Seated on the familiar stage, the one on which my life has changed so many times, I try and remember exactly why it's so important for me to get this right. What is depending on my performance being flawless.
Katniss.
Katniss' sanity, to be precise.
A coldness breaks out over me, and I feel rivulets of sweat begin to pool at the base of my spine, a dampness start to bead my upper lip.
Concentrate.
I hear my predecessor's words of wisdom in the back of my mind, and I force myself to listen to them.
Concentrate. Focus. Balance.
I do it.
I try to forget what happened to him a few mere weeks after he'd given me this valuable piece of advice.
Concentrate.
Katniss.
Is the needle filled with trackerjacker venom poised above her arm now? Ready for a single slip of my tongue, a tiny look that said I'm not ready to do whatever it takes to keep her safe?
As much as I'd supported the idea of it, I'd known from the very start that the Mockingjay Rebellion was doomed to fail. Whilst Plutarch Heavensbee's arena rescue had been perfect, and Beetee's ingenuity had thrust the rebels firmly into the limelight, District 13, and everyone else involved, had vastly underestimated Snow's fear of rebellion. Drastically misjudged his preparation for such an event.
As soon as the rebels entered the Capitol, all hell had broken loose. Hundreds upon hundreds of fully armed, fully protected peacekeepers had flooded from buildings, taking most of the Star Squad hostage, and gunning down everyone else. It was a massacre, and firmly destroyed Alma Coin's plans of taking over the reins of the government. She had hunkered down in 13, and it had taken Snow's army a long time, but eventually they got her and her aides. Their executions had been bloody and brutal, and televised across the country. People had been forced to sit in their respective districts' town squares and watch the state-sanctioned murders at gunpoint.
Hangings and beheadings became commonplace. Public torture rife. Only those who had firmly aligned themselves with the Capitol from the very beginning escaped persecution.
So many have died since the war ended. Coin, Heavensbee, Beetee, Haymitch, Effie Trinket. Everyone but the children in 13. All those who didn't immediately turn themselves in throughout the other districts. Caesar Flickerman, too. For the part he played. His death wasn't public. He was never officially branded a traitor, but I saw for myself what will happen if I ever attempt to step out of line like he did.
They took me to his house. Far too beautiful a place to be the scene of such horror and tragedy. There was blood splattered all around the gleaming white kitchen. And I mean all around. The floor, the ceiling, the units. Everywhere. And in the centre of it all, laid out like pieces of meat at the market, the shredded corpses of the Flickerman family. The man himself, his wife, their two children. The squad escorting me told me he'd watched them die before he'd been killed himself. I'd seen so much death and destruction by that point, it should have barely affected me, but I knew this was something else. This had been personal. I didn't need to hear the words to understand that.
Katniss' incarceration is personal, too. Keeping her caged up is personal to her. The threat of using the trackerjacker venom on her is personal to me.
I have to do whatever I can to keep her safe. It's what I've always done, isn't it?
The same music that fills my nightmares starts to play. I notice my suit beginning to sparkle in the gleam of the rapidly brightening spotlights. I breathe in and out. Slowly. Rhythmically. Was this how he used to feel, I wonder, every year?
Concentrate. Focus. Balance.
I'll never be the great showman Caesar Flickerman was, but I'll play the part to keep Katniss safe.
"Please welcome your new Master of Ceremonies, Peeta Mellark!"
I step forward. I wave wildly. I force myself to grin widely.
"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 76th annual Hunger Games!"