling every nerve suddenly come alive under my skin.
" They want to fight."
" Statistically Henry!" Frustration. Another emotion my mother was no stranger to.
My hands searched for the papers my staff had issued to me earlier that day. Numbers and words blended together, and all because of the one District I knew she was eager to lay her eyes on.
My mother snatched the paper eagerly from my hands, and as I expected a smile I only seen when she had accomplished something great, lit her sharp features with a strange glow.
" And why am I not surprised." She shook her head, red curls bouncing against her shoulders as she revelled in her glee. " District 12 doesnt seem to understand why we are fighting this war."
I stayed silent, every once in a while letting my gaze drift lightly to the outside world.
" While everyone else is preparing to do battle for our country, they of course are the opposing force. Just as it was when your grandfather was in power. Resisting what was best, trying to upset the normalcy and greatness he had dedicated his life to!"
The story I was most familiar with came to life before my eyes.
An uprising followed by a form of punishment. A game that was played every year. A girl who had fallen hazardlessly into this game, won and became a rebel. While my grandfather urged his country to keep the peace, this girl turned the districts against him. My mother described her as a force that was only propelled to such heights of popularity due to fancy costumes, her bow and a hybrid bird she wore as a pin.
This force murdered my grandfather.
And after years of molding me into the same power that my grandfather once held, my mother was finally going to get her revenge for the loss she had suffered.
" Her daughter?" Her voice hitched with what I knew was untamed anger. " You made sure she was part of the draft."
" The war would be pointless without her if I didn't, isn't that right?"
Satisfaction quickly replaced that anger.
" This war is the redemption your grandfather deserves." She stood in her slender manner, smoothing her simple green dress with her hands that were trembling with excitement for what was to come. Standing before me, one of those perfectly manicured hands cupped my face and those expressionless eyes stared down at the force she had created.
My mother slowly smiled, while brushing my cheek." And the death of what Katinss and Peeta Mellark love most in this world, will finally be my redemption."
Tit for tat.
Eye for an eye.
Panem was going to bleed once more.