The Victors Village is the only part of District Twelve that has been left untouched. I walk swiftly up the porch and enter my house.
Everything looks the same. Except for a light coat of dust over everything.
I quickly go over to the kitchen and find my hunting coat on a peg beside the window. I pull it on, over my grey jumpsuit from Thirteen. Then I strap on my hunting bag, and for a second it feels as though it is a normal day, and I'll be heading out into the woods to hunt soon.
While I'm in the kitchen, I grab some of my mother's herbs and medicine and stuff them into my game bag.
I hear a crash to my right and startled, I whipped around, upsetting some of the bottles on the table.
It's nothing. Just that stupid old cat.
"Figures." I mutter under my breath.
I walk over to where the filthy beast was crouched, pick him up and stuff him into my game bag. "Don't you want to see Prim?" I ask when he tries to object.
I visit the living room next. There's nothing much here. I pick up a small framed picture of my father from the table and slip it into my pocket. It's one of the rare ones in which he has a faint smile on his face.
Then I smell it.
I had gotten used to the ashen smell of the district but this was different. It crept up on me the minute I entered the room. A sickly sweet smell, one that was trying to hide a scent of something rotting underneath. Laced with a hint of blood.
Snow.