Athena Stone (Former District 2 Tribute and Victor of the 99th Hunger Games)

This isn't how it was supposed to be. Winning the Hunger Games was supposed to be the first of many steps on my lifelong quest for immortality. Not the last one on a much shorter quest for irrelevance. Yet that's exactly what winning the games has meant ever since President Ashwood announced he was "rewarding" all of the past victors with the princely "gift" of retirement.

In one thirty to forty-second blip in a five-plus minute speech, that talking asshole of a man destroyed everything I had spent my entire life working to get. He turned twelve years of blood, sweat, and tears into a joke and deprived me of the reward I had earned by winning the Hunger Games. And he did it with a smile on his smug face and a look in his traitorous eyes that told me I should be GRATEFUL that he had done it.

And that's the worst part, he thinks I should be grateful that he ruined my life. The fact that so many people here in Two, including my parents, seem to agree with him only makes it that much harder for me to stomach. Not that I have any interest in stomaching it mind you. I want to scream at him, to make sure he understands that his asinine "gift" ruined my life and the lives of every other victor who came before me.

But I'm not going to get the chance. And even if I did, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to take advantage of it and act on my feelings. I am, after all, a victor. And as a victor, I am expected to be above such "childish" antics. Which is a lot to ask of someone as passionate about this stuff as I am. Especially under the current circumstances.

I mean seriously, if I have to suffer through one more brainless moron telling me I'm the luckiest person in Panem because I get all the "benefits" of being a victor without any of the "drawbacks"; like having to go to the Capitol every year or mentoring tributes, I might have to kill them, especially if I have to suffer through it today.

What's so important about today? Oh, nothing much. It's just the Reaping, the single most important holiday in the history of the world and my first as a Hunger Games victor.

It was supposed to be a great day for me, second only to last year's Reaping when I became the youngest traditional career in District Two history at fourteen. But all I can think about is how I did everything I was supposed to do and still got screwed. I more than lived up to my end of the bargain. I gave Panem the blood-soaked spectacle it craved, only to have my reward for doing so taken away and replaced with a pile of shit that's closer to a punishment than it is a reward.

I was the darling of the Capitol, the Titaness of District Two, and the victor Panem not only needed but deserved. Before that, I was the smartest kid in my school and the best career trainee in the academy. And when I say the best, I really do mean the best. Not just the best in my age group, or the best in certain things, or even the best female trainee, I was the best, period. No one was better than me, and everyone knew I was destined for greatness.

And now I'm nothing. I'm no one. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

All I can do is smile and pretend that everything is ok as my world continues to crumble around me. That's what a good victor is supposed to do, so that's what I'll do. I don't have to like it, and I sure as hell don't have to enjoy doing it, but I do have to do it.

So that's what I force myself to do. I force myself to get out of bed and take a quick shower before heading downstairs to a light breakfast of toast and juice. I force myself to eat just enough to make my mom happy before heading back upstairs to get dressed. I force myself to hold my tongue as I'm bombarded by compliments and well wishes from the stupidest people in Panem, as I stroll confidently through town in the direction of the Justice Building. And I force myself to look happy as I take my place on stage and wait patiently for our new escort to start the Reaping.

I may be an angry mess on the inside, but on the outside, I look every inch the composed and confident Hunger Games victor I'm supposed to be. I just hope I can keep up this charade until after the Reaping is over...

A/N: And so ends our final prologue chapter. I hope everyone enjoyed this little peek inside the mind of Panem's most recent victor, who is quite clearly not as happy as her former colleague Angus was to be retired from mentoring.

Now, on to the big business. The Submitting phase of the story is closed, and we have 24 amazing tributes! I'll be posting the full list on my profile here in the next day or so. I'm still waiting on a couple of reservation tributes who are just about done before revealing the list in full, so be on the lookout for that in the next few days.

Now, I want to take a second to explain the format for the next chunk of the story. There will be 12 Reaping chapters with the Reaping itself done from the POV of the Escort with a small section after that for each tribute and their goodbyes. After that, every tribute will get a POV on the train and during training. The Tribute Parade and the Interviews will be from the POV of our Mistress of Ceremonies, while the Individual Sessions will be from the POV of the Head Gamemaker. This is my roundabout way of saying that every tribute will get a minimum of 3 POV's in addition to their interactions and appearances in other POV's.

After that, who knows? The Bloodbath is by far my favorite thing to write and while I normally have a rough outline of who is going to die and who isn't, I never know what's going to happen until the story demands it. But that's still a ways down the road.

Right now, I want to thank everyone who submitted, you all did an amazing job creating your tributes and I can't wait to bring them to life and introduce them to everyone else. This is going to be an amazing journey, and I'm thrilled to be taking it with all of you :D