This is a oneshot for the Caesar's Palace Color Challenge: Gray. It's set during the 50th Hunger Games, but it's AU-no Haymitch, no Maysilee, but apart from that it's pretty much the same as the books. I couldn't decide on the title, so it has two titles; Goodnight, Panem/Chromophobia. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The basis for Lilia Evermore is Lilith Raven, an incredible character created by and belonging to Muse of Storytelling.

Goodnight, Panem/Chromophobia

My name is Lilia Evermore and my world is monochrome. Everything is black and white to me. Never an in-between. You may think I'm insane. So do my parents and my therapist. But I know deep down inside that it's you who are all insane.

I am the only one who realises that Panem is evil to its very core. Panem is the reason for my chromophobia: Fear of colour. Do we really want to see the colours of evil, of death and misery? At least monochrome can shut that out. I long since stopped seeing colours, and that made me different.

There's one thing you should never forget, though.

If you're different, if you know things you're not meant to, they'll know too. And Panem doesn't tolerate anomalies.

"Lilia Evermore!" the escort screeched in her painful Capitol twang, black curls hanging over black face, with the ebony shadows of the Peacekeepers surrounding the stage, their night-sky guns glinting cruelly, daring me to resist. I almost did…but something stopped me. I was white, good. Killing myself would be cowardly, turn me black, bad. I swore that would never happen.

I was a tribute…for the 50th Hunger Games.

As the colourless chariots flit past my vision, the ebony and ivory not yet determined as their forms shape and shift, I look at my own skin. Still white. Gleaming, perfect white. I smile half-heartedly. White is good, but it won't help me in the arena.

My District Ten mentors are useless. They told me to stay away from the Cornucopia, and when I asked them what it was, they just said scathingly, "It's gold." Gold? I have no comprehension of that word-it faded long ago, when I was a little child and realised the world was evil.

The other girl from my District's a tiny thing, with huge, bright eyes in their pale face, not a trace of black stains on that almost perfect, impressionable soul. Kati Nye, she stutters when I ask her name. This girl of light is only twelve and supporting a family of five along with her overworked father.

I'm not scared of the arena, I always knew I'd be here…but she shouldn't be.

Kati's next words are a terrified, stuttering jumble. "Are you going to kill me?"

I stop dead in my tracks. My first thought is to instantly say no, I couldn't kill her. But why? We all have families and lives that we love-save me-and nobody gets preferential treatment in that dark, shadow arena. So why is it that the thought of killing her repulses me? Why?

"No, I'm not going to kill you, Kati, because…"

And that's when it hits.

"…you're white, Kati."

She tilts her head and looks bewildered. "I'm not white, my skin is dark brown!" So difficult to explain my world to strangers, and so dangerous too, but I can at least try.

"No, I mean…white is good, and black is bad. You're good, so you're white in my eyes. It's nothing to do with skin, and I can't understand what you call colours, only black and white-it's what lives in your soul, whether it's light or dark, day or night, black or white. I can't kill white. We can't afford to lose it-we have precious little as it is."

She smiles faintly, not quite understanding but getting the sentiment. As she skips off, I silently make an unbreakable vow in my head, one I would swear to keep for the rest of my breathing days in this colour-drained world.

"I will always protect white. If there is white in a person, I will never hurt them. If there is black, then they will die. There is no in-between."

I'm standing on my metal plate, the faint ticking of the mines under the ground that I'm sure nobody else can hear ringing through my ears. The arena is a sea of black, yet I can still see perfectly well. Mountains on one side, forest on the other. Wow, that's original, Gamemakers, well done. I think about heading to the mountain, but I can sense something bubbling ominously under this false floor. Volcano. Forest it is, then.

"Let the Fiftieth Hunger Games begin!"

As soon as the gong rings out, I leap off my plate, delicately landing on the grass, and sprint to the huge shadowed horn that is the Cornucopia. A gleaming white boy fights me for the backpack, and I let him have it, grabbing another. Remember your rule; help white, harm black. Right on cue, a girl tackles the screaming, glittering boy, her knife about to spill blood before a knife hits her and black pools surround her lifeless body. I realise, that was me! I just killed someone! But instead of feeling guilty, it just spurs me on.

