Chapter One
A strange euphoria settles over her as she stares down at the dead body of the monstrous girl from District Two. It is a gruesome scene. For all the viciousness and obvious strength the girl had displayed in life, in death she lay like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Strands of her short brown hair clump together with the sticky blood that slowly leaks around the arrow stuck in her right eye, and her head hangs at a grotesquely awkward angle over her slumped back.
They are in a beautiful valley, surrounded on three sides by tall, green trees, and rising from the center of the clearing stands the gleaming silver structure of the Cornucopia, a jarring reminder that this place is not natural. Mockingjays swoop through the clear sky singing a lullaby from Katniss's home district. She finds the song oddly appropriate. Small flowers dot the grass, and the dead tribute's blood stains the white blooms around her head crimson. In that moment, Katniss thinks the girl from District Two must be the most horribly beautiful thing she has ever seen.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this concludes the 67th Annual Hunger Games! I present to you your victor, from District Twelve, Katniss Everdeen!" The infamous voice of Claudius Templesmith echoes eerily around the now-empty Cornucopia.
Hearing her name at the end of that sentence, announcing to the world that she will live, that she survived what had been an almost inevitable death sentence, Katniss cannot help the laugh that escapes her throat. She's done it! She won, and soon she will be home again with her sister. Relief washes over her like a tidal wave. The firm grip on her bow slackens, and Katniss drops to her knees on suddenly weak legs, her laugh growing louder.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Katniss recognizes that she must look like a complete psycho, but the thought only manages to exacerbate her crazed giggling.
A loud whirring noise draws her attention, and Katniss looks up to see a hovercraft descending into the arena. It lands smoothly twenty yards from the newest victor and the corpse of her final opponent. The rear hatch opens with a hiss, revealing ten seemingly genderless guards decked out in full peacekeeper uniforms, complete with guns.
For a moment, Katniss does not understand the reason for the firearms. Then she remembers the victor from six years ago who snapped and tried to murder the peacekeepers with a machete when they came to collect him. She supposes the footage of that boy chopping a peacekeeper's arm off had unsettled the "peace corps," as this batch is obviously not taking any chances.
"Happy Hunger Games!" Katniss yells out, laughing when the faceless guards tense and raise their weapons. Three peacekeepers jog towards her and haul her roughly to her feet while another four move to collect the body of the girl from District Two. The three men who have remained by the hovercraft keep the sights of their guns trained on her, wary of a potential attack. Though all things considered, Katniss is not sure what kind of damage they can honestly believe her capable of wreaking. She is half-starved, and both of her arms are securely restrained in the grip of a peacekeeper.
As she is dragged stumbling through the door of the hovercraft, the new victor leans past the guard holding her right arm to stare into the covered eyes of one of the peacekeepers still pointing a firearm at her. "And may the odds be ever in your favor," she whispers. The man twitches oddly in an aborted flinch away from her, and Katniss grins, pleased to have unnerved the masked representative of the Capitol.
Soon she will have to stand before all of Panem and smile as though some fundamental part of her hasn't died with the other twenty-three tributes in this arena, but for now, in this moment, she is free to display just how unbalanced, how truly broken, she feels. No one is here to judge her except for these ten faceless peacekeepers, and dressed as they are in their uniforms, they may as well not even be humans. They are just machines. Just robots sent to take her away from this graveyard.
Nearly three days pass before her doctors, and more importantly, her prep-team, deem her fit to appear in public. In that time, Katniss's body has been plucked until she is once again hairless, sprayed with a chemical that makes her skin shimmer subtly, and polished with something Flavius calls a microderm treatment, which burns horribly but leaves her skin feeling smoother than the silk sheets on her bed in the training center. The doctors have healed the numerous cuts and bruises which littered her body, and they have somehow managed to give her back enough weight to make her appear more human than skeleton—the wonders of Capitol medicine.
Obviously "Beauty-Base Zero" must be set to a much higher standard for a victor than it is for a tribute, because Katniss didn't have to endure having glitter sprayed on her skin last time. It's almost enough to make her long for the prep she'd undergone before the Tributes' Parade, where all she'd had to worry about was the fact that Cinna was planning to set her on fire.
Now she's dressed in a gown reminiscent of a candle's flickering flame. Soft gold and red highlights her cheeks, contrasting with her grey eyes and making them appear darker, like smoldering pieces of coal. She's the Girl-on-Fire once more, though her light has dimmed.
She hears Caesar Flickerman announce her, and the crowd of Capitol citizens roars with approval when he claims her as their darling. It makes her feel sick.
Gritting her teeth, Katniss walks onto the stage with a small smile plastered on her face and waves at her adoring fans. To the vapid Capitolites, she appears happy, if somewhat overwhelmed by their love for her. They adore her all the more for her quaint sentiments.
"And here she is ladies and gentlemen! Katniss Everdeen! And my, don't you look lovely Katniss." Caesar exclaims as he embraces her in an enthusiastic hug. He turns her to face the crowd, keeping one arm wrapped around her waist, and enthuses, "Doesn't she look beautiful everyone?"
The audience thunders its appreciation once more, and Katniss utters a quiet "thank you" which the mikes easily pick up, projecting her voice around the massive amphitheater.
Caesar seats her in a comfortable armchair, his gold sparkled red lips stretched into the widest smile Katniss has ever seen, and winks at the camera. In honor of their newest victor, the Capitol has elected to build the piece of furniture in the shape of a flame, and, apparently deciding that was not dramatic enough, they have covered the chair in more of Cinna's fake flames, making it appear as though Katniss is languishing inside a bonfire.
