I remember a dream from long ago.

How it rolled out of the black oblivion. Sleep curling around me, plunging me into numbness, and how silent everything is. How the outside world can't find its way in. I've never felt so calm as I did in the tangles of dreams.

And then it comes - the first color, blinding like light.

I wade out into a sea of grain. Waist-high, dancing, swaying within the ebb and flow of the breeze. I feel no warmth, no graze of wind wash over my bare skin like waves. Only the colors are vibrant and alive and moving. Gold and black.

I sink deeper into the gleaming crests of wheat. They call to me. I can hear my name riding in on the undercurrent. I look for the origin, where the whisper is going, but it disappears. I'm left only with questions.

And I turn. The field around me bursts into flame. It's a slow, aching burn, and it goes on and on, violent and hungry. I stand, transfixed, rooted to the spot. And there – out of the great and terrible inferno rises a spark, unfurling into a shape. A bird. It eclipses the sky, wings outstretched on the air. I catch only a glimpse, a flash of light, and it's gone and I –

Something kicks me hard in the side. I wake with a start to find a peeling black boot in my face.

"Wake up, wretch."

I force my other eye open, though I can see little out of the bunched, throbbing flesh. My ribcage begins to ache again. It had only just calmed, after days upon days of discomfort. Now I have to start the process all over again – making sure not to lie down in the wrong position, walking in plastic cuffs while hunched over to protect the bruised ribs. It's not as if I don't have the time, the patience, to become accustomed again. Only that it's an inconvenience I'd rather not have forced upon me by an overly aggressive vendor.

A snort, followed by a voice wreathed in scornful laughter. "This is all you've got?"

"Paid top price for them," replies the vendor, indifferent to the stranger's tone. "Straight from the Capitol – doesn't get any fresher than that, Victor."

"Then the Capitol needs to up their standards. These are pathetic."

If I couldn't tell by the way he speaks about the Capitol, then I could by his accent. It isn't high and affected like the Capitol's flourished, flowery sort of speech. Actually, it's rather low, menacing, like the rolling hum of spoken thunder. I stare, unblinking, at the stranger's shoes. They are new, unlike the peeling faux leather of the vendor's – they, too, have come from the Capitol. Must've cost more than all of us combined.

"You interested in buying or not? I've got other customers, you know."

"No, you'll wait or I'll fucking break your neck," the voice warns, deep and snarling (like a mad dog).

The vendor staggers back a little – surprised by the whip-like quickness of such a threat.

The Capitol boots step forward. He's looking us over, inspecting the quarry of bent Avoxes before him with careful precision. Back and forth, agonizingly slow in pace, he goes through a basic checklist of requirements. Weight, looks, build, health. We have to check out to earn the honor. No one wants to buy a sickly Avox, only to lose hard-earned money to an untimely death. The loss is not mourned – only the waste of perfectly good cash.

At last, the boots stop – in front of me. With my good eye, I glower at them, making no move lest I be kicked again in the ribs. I've learned my lesson. It does no good to thrash, to fight, to preserve what little dignity I may have left to my name. It's less painful to resign, though the suffering seems only to worsen.

My chin is forced up with the toe of the shoe. The glare of the sun reflects behind a golden head, making it shine as if with a halo, a crown of light. For a moment, I can't see, but as my eyes adjust I find myself looking up at a cruel, angular face shaped into the form of a sneer.

"What about this one."

"She's feisty. Thinks she's a fighter, but I finally broke her."

The stranger wrinkles his nose, as if in disgust. Something hot and violent boils inside of me. I ache to scream, to find the strength to fight again. But I'm so tired.

He seems to remember the vendor, lifting his head to address him. "I'll take it."

A/N: Just an idea I had. Everything in THG reminds me of Rome - the Hunger Games like the Gladiator Games, the Avoxes like eunuchs who have, instead of being castrated have been stripped of their ability to speak, the Tributes like gladiators - slaves to Rome. I thought, that most likely, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to have personal slaves - being that they are decadent and senseless and cruel like the Romans. Seeing as Districts 1 and 2 were favored by the Capitol, they might be just decadent enough to practice slave-owning as well, taking Avoxes for personal servants. So, an idea brewed into this. An Alternate Universe in which Cato survives the Hunger Games, is crowned victor, and returns to his district. I might not continue it but...we'll see.

I don't own the Hunger Games or its characters.