I see a girl with ice-blue eyes vindictively torturing a boy and don't hesitate to send a sword through her black skull. A boy charges at me, cruel glint in his Career eyes, like a Peacekeeper's gun. I quickly sidestep him, and as he turns around I skewer him with a lance, before grabbing my favourite weapon-shuriken-and sprinting into the canopy.

Twenty cannons boomed that night. I watched the pictures filter through the leaves, on constant alert for any rustling movements. The first that came up were both the girls from One, Belladonna and Faerie. Faerie I don't recognise, but Belladonna…the girl with the poisoned knife…I killed her. It feels different knowing her name.

My other two kills pop up among the sea of lost souls. Jacker, a Career from Four, and Isle, a sadistic, psychopathic girl from Eight who's the only one I feel good about killing. The rest…they're just emptiness. Not even any black or white. Just…nothing.

I wait, resigned, for Kati's smiling face, but it doesn't come and welcome relief washes over me. She's alive, at least for now. I didn't think she had it in her.

There are a few definite whites that have gone, but I push their photographs to the back of my mind.

With their souls gone, bodies aren't black or white, they're just dead.

We get down to the final sixteen. I kill another boy after I see him betray his two allies, who were both white, and kill them mercilessly. I pin that boy to a tree by lances through his limbs and slowly throw shuriken into his screaming form. It's only just before the black light in his eyes fades that I realise, he's Mason, my District partner. I know his family.

Will they be crying right now? Aching for my blood? He's not black to them, he's…Mason. And now he's not.

When they announce the final eight, I'm slightly surprised to hear my name called. I would never doubt my own abilities, but a part of me had always wondered whether I'd died right at the start, and my ghost was just haunting the arena. A confirmation that my heart still beats…is…comforting.

I feel vindictively satisfied when the mountain erupts, just like I knew it would. It kills two Careers, both blacks-a girl from Two and boy from Four. Final six. I think over my opponents.

One boy from District One, black. A boy from Two, undetermined. A boy from Six that seemed weak at the start, I'd suspected he was acting and now I've been proven right. I was always sure he was black. Me, white, I think. An undetermined girl from Twelve-Twelve must be delirious with happiness; they never make it this far.

Who's the sixth?

It's slightly bittersweet when I realise, I still haven't seen Kati Nye's face gracing the sky. Sweet because I must save white when I can. Bitter because now I'm much more likely to see someone kill her. And what if it's us two in the final? I can't kill white…but I'm not sure I'm ready for what comes in death…

They call a feast. Wow, so unpredictable. The boys from One and Two fight as I surveil from the sidelines; One loses, unsurprisingly. I see Two; he looks a definite black to me. I see white blood on that shining axe. I try to track down Six or Kati, just to keep tabs on them, but they're as undetectable as elusive 'colour' in my monochrome eyes.

Turns out I didn't need to hunt; they came to me. A brilliant flash of light blinds me as it darts through the trees before I see who it is; Kati furiously battling with this boy from Six, who now wears an impassive smirk and his eyes spark ebony. It's routine to send a shuriken spiralling into his throat. Through the distraction of the cannon, I don't even see Kati leave, but the wind brings a very quiet "Thanks." It's understandable. She can't stay any longer or she'll be encroaching on my territory, but that's a promise that next time we see each other, I won't be her target unless necessary. Perfectly reasonable.

Onyx and Penn briefly light up the ever-night sky, gone forevermore. Just me, Kati, the girl from Twelve and the boy from Two.

Let the real Hunger Games begin.

Waking up surrounded by red-eyed bear mutts is never an enjoyable situation, but it would appear they were just to herd me to the rest of the tributes, battleground the charred remains of a lava-scorched clearing, a river of lava running parallel to the dead trees.

That boy has a mad look in his eyes and his hands glisten white with blood that should never have been spilled. Pulsing with anger as he stands there, impassive, I whisper to Kati and the elusive, chestnut-haired girl from Twelve, a temporary alliance. They both see sense and agree, and we manage to take down the boy from Two. In his last movement before his death, he lifts a flick-knife and it spirals into Kati's throat. An agonised scream hits the air as her brilliant light fades, and it takes a second to realise it's my own.

