50 Years Later

by fanfictioner23

Welcome to the 76th Hunger Games! Life in the modern, upscale District 12 is going well - until a new dictator comes into power and forces the whole country of Panem to once again draw names and watch 24 teens fight to the death on live TV. And guess who's name is chosen? None other then the Mockingjay's granddaughter, seventeen-year-old Prima.

My children, who don't know they play on a graveyard. Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away. I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years. But there are much worse games to play.

Fifty years later…

Grandma Katniss and Grandpa Peeta died three years ago. It wasn't very surprising, to tell the truth. I mean, Grandma always had this look of pain and despair in her eyes that would never go away, no matter what. Even when she laughed, you could see that something was unsettling her. Grandpa was always there to comfort her when she saw weird hallucinations. He said that she saw visions of mutated wolves and apes, tracker bees and mockingjays. I don't know what mockingjays or tracker bees even are, but they do sound like pretty sinister creatures.

Three months after Grandma died of a rare mental disease, the same one she'd been suffering from for the past 50 years with the visions, Grandpa died. He was 70. Nobody knows why he died, but I think he probably passed away from loneliness - who knows? I didn't know was much as I do now, after all I was only 14.

Sometimes I think about Grandma's hallucinations and I wonder what really happened. Mom says that Grandma would never tell her exactly what happened to her when she was younger, but she said it was something terrible.

But how terrible could it be, right? My family and I live in the new and improved and completely modern District 12, which was rebuilt after the most recent civil war. Our lives are safe and completely carefree.

Mom says it wasn't always like this.

It probably wasn't, but I don't have anything to worry about, right?