Panem, Somewhere in the wilderness, twenty one years after the great revolution...
~0o0~
Suddenly I was rising and turning. This was it. No backing out. My heart stopped as I saw them, twenty three faces, the soft rainfall clouding my vision. Twenty three people that I knew I would have to kill. Twenty Three souls that would not make it out of this arena alive, not if "Phobos" and "Deimos" had anything to do with it. Those gamemakers needed the child of the mockingjay to win, or to die trying. Breathe Isobel. Breathe. There's the cornucopia, right there in front of me. It's packed with weapons, a huge variation of knives and daggers. This arena was designed to my needs. I know it. I flex my fingers and bare my teeth slightly, trying to look as confident as possible. I'm the opposite. Inside, the me that existed just a few months ago is crying from my impending destiny which has been promised to me, the destiny of a murderer. But that me died a long time ago. I made sure of that. But now she is resurfacing out of the shock. I grit and grind my teeth. I'm standing in the clearing of a misty pine forest, and in the distance keeping us all walled in are impossibly high mountains. I'm supposed the fight in the bloodbath, to be an epic warrior. I'm all set up to be the one the tributes will fear. The one the strongest will hunt. It's all an act really, and I refuse to be more than just a piece in their games. They want to play? Well we can play.
I blatantly ignore all I've been told and when the gong sounds I b-line for the forest. I don't even run far, I just climb a tree in which I'm well concealed and watch the slaughter in front of my eyes. I know it's time now. The fear that's been growing inside of me shuts off with the rest of my emotions, a technique I've developed after the last few months. I know that there's no escape now, just my future of horror and doom, all but ready for me to embrace. I laugh my last ever laugh, for they have turned me in to the humming-bird, the most dangerous and unpredictable weapon to exist, a human mutt, and I am truly poisonous.
~0o0~
But a year ago I was the humming bird's polar opposite...
~0o0~