This is my small contribution to the Hunger Games fandom. Warning, Mockingjay spoilers.
President Alma Coin tossed and turned in bed, deep in a dream.
"Let the Seventy-Sixth hunger Games begin!" Coin announced, and the doors opened. Twenty-four children ran out, desperate to grab the useful packs, children with frightened eyes children who didn't think that they would ever compete in a Hunger Games.
But when Coin took a closer look, she noticed that these were not Capital children. These were all people who had fallen in the war with President Snow and the Capital. Finnick Odair, a District Four victor, scrambled out of his small pod for his third Hunger Games. Primrose Everdeen, the younger sister of the Mockingjay, sprang from her spot. Boggs, Coin's second-in-Command, stumbled towards the Cornucopia as Coin watched. But he was not Boggs, nor was Finnick Finnick. They were child versions of themselves, stumbling out of their pods uncertainly. And these were not seasoned fighters, Coin realized as she surveyed all twenty-four, but mere children. And Coin knew that whoever had invented the Hunger Games was either utterly despicable or a madman.
It was the Capital, Coin reminded herself. That was who was responsible. The first President after the Dark Days had held the First Hunger Games, reaped children from their Districts, and forced them to kill each other in cold blood, so they could survive. But what of the Tributes who did not survive? What of their families and their friends, who so desperately wanted them to come home safely? The Capital was despicable, and now Coin and the Rebels had defeated them and their Hunger Games.
But then that raised a question: What was Coin doing here, at the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games? Was President Coin really stooping to the Capital's level? No. She had to call off these Hunger Games.
Coin woke to the sound of footsteps, shuffling past her room. It was morning, and people were starting to wake up. Today wasn't just an ordinary day, though: today was the day President Snow would die. Coin got out of the cot and took a short look at the clock, noticing that she had overslept only slightly because of her dream. But she knew what she had to do that morning. She looked in the mirror, slowly brushing out the tangles in her gray hair with her fingers. Hairbrushes were a luxury in District 13, so the ones who had them didn't bring them to the Capitol.
"Are you ready, President Coin?" asked Paylor, President Coin's new second-in-Command, as she passed by Coin's room.
"Yes," the President answered calmly, smoothing out her clothes and turning to follow Paylor to the place where Snow would die.
As President Coin approached the balcony, the rebels let out a roar of applause. Coin never would have believed that there were this many rebels, ready to support the cause of defeating the Capital and President Snow. She looked upon them proudly, and then looked at the place where the Mockingjay stood. She was dressed in her suit of armor, with her Mockingjay pin over her heart. She had a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. The Mockingjay had a cold look in her eyes as she stared at the man tied to a pole. President Snow, the despicable man who had been defeated, was dressed in a dark suit, with the trademark white rose over his heart.
The Mockingjay positioned her arrow correctly in her bow, and pulled the string back. Coin could see the intensity in the Mockingjay's eyes, the willingness to avenge the death of her sister. But just as she was about to release the arrow, the Mockingjay paused. The intensity in her eyes became clouded, and before Coin knew it, the arrow was going in a completely different direction. The Mockingjay had aimed for Coin's own heart.