It's midnight, which means one thing: I'm wide awake. Whether that's because of insomnia or memories of impaled teenagers, I don't know.
Fifteen years haven't been kind to these Capitol trains. Rust scabs over the once-sparkling chrome of the bathroom faucets. A thick woven brown blanket has replaced the luxurious silks that lay on these beds before, the old feeling of lying on a cloud as the motherly rocking of the train lulled me to sleep deemed wasteful and thrown aside for the economical utility of a shaggy yak to keep me warm at night. Smudges of olive grease speckle the housefly-buzzing lights in the ceiling, and grimy whorls of forgotten fingerprints dot the steel walls. I don't think President Snow would have approved of the décor.
Still, skipping off to the Capitol for an "administrative trip" beats shipping off to a fight to the death with twenty-three other kids. Things have changed more than a bit in this country.
I scatter loose leaves of paper across the shaggy yak. They're the ink-blotted monuments to my muddled memories, chapters of a mission to dig up the past that Plutarch Heavensbee says will be good for me. Somewhat incorrect: "It will be good for posterity, and for you, Autumn," says Plutarch, who resembles less Heaven's bee and more a pinstriped suit-wearing, cliché-spewing bumblebee in his advanced age. It's perplexing what wins presidential elections in post-war Panem.
Something thuds out in the hall just as the train hits a bump. I start and grab the first piece of paper my hand clutches, as if I can kill some dangerous intruder by reading to it. It'd be a new strategy, for sure.
"Yeah?" I call out, hoping for the thudding thing in the hall to reply.
I can tell myself a million times that there's nothing on this train, but it won't settle me down until I see it with my eyes. Maybe it's just one of the workers stubbing his toes for fun in the dead of night. Maybe it's some Vile Wriggling Thing coming to force my door open and convulse on the floor to make doubly sure I don't get any sleep tonight. Maybe it's just my memories creeping up on my ears with the sounds of lingering ghosts.
I have enough of those to last the night already.
Cecelia Sanchez was a frequent customer in my father's grocery store, but I'd never come face-to-face with the winner of the 59th Hunger Games while shopping for all of District 8's treasured confections, from salt pork to salted carrots to canned preservatives of gooey mash. In fact, I met Cecelia in the last place anyone wants to meet a strong former Victor: In a grimy back alley in the middle of the night.
I should have left Hector's house earlier in the day, but instead I dawdled there after my four-hour shift at the pants factory had ended (that in addition to eight hours of school before. Nothing toughens up a kid like choking on smog. Good for the lungs!) I'd met Hector, one of my closest friends in District 8 and the son of the secretary to old Mayor Shay, while mastering the technique of sewing pockets onto the butt linings of trousers. Work made strange bedfellows, but I didn't shy away from his company. It was nice to have friends in this city, a cold industrial maze in more ways than one.
"Why don't you just stay here for the night, Autumn?" Hector had said that chilly evening as flurries had fluttered from the sky. A smattering of snow caked the high black rooftops of the town square, and frost yet to be smeared with smog and dirt clung to the red brick walls of the buildings and the gray cobblestone of the street.
I shook my head and pointed over my shoulder. "Dad gets pissed off whenever I don't tell him what I'm doing," I said. "Just say hi at school."
Hector slumped his shoulders and waved goodbye with a limp hand. He was a year older than me, but the chilly air and the harsh glow of the golden street lamps made his face look jagged and mature. Maybe it was his high cheekbones and black eyes that complemented the urban noir of the night, but my friend seemed ready to wrestle his way free from childhood and into adulthood.
I'd seen my friend Ithaca, also fourteen, already begin to change from growing up, eying boys and speaking in eager whispers. It hadn't hurt our friendship, but given some of the things I'd heard Ithaca mention about boys, I hoped Hector didn't change too much. At least, I hoped he didn't get weird.
But I wouldn't watch him transform into some grunting gargoyle on that night. I scurried away from his steps, clutching my red sweater around my chest and inhaling daggers of icy air. Yikes, my lungs complained. You need a sweater for us, too.
I trooped down the lifeless midnight streets of the district, scuffling between the blank stares of many-eyed apartments that towered for a dozen stories on either side of the street. The temperature rose as I walked further from the business district and closer to the industrial heart of District 8, lost in my thoughts of creating a nose-sweater during a lull at work. Coughs of wispy steam choked up from grates in the cobblestone. Snow melted on the way down, dripping through the filter of smog as a greasy drizzle onto my brown hair.
The streets were a soggy mess, and the cramped confines of the alleys didn't make things any more pleasant. I don't know if many outsiders could avoid claustrophobia in District 8. Most of the streets were tight and narrow, tiny gaps between the stoic canyon walls of the six-story brick buildings on either side. They were hardly large enough for more than a few people to walk side-by-side in. I'd measured the street outside my father's grocery once when he wasn't paying attention: The cobblestone alley was approximately 32 potatoes from one soot-covered wall to the other. It was just wide enough to cram in the hordes of worker bees headed to and fro every day, but at night, the narrow street seemed lonely.
The sprinkle distracted me from my walk back to my dad's grocery in the center of the industrial ward, and I took a wrong turn down a side alley. I regretted this hazy stroll as soon as I came face-to-face with my greatest enemy.
