Many, many years in the future, a corrupt civilization rules North America. Yes, we all know it's name. Panem. We always hear of the girl on fire, the one who saved us from the oppression and gave us the right to speak our minds. So here I am, speaking mine.
I never met Katniss, I heard of her on the news, watched her in the games, I was a hostage when our government started to bomb the children in the Capital. But I'm not here to talk about my life, I'm here to talk about the life a person before the girl on fire that tried to change our world, who wanted to stand against our society and rid the world of inequality. This was years ago, the year that the uprising began in district 13, 75 years before the Mockingjay Revolution.
In house of the richest of the rich, there was a child born on a midwinter morning. The child watched the world grow around him as he grew, always observing. He watched with anger filled eyes as children lined up for the reaping. He was a child. That could just as easily have been him. This was all because of a stupid war. Everyone told him that the rebels deserved to die because they rose against the government. But why would they do that? Didn't they know how powerful the capital was? Surely if they managed to survive as long as they did against it they would have know what would happen if they failed. Well... He didn't know... No one could have expected what happened. An entire civilization, completely wiped out.
The child's parents were always so stern. They would scold him when he didn't punish the avoxs for making a mistake, they told him he had to become a proper gentleman.
"But isn't the point of being a gentleman being a gentle man?" The boy once argued back as his father gave him a confused look. "What are you talking about?" "I'm saying that the word gentleman had to come from somewhere. It has the words "gentle" and "man"so why is it that in order to be considered to be a gentleman you cannot be gentle those around you?" The child demanded. His father scoffed and looked away.
"You're overthinking things. Just do as you're told." The child didn't want to do as he was told. He wanted people to see that a gentleman was not in anyway gentle and that the rebellion was not simply an act of defiance, but of desperation.
If the districts are as beneath the Capital as the government says and the smaller the number, the better off the district was, then why wouldn't they try to stand up on their own. There was plenty of slums and poverty within the Capital, and 13 was the district with the largest number, therefore it was was the poorest district. If the Capital and people drunk off their arses, wallowing in muck filled alleys, then what could the district that was the poorest of the poor be like? The boy cringed at the thought.
The child was very tired after the long argument with his father. He sighed as his feet dragged up the long, graceful stairway that led to his room. He could go to bed, but thats what the government wanted. To have him be a good boy, get a good sleep, go to school and get good grades. Part of him wanted to do this too. He imagined what it would have been like if 13 had just done what they were told and gave into the system. There wouldn't be any reapings, nor any Hunger Games. There wouldn't be scattered corpses in ruins on TV. Anyone now would say they should have kept their mouth shut and suffered in silence. But why should people be brushed aside? People who or hurting have something to say? They had voices, they had feeling. Just because they weren't from the Capital didn't mean they weren't people. Just because he was a child didn't mean his voice was invalid. Like 13 the child would rise up. District 13 must have known it would have been a lot easier to go with the system, just like it would be a lot easier for the boy to go to bed. If the people who had nothing could find something that was worth getting blown to bits for, then the child could find something that was worth neglecting his human tendencies for. Yes, he could.
The child stopped right in front of his bedroom door. He would fight against the system.
"MOM, DAD! I'M NOT GOING TO BED, I'M GOING TO GO OUTSIDE TO READ A BOOK AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME!" The child shouted at the top of his lungs as he dove into the study across the hall, grabbed the first book his fingers would reach, and sprinted outside into the courtyard. There was no turning back. The child began to giggle uncontrolablly as he hid behind the thick oak tree and opened up the book. He squinted in the darkness as he tried to read the title in the darkness. "Right." He whispered as he snapped his fingers. A small outdoor light began to glow as he picked it up and held it over the cover. It was a book on ancient cultures.
His eyes dance on the pages as he furiously read until the moon was high in the sky. Crickets chirped in the nearby pond. The child could feel himself slipping away.
Fire. The book was on fire. The child stuck his hand into the purple flames as they began to lick at his clothes. His face shone with curiosity as he heard something snap. He quickly looked up to find a wispy man in robes with a thick curly beard. He looked familiar. Perhaps he was one of the people in the ancient cultures book. "Sir, do you know where I am?" The child asked as he looked around. They were surrounded by ruins and burning pillars. The child's breath quickened. "Sir?" The man didn't so much as glance at him, he just continued to stare at the mountain in the distance. The child stood up now, body engulfed in the purple flame. "Hey!" He blurted as he tugged on the man's robe, it gave way immediately and fell to his ankles. The child tried squeezed his eyes shut but with no success. Beneath the robe was a charred skeleton, one that whistled and creaked in the wind. The child gasped and fell backward in fear. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. The man turned towards him. His eyes were like black pits in his skull and his skin was a sickly gray that clung to his body. The more the child stared into the eyes of the man, the more he couldn't look away.
Frozen in fear, the child let a single tear drip down in the ashy earth underneath him. As the tear fell, the demon opened it's mouth and let out a bloodcurdling scream. It was in pain and was terrified. There had to be something the child could do. Instinctively, he swallowed his fear and wrapped his arms around the demon, pulling into a tight hug. It didn't matter how badly it smelled, how boney it's elbows were, it needed comfort, so the child said the few words that he told himself when he needed comfort.
"If something is wrong, fix it, if it can't be fixed, move on to something worth fixing." The child told himself that whenever he got a bad mark on a assignment, made a mistake, or insulted something and felt regret. It was what a teacher said to him once. She was arguably his favourite teacher. The demon's screeches stopped. It's head fell against the child's own.
"417" It breathed in his ear, so quietly he could barely hear it before he was shaken awake. A blonde haired avox stared at him with anxious eyes and looked over to the house then back at him. "I-I have school." The child stuttered. The avox nodded as she pulled the book from his hands. "No I need it for a presentation." He explained as he pushed her hands away and rose to his feet. The avox nodded and put a finger to her cocoa coloured lips and shrugged. "Yes i would prefer if you didn't tell my parents." The child said under his breath. It was best not to keep his driver waiting.