Looking out towards the crowd, Katniss realizes that it is not just her seat that has been inspired by her Girl-on-Fire moniker. The entire stage has been transformed to look like a bed of slowly burning coals, and the columns on each side of the stage appear to be made of molten rock. Even the members of the audience are following the trend, her numerous admirers decked out in every shade of red, orange, and yellow in the rainbow. They look like a sea of fire, and Katniss briefly wonders if she died in the arena after all, and this is Hell.
Then Caesar is talking to her, bringing her out of her imaginings and back to the present. "So, Katniss, tell me. Now that you are a victor, how are you feeling?"
"Alive," Katniss responds. She didn't mean it as a joke, but the spectators laugh loudly anyways.
"That you are my dear," Caesar grins. "And I must say, you certainly picked a very sneaky means of survival. Very effective." He turns to address the audience and exclaims, "Wasn't she brilliant?" And the crowd bursts into applause, enthusiastically displaying their approval of her violent streak.
"You, Katniss, are the third most prolific hunter in Hunger Games history! Eleven confirmed kills!" Caesar leans in closer, as if he is trying to invite her to share a secret, and says softly, "Tell me, were you trying to match your body count number to your training score?"
Katniss can do nothing except stare at Caesar in stunned silence. She had known how many kids she killed. Of course she knew. She didn't think she would ever be able to forget their faces. But to have the fact that only two victors have ever managed to murder more children so flippantly thrown in her face? She feels nauseous.
Fighting against the churning in her stomach, Katniss manages to grit out, "No. It wasn't planned."
"Ah well, quite the coincidence isn't it?" Caesar asks the audience slyly, and they laugh as though he has said something truly funny. Katniss doesn't understand the joke, but she smiles blandly anyways.
Caesar turns back to her and continues, "Now your little sister Prim, she must be very proud of you! Such a happy occasion it will be when you get back to Twelve. I can't wait to see the footage of your reunion!"
Prim. Katniss knows her sister cannot possibly be proud of her. The idea is ludicrous, something only someone from the Capitol could believe. Prim is everything good in the world. For God's sake, she sometimes cried for the animals Katniss shot for food! Survival of the fittest and murder are not things that fit into Prim's worldview. Katniss just hopes that watching her systematically hunt down her competition will not have changed her sister's perception of her too drastically. She has faith that Prim still loves her. Her "little duck" had begged her to try her hardest to win, so Prim had to have expected Katniss to become a killer. Her sister will still love her. Prim will forgive her. Katniss just hopes that Prim can still trust her, that Prim will trust a murderer.
Instead of voicing any of these thoughts and worries, Katniss responds to Caesar's enthusiasm with a small smile and a simple confirmation that she will be very happy to see her sister again.
"Of course you will be, and we here are all very happy for you!" Caesar pauses to wait for the cheering to die down, then proclaims, "And now, what we have all been waiting for, the highlight reel of this year's Hunger Games!"
The lights dim, and a hush falls over the crowd as the giant screen comes to life. The highlight reel always has a theme, and this year the game-makers have chosen to frame the plot as the story of a goddess of the hunt. They have painted her as a clever predator who ensnares her mortal prey in creative traps before imperiously smiting them from above.
Katniss is not sure how they have managed to transform her determined bid for survival into this tale of a merciless divine being having fun, but people who have never had to struggle just to see one more sunrise are rarely capable of recognizing true desperation in another human's eyes. These glittering Capitol citizens, with their bejeweled skin and tattooed faces, have mistaken her misery for passion.
She watches herself on screen as she camouflages her snares, outfitting them with sharpened pieces of wood and jagged rocks to ensure maximum injury for anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon them. Most of the booby traps are also baited with food, though in order to attract the careers Katniss had set fires with lots of smoke, playing on their tendency to recklessly attack stupid tributes, and, on one memorable occasion, she had even used herself as bait. Risky, but then, what in the games isn't?
Katniss wonders what Gale thinks. She had used the traps that he taught her to catch animals on humans, used skills they had spent hours together perfecting to slaughter kids. He will understand, she assures herself. After all, he's had to fight for his life before too. Not in the same way of course; nobody had gotten hurt then. But still, he knows what it feels like. He has to understand.
Unlike the new victor, the audience is enthralled by the story, crying out in fear when she is nearly killed and cheering in victory when she fells her competition. Meanwhile, it is all Katniss can do to stay seated and not sprint off the stage in search of a high place to hide.
She nearly slumps with relief when the final scene plays out and Claudius Templesmith's voice once more declares her the victor of the 67th Hunger Games. The lights brighten, and Caesar is suddenly grinning at the cameras again.
"Wasn't that thrilling!" He calls out, and the crowd jumps to their feet in a standing ovation. Katniss wishes, for what feels like the hundredth time since she stepped foot on this stage, that she had a weapon concealed within the folds of her dress. Surely possessing a nice, sharp dagger to threaten Caesar every time he says something callous would calm her down. She makes a mental note to mention the idea to Cinna—a knife for every outfit. Effie will be thrilled.
Caesar moves towards her and extends his hand to help her to her feet before leading her to stand at the front of the stage.
"Now a special treat everyone. To honor Miss Everdeen's exceptional performance in this year's Hunger Games, President Snow has elected to crown our newest victor himself!"
At this pronouncement, the president steps onto the stage, and moments later a blue haired young boy follows holding a flaming gold tiara.
By this point Katniss is thoroughly exasperated with the overdone fire theme, but when President Snow moves to crown her, she smiles beatifically, as though thrilled by the honor of having such an important man publicly acknowledge her. He smells strongly of metal and roses, especially when he exhales, and Katniss wonders if he has rose scented breath mints customized for him.
"Congratulations Miss Everdeen," he says, his voice a smokey baritone, "I look forward to speaking with you at the celebration later this evening." He gives the young victor a shark-like smile that sends foreboding shivers down her spine, then steps to her side and grasps her hand, thrusting their joined fists into the air in a classic victory pose.