Twelve charges to me, screeching, and that murderous look when I've never even touched her…she instantly morphs from shape-shifting to a solid black, and as she charges again I rip the flick-knife from Kati's stained throat and throw it into the side of her skull. She falls with a cry and starts hyperventilating. She knows she's about to die.

Wails pierce my ears. "I'm so sorry! I never wanted to kill anyone but I just wanted to get home…my little sister is going to die if I'm not there to provide for her…I'm so sorry!" she cries. "Tell her…tell her I'm sorry."

Horror is slowly creeping down my spine. "What's your name?" I ask gently. For some incomprehensible reason, I feel compelled to know her name.

"Daniella," she pants. "Daniella Marx. What's yours?"

"Lilia Evermore," I whisper, barely audible, but I know she hears because a faint smile comes over her face.

"Bye, Lilia. Bye, sis. Goodnight, Panem." And with those last words her now brilliantly white light fades, and I collapse onto the ground, crying as the trumpets announce my victory.

"No! Daniella, please come back!" I stare blankly at her corpse and Kati's body being lifted away, and what was once emptiness is replaced by searing pain.

She was white! I broke my rule! I killed white! I don't deserve to be victor!

My once-gleaming white skin instantly dulls and fades to an evil shadow-black, and I stifle my scream. The hovercraft hovers invisibly above me and I numbly grab the ladder and climb up as it ascends slowly towards the shifting sky.

As I sit in some semblance of peace, I think. Daniella…she was white. Right? But she can't have been perfectly white, because she tried to kill for selfish purposes. Then I think of me. I used to be white, gleaming white. Or was I? I killed mercilessly. Wouldn't that make me black? But I was just following the rule...

It hits me like blood lightning. There must be an in-between. It's incomprehensible, but it's the only way that my world makes sense, and if my world doesn't make sense, I'll cease to exist.

I will call this in-between…gray. It sounds…neutral.

As if on cue, my shadow skin dulls slightly, to a more pleasant shade of this new…what do I call this 'gray'? It's not a colour, there's no colour in it. White and black are not colours because colour doesn't exist. It's the Monochrome Supremacy; Panem has taken colour from our lives because colour holds joy, and we're all imprisoned in our black-and-white minds, with no visible way of breaking out.

I will just call gray…gray. It isn't a substance, or a form. It's just…gray!

But wait. If there is this gray, this in-between, then that means nobody can be entirely white or black.

Wait. What?

Everyone must have even the slightest part of both in them. And that means your rule-to protect white and harm black-can never be truly kept, because then you would both have to harm and protect people at the same time.

Ice freezes my gray blood. It's right…there is no way to keep my rule. And my rule was the only thing keeping my life…balanced. Without my rule…

I see the seams splitting in my vision, everything suddenly shifting and morphing into something beyond reason...broken air…fractured angles…I'm alive, then I'm dead, and I realise…this is no way of living.

Everyone else can stay in this world, trapped in their own minds. They think they see colours, but it's only gray. Only monochrome. It's the Monochrome Supremacy.

But I'm rebelling the only way I know how. I'm breaking out into the real world, whatever waits for me there. Nothing can be worse than this. Nothing.

The formless beings, driving the hovercraft into whatever hideous gray world waits outside for me, lunge for me as I throw open the door of the hovercraft, but it's far too late.

I'm flying…plunging like a diving swallow towards the gray treetops, and I feel…free, like they can't touch me any more. Not when I'm dead and gone.

I can almost hear the Gamemakers' panic as I plummet gracefully towards the ground that's slowly getting closer. I see them deploy nets, attempt to grab me but I just sail through their traps, a deft swallow.

The ground looks peaceful as I slam into it, the reverberations cracking this false floor, splitting it at the seams, and I fall through into blackness…

Goodnight, Panem.

I wake up in a world of something strange, and I can't even begin to describe what it is. I'm lying on something soft, a bed, a mattress. But there's something alien in the room. They're not substances, or forms. So what could they possibly be?

I reach out and touch this…whatever it is, and notice my skin isn't gray any more. But it's not brilliant white, or shadow black. It's something else.

Wait a second. And that's when it hits me.

Is this…colour?