A Vile Wriggling Thing of mammoth proportions slithered down an off-gray dumpster situated just to the right of a steamy vent. I suppose it was some sort of giant white worm enjoying a midnight waltz in the closest hot spot it could find, but any Vile Wriggling Thing of sufficient size, regardless of composition or name or color, is as horrifying as the next. Being thirteen and alone under the flickering lights of District 8's streets didn't bother me much, but this glistening, squirming monstrosity of hellish make pricked every fear indicator in my primordial brain.
"Gwuh!" I screamed, twisting on the spot and flapping my arms as if I'd take off and fly.
Perhaps I did take off right then and there and escape the lurching beast, as my futile avian attempts led me to running at breakneck speed down the next alley. By the time I opened my eyes and convinced myself that I had left the Vile Wriggling Thing shaking its fist in defeat and cursing my flight, I smacked right into a pair of grunting gargoyles.
"The fuck?" said gargoyle number one, a tall gorilla with floppy blonde hair.
I stumbled back. More and more it looked like a stupid idea not to stay at Hector's.
"Hi," I squeaked. "Going. Going home."
Gargoyle number two grabbed the hem of my sweater with his ursine mitt. "My home, yeah?" he said. "Been a fuckin' while."
"Can't," I stuttered, my breath catching in my throat. "No."
I realized I was in trouble. These two boys – in retrospect, I'm not sure they were of genus Homo – weren't nice strangers happy to take me back to my home above the grocery. I couldn't see Hem Grabber's face in the shadows, but I imagined he wasn't so interested in helping me.
"C'mon," Hem Grabber said, yanking me towards him. "Pretty little blue eyes. I like that. Give you a nice lil' treat if you give me one."
This was going nowhere good. I whimpered and wrenched free of Hem Grabber's grip, bursting off down the cobblestone towards the street ahead. I didn't get more than three steps before Gorilla snagged the end of my ponytail and pulled hard. I shrieked and toppled over to the ground as he planted a foot on my back.
"Psh," Gorilla forced my face down into the muck. "You're gonna mess up your pretty sweater."
I squirmed and balled my hands into fists, but Gorilla had too strong of a grip. Prickly heat spiked across my skin. I closed my eyes tight, flailed with my hands, and gurgled out my last protest when something oofed behind me.
"Hey, hey, the hell are you –" Gorilla started to say before I heard a loud thwup, followed by a shrill yelp.
I flipped over and huddled against the wall. Gorilla had beaten a hasty retreat, but someone tall and well-built stood over Hem Grabber with a brick in her hand. He – or she – smashed it into the boy's chin, eliciting another yelp from his mouth and a spray of blood onto the ground.
The stranger kicked Hem Grabber in the gut. "Go fuck yourself," said the newcomer in a surprisingly sweet voice.
Hem Grabber scrabbled over the cobblestone and scrambled away towards the darkness, leaving me and the stranger alone in the alley. I crab-walked away from her as fast as I could, unsure if she had showed up in time to help me – or take me for herself.
"You alright?" the woman said, leaning into the light.
Every muscle of mine tensed. All of District 8 recognized the soft, full-cheeked face that stared down at me. Cecelia's wavy brown hair and puddle eyes may have looked kind, but she had proven herself a vicious fighter. The red flush in her cheeks tonight and her stony expression told me that two alley goons wouldn't bother her.
I was done with this evening.
"Erk!" I gasped, jumping to my feet and clutching a hand around my waist. "Get away!"
"Wait! I'm not gonna hurt you. I'll take you home, okay?" Cecelia protested, frowning and holding out a hand. "Hang on. I've seen you before, you're –"
I shook my hand and backpedaled. No chance. I was done listening.
Cecelia said something indecipherable as I spun and rushed away down the street. No victors. No fighting. Let me go home.
The streets blurred into a fog of cobblestone and industrial grime as I sprinted down the alleys, clutching one arm around my waist and pumping the other as fast as it could go. For the first time, these streets scared me. This smoggy, industrial labyrinth hid much more danger than just something slimy oozing on a dumpster. There were real monsters in the dark, too, and some of them looked just like anyone else.
By the time I plowed into the thin tin front door of my father's grocery, my lungs heaved, my stomach roiled, and my swamped eyes dribbled rivers down my chalky cheeks.
My father, predictably, asked why the hell I'd been out so late.
Cecelia never returned to my father's grocery after that, and I never saw her on the street again for quite some time. I don't know if she'd felt anxious about my reaction or whether she simply found a better grocer and forgotten all about me, but I didn't forget her – or that night.
Something fragile had snapped in my mind when my face had hit the slushy walk.
I didn't see Cecelia at the next year's Reaping, either, when I dutifully wrote my name in meek little letters on three slips of paper and exhaled in relief when some eighteen year-old girl I sure didn't know headed off for the Capitol. It took a full year and a half since that night, on a stormy summer day long after some boy from District 10 had won the 68th Games and I'd begun to stop looking over my shoulder every ten feet, before I'd see Cecelia again.
If only we could've met in better circumstances.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! This is my story of the lead-up to the events of the Hunger Games trilogy, along with a deeper dive into the Capitol and the stirrings of insurrection glossed over in the books. I always love to hear feedback, constructive criticism and pointers, and any other questions/comments, so feel free to leave a note! Violence, mature content, graphic imagery, and suggestive themes to follow, so rated T. All content of the Hunger Games saga is the exclusive property of Suzanne Collins.